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Review: memories are made of this

LMP1: Boring race leads to historic result

It wasn't a classic 24 Hours of Le Mans, but it certainly was historic.

Audi dominated the 74th running of the race and became the first manufacturer to win the race with a diesel-powered car.

The No. 8 Audi of Frank Biela/Emanuele Pirro/Marco Werner took the lead at 7:45pm on Saturday evening and never relinquished it - and history was made. Diesel had won an international motor race.

The car got in front when the sister Audi of Dindo Capello/Allan McNish/Tom Kristensen spent 25 minutes in the pits, having to change the car's black box and fuel injectors.

The incident was to typify the contrast between the pair of cars - the No. 7 was beset with problems throughout, while the No. 8 effortlessly drove into the distance to take a famous win that will reach further than the boundaries of the usual motorsport press.

Pirro took the chequered flag with a four-lap advantage over the No. 17 Pescarolo Sport.

It extended the Italian's run of consecutive podium finishes in the event to eight, having finished in the top three in every race since 1999.

Biela also became the first German four-time winner of Le Mans, overhauling only Klaus Ludwig's 1979, '84 and '85 victories. It was Werner's second victory after his success last year.

There were plenty of question marks over the car's reliability and pace going into the race. However, for the No. 8 car at least, these weren't a problem.

But the No. 7 Audi had plenty of technical issues. After a broken windscreen, a change of injectors and black box, there was a collision with a backmarker in the tenth hour, which meant a repair job in the pits to change a suspension.

Then a turbo charger had to be replaced in the 16th hour and the front nose had to be swapped in the 20th hour.

But the main concern came at approximately 3:47am in the morning when Capello was unable to select fifth gear and pulled into the pits for repairs.

With mechanics unable to change the entire gearbox as one part, due to Le Mans rules, they instead swapped the gear cluster inside the casing. After just nine minutes, they sent him on his way.

This catalogue of problems meant that the No. 7 car finished 13 laps off the pace of the winner. And as a side effect, it also meant that Dane Tom Kristensen didn't win Le Mans for the first time this century.

It is as much a win for the future of motorsport as it is for Audi.

By making regulations that allow diesel technology, the Automobile Club de l'Ouest (ACO), the race's organising club, has allowed interest to be ignited in both the automotive and motorsport industry.

Tomorrow the headline 'Diesel wins Le Mans' will be adorning the pages of the world's press, and because of the negative image associated with diesels, the story is going to gather wider attention than the average sports fan. Both Audi and the ACO realised this.

The race proved that such engine technology can be effective and durable at racing speeds, and the car's silence provided an incredible talking point for the record 235,000 crowd.

However, rival team owner Henri Pescarolo has a right to feel aggrieved at the ACO, because although both cars' race pace was unknown going into the weekend, they frankly didn't stand much of a chance of winning on pace alone.

The fuel economy possibilities gave the car an instant advantage. While the rival Pescarolo Sport cars were averaging 12 laps between time-eating pitstops, the Audis could last 15 laps between stints. Less time in the pits is key to winning Le Mans.

The Audis, on average, were lapping an extra five seconds quicker during the race than the Pescarolos, which were superb in the official practice day.

But the way the Audis effortlessly stole the front-row hinted that they would be a dominant force in the race to come.

Pace aside, it might not have mattered, because problems did hit both Pescarolos.

The No. 17 car of Eric Helary/Sebastien Loeb/Franck Montagy finished second. The car's major setback was when Montagny lost control in the early hours of the morning at the Mulsanne corner. After being dragged back on to the track, it had to pit to change the front nose.

Loeb's pace was a vast improvement on 2005, being more familiar with the car, however he could never keep up with the diesel-powered Audis in the Pescarolo Sport C60. Loeb took the chequered flag a comfortable second ahead of the grief-stricken No. 7 Audi.

The second Pescarolo, the No. 16 car of Emmanuel Collard/Nicolas Minassian/Erik Comas, had a more fraught 24 hours, but still climbed back up to finish fourth in class and fifth overall.

