Brundle's memories of Le Mans

Martin Brundle is going back to Le Mans for the first time since stepping out of the Bentley Speed 8 in 2001. He's won the race before, and taken pole, and in modern terms he's part of the British legend that's intertwined with the race. He's also one of several Brits who've failed to resist the urge to go back (think Allan McNish, Johnny Herbert, Mark Blundell in recent times). And then of course there's Derek Bell!

So 25 years after Brundle made his debut in the world's greatest endurance race, AUTOSPORT caught up with him to share some of his favourite memories ahead of his eighth attempt, this time with Greaves Motorsport's Nissan-powered LMP2 Zytek.

British fans

Brundle's first racing experience at Le Mans came in the late 1980s, when Group C was in its heyday. In those days it was traditional for 50,000 patriotic British Jaguar fans to cross the channel, drink copious crates of St Omer purchased from the local Supermarches and cheer loudly until the purple and white cars no longer had any chance of victory. But boy were they loyal - and some more than others!

The huge British contingent cheer Brundle and Jaguar's 1990 Le Mans win © LAT

"Back in the Jag days, there was a guy who, every time we came past in the lead, unfurled his Union Jack and waved it. Thing is he wasn't wearing anything behind it! Luckily, I actually didn't see this, but many of my team-mates told me about it. It was towards the end of the race - so he'd had some time to build up the courage... That's how enthusiastic the fans are at Le Mans.

"Going around the Le Mans town centre on that Friday night and meeting them all in the crazy parade was always slightly surreal. I spent almost all the time making sure the little ones didn't get their feet run over because they came bounding up with their pens and posters and weren't looking where they were going.

"It's a unique experience. It's fairly alarming, actually, with this huge swell of people coming at you. It's not for the faint-hearted. I'm pleased that Alex [his son, with whom he and Lucas Ordonez share the Greaves Zytek this year] and I are going to share that experience."

Mulsanne

In 1987, the Ligne Droite des Hunaudières wasn't interrupted by two chicanes, instead providing a flat-out 3.7-mile blast all the way from Tertre Rouge down to Mulsanne corner. And in a Group C car on full tilt that meant gaining speeds upwards of 235mph in race trim. As Martin recalls, travelling on a National A road at those speeds presented tremendous challenges...

"It struck you as very narrow. The car tracked terribly where the trucks left their grooves from hauling up and down the RN7, and because it's a main road it was crowned in the middle so you had to sort of coax the car across the track. Especially in the rain. When you did an overtake you would sort of sidle up the slope, over the crown and then quickly catch it on the other side.

Brundle reckons the Mulsanne was 'calm, almost romantic' at night; unlike the entry to the Esses, as seen here in 1990 © LAT

"But it all seemed so relatively calm, especially at night. Almost romantic. It was you, your car and the Mulsanne. Occasionally you could see a little twinkle of lights in the distance; a bit of barbecue smoke, forming as mist in the dusk across the track, and you would just sort of head off down the road.

"In a way it used to be scary, because the Mulsanne Kink was a proper kink. You had to get it right. The car wasn't going to oversteer through there but, especially if there was traffic about, you really did have to turn in at the right moment. You couldn't sleep through there, that's for sure. And then because you had that big crest, which they have flattened out now, the car used to feel a little bit light as you went over it and almost made you accelerate into Mulsanne!

"The only time you really felt like you were doing 230/240mph was if a car stopped at the side of the track - then you got a shock. Your lazy old engine would be pulling 6000/7000rpm in top, and the speed used to build effortlessly as there was so little drag, then all of a sudden there would be a piece of debris or a car stopped and the full impact of just how fast you were going hit you.

"Tertre Rouge and the chicane before it were terrifying corners though. There was that really fast bumpy chicane with zero run-off that you would hit soon after leaving the pits, and it was so quick in a Group C car. It was the sort of corner that you really committed to. Tertre Rouge was bumpy like hell again, with nowhere to go on the outside. But you had to be on it or you'd lose all the speed down the Mulsanne, and it was a really easy corner to get wrong."

