Bourdais says intense battle with Audi made victory all the more enjoyable

The tone of the race was set early as Bourdais and Allan McNish in the #2 Audi went head to head even as they encountered traffic, often diving either side of cars and at one point running four abreast with backmarkers down the Hangar straight.

After switching places twice, McNish's race was compromised through damage, but the challenge was taken up by the sister #1 Audi, which again battled with the lead Peugeot in the open and in traffic.

"It was pretty intense to start with," Bourdais confessed. "Allan was pretty aggressive, and after the first five laps we started to go through traffic and he was very impressive.

"He got by and I tried to stay in touch, see if he got trapped like I did and then give him a run for his money as well. That happened and I went for a pretty strong pass in Turn 15 which I was pretty happy with.

"Then the safety car came out and we had to do it all again - and then Timo [Bernhard] got me when I got trapped in traffic and I got him again. It was very intense, I really enjoyed the battle."

Having eventually built a lead in excess of 30s, battle resumed when Simon Pagenaud was steadily reeled in by Bernhard - the Frenchman explaining that he had been too conservative and lost temperature in the tyres as a result.

"I struggled, that was pretty clear," he said. "I didn't push hard enough to begin with because of the margin - that was my mistake and I should have been more aggressive.

"Traffic was pretty horrendous and we were being cautious - too cautious. I just went the wrong way, so it took me a while to understand and by then it was too late.

"We had a good day though, we kept our lead so I guess we should be happy with it."