McNish: Le Mans still a goal
British sportscar ace Allan McNish has not ruled out a return to Le Mans in the future despite last week's announcement that he is to for the factory Audi team in the DTM in 2005. The Scot has however emphasised that he wants to focus on his new touring car career and has no plans to race in sports cars next season
"I don't think people appreciate what winning Le Mans does to you until you've actually done it," he said. "Once you've won it you know the feeling of standing on that centre spot of the podium and being a rock star for five minutes looking down at 50,000 people.
That is a big, big buzz, but also Le Mans can have situations like I had at Toyota in '99 and also this year where things outside of your control happen and it goes away, and at that point it really is a hard, hard beating. It takes a long time to pick yourself back up from it. The odd thing is that it just makes you want to go back again, once you've suppressed that initial adrenaline rush.
"From that point-of-view, if there's a chance to go back to Le Mans in a competitive car that can do the job then I'd be stupid and I'd be lying to you if I wasn't interested in trying to do it, but I've got to say that it's not a definitive part of my plans in 2005. That's not to say that it won't happen but it's certainly not part of the plans.
McNish expects to return to sports car racing in the future and admits that he loves racing in the discipline. "I've always enjoyed racing them," he said, "and I've also always enjoyed the element to sports cars that you don't necessarily have in single-seaters - you've got to work intensively with your team to be successful. It is slightly different.
"I would say it's likely that I would go back to sports cars at some time, however it's not in my thoughts directly right now. I have to focus 100 per cent on the DTM. That's the only way you can do it I think, you can't do programmes with one eye here and one eye there you've got to get stuck into it."
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