There but for the grace of God

Brundle made his Le Mans debut in 1987, the year of his Jaguar team-mate Win Percy's monster Mulsanne shunt © LAT

Brundle's Le Mans debut in 1987 also featured a terrible airborne accident for his team-mate Win Percy at 220mph on the Mulsanne Straight, after he suffered a rear puncture during the night. Amazingly Percy was OK, despite the fact that his XJR-6 obliterated having 'flown like a bird'.

"I think I was the first car to come across Win's accident in 1987. I started seeing this bodywork scattered on the track, then I realised a piece of it was purple and then saw what looked like an airplane crash over about half a mile. Then there was this tub, sitting on its side, looking to me like it was all burned out. It was in the night, and I think it was because it had nothing on it and what was left was the black carbon of the tub."

In fact Percy's car had been subject to flash fire as it careered off the barrier.

"So I radioed in and enquired: 'Has one of our cars had a crash?' The team came back to me and said: 'What do you mean?'

"I responded: 'I saw some purple bodywork, and it looks like someone has had a big crash down the Mulsanne, but the chassis is on the track...'

"And of course they couldn't find Win because he had already got out and climbed the other side of the fence to look for an ambulance. And then about half an hour later I pressed the button again: 'Any news on our car?' Nobody knew where he was, nobody was giving me any news.

"And then because I had just filled up with fuel when the crash happened and I was sitting in the car going slowly, I remember getting utterly, utterly cold. Because you are sweaty, and you have all these vents coming into the car to keep you cool, but you're sitting behind the safety car doing 60 or 70mph so everything cools down. I started to shiver and shake beyond belief.

"I think we had two and a half hours behind the safety car like that, but at least Win was OK."

Brundle has given his 1999 pole trophy a premium spot in his lounge © LAT

Setting the pole time

Incredibly, Brundle has only started from pole at La Sarthe once, in 1999 when he was driving the Toyota GT-One. In the race, he was leading early on but suffered a puncture as night fell while on the Mulsanne straight and was denied a shot at a second victory.

"My pole lap for Toyota was pretty special. It should have been quicker but the brake pedal went really long in the very last corner. I did a 3m29.9s and our target time that we had calculated was a 3m28.7s or something, so it was 1.2s off. It was a stonking lap, and I do remember laps.

"In those days we'd go out at five to midnight to set the time, which is the most insane thing you do in motor racing - trying to set a qualifying lap at Le Mans on the final night when the track is ultra busy and there is always someone dallying about out there. You're in banzai mode and it's pitch black and you don't know what's coming at you.

"But I had this incredible run and as I went into the first of the Ford chicanes I got all the kerbs and everything absolutely right and something, perhaps a vibration on the kerb made the brake pads come off the disc so when I went for the brakes on the final corner of this eyes-on-stalks lap, the pedal went long and I lost a bunch of time. It's funny how you always remember those little things... how they play on your mind.

"I've got a nice pole position trophy for that though, which is still in our lounge at home actually.

"In the race, I had a tyre let go into the first chicane on the Mulsanne. I could see the tyre carcass coming out of the side of the car as I hit the brakes doing 330k/mh, so a long way down from the 390-400 range, but that still that seemed quite fast."

Nissan - first time round

Brundle raced Nissan's gorgeous RC390 GT1 at Le Mans in 1997 © LAT

In 1997 Formula 1 had become unavailable to Brundle, but as well as his budding commentary career with ITV, he was still linked to Tom Walkinshaw's activities both as an Arrows Grand Prix test and reserve driver and also TWR's Nissan GT Le Mans project with the RC390...

"I remember we were fastest in that Nissan with a 3m43s on the test day. It was very much a GT car and it was quite road-style based. It was before Toyota came in and changed the game with the GT-One. But it was a good car.

"We'd had some problems and Tom had already left the track when I set the time. I remember calling him on the Monday expecting a pat on the back and instead I got a roasting!

"We weren't supposed to be that quick at that stage of the proceedings... but we bowled a set of qualifiers on it and I pulled a stonking lap out and I felt quite pleased with myself at the time. Mr Walkinshaw, though, was less than impressed at us showing our hand. Although, curiously, I never got anywhere near that time when we went back for the race.

