Masters Degree: Jan Lammers

Ask any driver. Being behind the wheel for up to eight hours of a 24-hour motor race is a knackering experience.

Teams at such endurance races, including this weekend's Le Mans 24 Hours, employ at least three drivers to share the exhausting work evenly and give the others a chance to try and grab some sleep in between.

But on his way to victory at La Sarthe in 1988, Jan Lammers drove the Jaguar XJR for longer than teammates Andy Wallace and Johnny Dumfries put together.

That's 13 hours. Phew.

"It was the first endurance race Andy had done," Lammers recalls. "He had only driven Formula Three and F3000 until that point. And Johnny was doing his first 24-hour race.

"And Andy was like: 'You know, here I am. I'm in a Jaguar. I'm leading Le Mans. So now I have every opportunity here to make a complete disaster of my CV.'

"We had gone into the race planning to split it even. These days, of course, Andy has all the stamina he needs, but then there was a moment where he nearly fell asleep. The driving was fine but there were a few times he had some narrow escapes so we were worried about it.

"Tom [Walkinshaw, Jaguar boss] came up to me and said, 'Actually I'm a bit worried about Andy you know, maybe this is a bit too hard for him. I asked Tom why he hired Andy in the first place, joking, knowing that Andy was watching all of this!

"Tom said that he believed Andy could do the job, and I trusted his judgement. And there was a look on Andy's face like - 'Oh God'.

"Five or six hours later we had the same conversation about Johnny. I insisted he could drive but Tom was like - 'No way!' He really felt as if he might have done something wrong."

Andy Wallace, Johnny Dumfries, Jan Lammers (Jaguar XJR9-LM) © LAT

With two inexperienced teammates, Lammers had to step up to the plate and all of a sudden take on more work than expected. The pressure of the race, the pressure of driving at Le Mans with such a big lead, the pressure of potentially being the first non-Porsche victor since 1980, was going to fall on the Dutchman's shoulders.

"I didn't mind stepping up and doing more hours because I loved doing that," he continues. "I loved the car and it was obviously one that suited my driving style very well. It came naturally.

"Le Mans is something that you can screw up on you but you can't win it on your own. From that point of view even if Andy had done just two laps then he is part of the story. So my feeling is like splitting the driving 33 and 1/3 percent is not always the way to go.

"But I was pretty worn out after the race."

Jaguar were making waves at the time since returning to sportscar racing, but qualifying for the race had begun with a familiar story.

The three Porsche AGs had predictably taken the top-three positions on the grid, and looked set to take victory for the eight consecutive time. The laptime of the pole-sitting car was an impressive eight seconds quicker than Lammers' Number 2 Jaguar, which was starting down in sixth, around the 8.46-mile circuit.

So there was no real indication of what was to come throughout the race. In fact, Lammers was convinced his car wasn't even going to finish the race due to a troublesome gearbox.

"I told Andy and Johnny that we were just going to have a quiet start of the race. We were all mentally well-prepared for defeat because we realised the gearbox was going to be the vulnerable bit.

"So before the race I specifically said to them we are not got to finish this race. The gearbox will break down.

"That was not wanting to be negative but I believed it. I thought that if we started with that mindset then there is no better way of treating the gearbox. There was no way we were going to win the race unless we all really looked after the car."

The initial plan was to take it easy. With the dominant Porsches ahead, Lammers was going to take the start cautiously and build into a rhythm. But at the end of the first hour, he had thrown that out of the window and the car in the lead.

"I had told everyone that we are just going to take it easy. But then after five laps I was leading and just pulling away like mad.

Andy Wallace, Johnny Dumfries, Jan Lammers (Jaguar XJR9-LM) lead the Porsche 962s in the 1988 Le Mans 24hrs © LAT

"I wanted to be cautious. Back in the pits they couldn't see what was going on or what I was doing. They didn't realise that the car was so quick on the straight that all I could do was sit there behind somebody and either run into them or pull over and run by them.

"Then all of a sudden I went from fourth to third to second and the car was really so quick and the lead just came to us.

"I had a good communication with the engineers. One person would come up with the idea that the other one was just about to say. So it was just a nice weekend where everything went our way. We made one wing adjustment before the race and that turned out to be a bulls-eye.

"I don't think we lost the lead throughout the race. From that moment on we could only lose."

But despite effortlessly sailing into the distance, the gearbox gremlins remained a concern. Indeed, the sister Jaguar of Raul Boesel, John Watson and Henri Pescarolo fell out of the race with transmission difficulties after nine hours, as if to aggravate Lammers' concerns even more.

"I spoke to Raul to find out how his race was going and he surprised me by saying 'We're out.' He said it was the gearbox. He said that he had gone from second to third, and it had jumped out of gears and he put it into fourth and then it jumped out again. And then the box was empty."

But Lammers, Wallace and Dumfries continued on through the night and into the morning. And with only two and a half hours to go, with the race seemingly in the bag, it happened to them.

"I went from second to third and bang - it jumped out of gear. It was exactly the same thing as what Raul had said.

"I put it in fourth. I expected the same thing and it would jump out of gear. I thought it would be empty and our race was over."

But despite his initial pessimism, Lammers had since become convinced that he in fact was going to win the race after all.

"For some reason I was in a mindset that it is impossible to lose. That I subconsciously knew in advance that I was going to win. No matter how unavoidable defeat seems to be I will not accept it.

"It put it into fourth and the gearbox engaged. Then I thought I'm not going to touch that gearbox anymore! I was going to keep it in fourth with two hours to go. I had a two-and-a-half lap lead.

"But then Hans Stuck's Porsche started catching us I was thinking now what, now what?

"Do I come into the pits? I said no to myself. Because then we would lose the race and it would be over for us for sure."

Lammers even had the foresight to keep quiet about the problem on his radio. The entire paddock believed that Jaguar had done enough to win and Porsche were not about to give the hurry-up to their drivers and risk second place. If Lammers had revealed the problem to his engineer in the pits, any rival listening could have gone and told Porsche what was going on and that it might be worth getting a move on.

Race Winners Andy Wallace, Johnny Dumfries, Jan Lammers, Tom Walkinshaw © LAT

So Lammers stayed quiet. Yet because of the gearbox problem, the gap between the pair still closed.

"I was going round and round just praying it would stay together. With half an hour to go my engineer was saying 'well you are doing OK, but don't go too much slower because Hans is catching you.'

"So I thought what the heck, I was going to tell him that I was going slower because I had a little secret.

"'I don't want to know!' was the loud reply over my radio. So no-one knew we were in the shit until later."

The split-second decision won the race for Lammers and Jaguar. In the end their margin of victory was a mere 22km - virtually nothing in Le Mans terms - and was Jaguar's first victory since 1957.

"Later on they took the gearbox apart and it had all gone. If I had shifted one more time the race would have been over. All the gears had gone. The secondary shaft was broken in the middle."

The effort also earned Lammers honorary British Racing Drivers Club status, something rarely awarded to a foreigner. Yet despite the praise he received afterwards, Lammers is still humble and does not rank it as his greatest achievement.

"It wasn't the highlight of my life. Sometimes you have races where you finish 7th. You did not miss one shift, you do not brake one fraction too late and you feel you have had a fantastic 100 per cent achievement from yourself.

"Qualifying fourth at Long Beach for AGS has to be the highlight of my career. Formula One is still the top of the sport.

"You get all these experiences and travel around the world and meet all these fantastic people and such a great thing. But you have to remember that in motor racing we are doing something that is a privilege. It's nice, but it's not really important."