Winning Le Mans

Brundle won Le Mans at the third time of asking with Jaguar in 1990. He was the TWR team leader that year and his initial role was to play hare to the rival Porsches in the #4 car alongside Alain Ferte and David Leslie. When that car failed during Sunday morning, Brundle took Eliseo Salazar's place in the #1 car (the plan had always been to keep the Chilean on the bench for as long as possible in case of such an eventuality), and he then helped Price Cobb and John Nielsen guide a tired car with glazed front brakes and no fourth gear to a famous victory.

Brundle (second left) began the 1990 race in one car, but switched machines © LAT

The Briton's endurance record in sportscar racing's other great 24 hour race at Daytona is strong - with a win, a second and a fourth from three attempts. Ironically, though, had he not switched cars in 1990, through reasons largely beyond his control, he would still have not recorded a finish at Le Mans!

"One of the most obvious memories was the win in 1990. Standing on the podium and seeing all those Jaguar fans, seeing all those Brits and feeling the elation of a good job well done.

"We went there with four cars that year; we took 135 people from the Silk Cut Jaguar team with us; there were 12 drivers, and we had a proper strategy to beat the Porsches. And it all worked out - that felt good!"

"It's really hard to get to the end of Le Mans and I've been hugely disappointed over the years because I've led that race so many bloody times. I've led it for Bentley, Toyota and for Jaguar, and then when push comes to shove something always seemed to go wrong. The year I won, the car I was originally sharing with Alain and David stopped after it got a hole in the radiator. It was the size of a pin-prick, and you think to yourself: 'How did that happen, after all those hours and all that running this week?'

"Then in the Toyota we had some unreliability and then in the middle of the night it started to rain in the first year and I crashed.

"So the satisfaction of being up there with Tom and Sir Jon Egan on the podium is immense, and it's a cherished memory.

"Another memory I have in my head from that race is just before that podium moment. My team-mate John Nielsen wanted his wife to come up on the rostrum and the ACO officials didn't. I have this vivid image of John at the top of the stairs and two ACO officials at the bottom while Vibeka is being pulled between them in the middle! She never did get up there."

Never say never

A Bentley drive in 2001 looked set to bring down the curtain on Brundle's career at Le Mans... © LAT

The Bentley experience at the beginning of the last decade should have been a dream combination. A wily veteran with speed to spare in a prototype that's sole purpose was to put a famous name back on top of the podium in the biggest race of them all. But in the end, Martin's dream turned sour...

"The last time I stepped out of a car at Le Mans, I was leading. We'd had this rain shower and the track was wet so I came in for inters. And then we led the race quite comfortably for a long time after that on those Dunlops. We just got the call right.

"It was a beautiful car... We were never going to be allowed to win it that year anyway because there were Audis in the race. Bentley was allowed to win in 2003, because the Audis weren't there.

"In the end it was David Coulthard who told me it was over. He was there to support me for the weekend, as was the King Juan Carlos of Spain who I'd recently exposed to the McLaren two-seater, so I was using DC's motorhome. I was having physio at the time and he said: 'I've got some bad news and some good news. The bad news is you're out of the race, the good news is we're going partying'."

Turning back the 24-hour clock

Eleven years later and Martin is going back to Le Mans with his son Alex in the Nissan-powered Greaves Motorsport Zytek. He can't wait...

"This Zytek reminds me, in terms of the way it handles, of Ross Brawn's XJR-14. It's as nimble as that. In terms of how it compared with its competition, the XJR-14 is the best car I have ever driven; it moved the game on five seconds a lap or something.

...but he's back for this weekend in a Zytek with son Alex and Lucas Ordonez © LAT

"Normally when I think about driving in sportscars, it's in terms of degrees of understeer. You used to get it just about nicely balanced at Le Mans then you would stick a spool diff in for the race for reliability reasons - that's a completely locked diff where both wheels are connected to each other. It generates huge understeer but the lap time was always still there - it was incredible.

"So to have a car that is on the nose like this, like a fat single-seater, it's got a sort of urgency about it and that predictability on the way into a corner. I can't wait. And while I'm not necessarily 'emotional' about racing alongside Alex, it's an experience I'm going to relish and cherish for the rest of my life.

Find out if any of Brundle's old Le Mans mounts have made it into AUTOSPORT's favourite 50 Le Mans cars.