Following minor problems during a pitstop on the fifth hour, Nicolas Minassian was then hit with electrical gremlins, which dropped the car way down the order on the sixth hour.

The only other major threat in LMP1 came from the Racing for Holland Dome Judd of Jan Lammers/Alex Yoong/Stefan Johansson, which rose to third with the high early attrition rate.

However, the throttle stuck open at 5:15am while Yoong was at the wheel, with him going straight on into the tyres barrier. The car broke both steering arms and was beyond repair.

The LMP1 battlefield will change for next year, however. That is when the real test of the future of diesel power at Le Mans will come.

Pescarolo's Hybrid technology will be outlawed and Peugeot are re-entering sportscars with a diesel-powered car, most likely a Coupe. Audi, although with a year's experience, will have a genuine rival with the financial clout and Le Mans pedigree to succeed.

The 2006 race was, in no small part because of Audi, tedious and lacked some of the excitement of previous Le Mans 24-hour races.

Yet the memory will be flawless. It offered something new for sportscar fans and automotive enthusiasts few will forget hearing - or not really hearing - the R10 for the first time.

GT1: Once again Aston Martin break down at lunchtime

Corvette and Aston Martin provided a great battle through the GT1 race.

But it was Corvette that took the victory again, despite Aston Martin looking like the pacesetters for much of the running.

However, like last year, Aston lost at Sunday lunchtime what looked like certain victory at dawn.

Aston Martin Racing are now in their second year at Le Mans, and the Prodrive-run works squad were joined this year by a number of privateer DBR9s.

It didn't start well when the customer No. 69 Fabrizio Golin/Christian Pescatori/Fabio Babini car spun into the tyre wall with Babini at the wheel. The BMS Scuderia Italia DBR9 was badly damaged and had to retire.

As the safety car was out to allow marshals to clean the debris, Darren Turner drove over the curbs a bit too aggressively while entering the pit lane and broke the sump guard on his No. 007 Turner/Tomas Enge/Andrea Piccini machine.

It was the No. 009 Stephane Sarrazin/Pedro Lamy/Stephane Ortelli car thereafter setting the pace, and it passed the No. 64 Corvette of Oliver Gavin/Olivier Beretta/Jan Magnussen for the lead after the seventh hour.

It continued to lead until 2:00pm when Ortelli had to pull the car into the pits to replace the clutch.

The slower, but largely trouble-free, No. 64 was able to again take victory while Aston were stuck in the pits for the second successive year.

It was the fourth time Gavin had won the class with Corvette, and his third in succession.

The No. 007 car recovered to finish second in class ahead of an impressive third place for the only privateer Corvette in the field - the No. 72 car of Luc Alphand/Jerome Policano/Patrice Goueslard.

It embarrassed the works sister No. 63 Corvette of Ron Fellows/John O'Connell/Max Papis, which finished seventh after an early accident and a clutch change towards the end of the race.

Whether Prodrive will be back to run a works Aston team next year is still to be decided, but after grabbing defeat from the jaws of victory again should hopefully prompt David Richards' squad into realising how popular they are and that they still have unfinished business at La Sarthe.

LMP2: MG-Lola remains unchallenged

The LMP2 class was won - as it was last year - by the RML MG-Lola driven by Mike Newton/Thomas Erdos/Andy Wallace.

However, unlike last year, it was done with a lot less anguish. The car had a brief scare with five hours to go when an alternator needed changing, however the car was so many laps ahead of the other reliability-hit rivals that it wasn't a problem.

After more brief pitstops, the car eventually finished an impressive eighth overall and 17 laps ahead of its nearest challenger in the class.

GT2: Historic Panoz victory leaves Porsche with no laurels

Perhaps the most historic victory was in GT2 where, for the first time in the class's history, a Porsche didn't win. But it was sure close.

Until the final hour, the class was dominated by the No. 83 Team Seikel Dominik Farnbacher/Lars-Erik Nielsen/Pierre Ehret which had led from the fifth hour, and built up a handsome lead.

However, it stopped out on the circuit after an accident when the gear lever came off, and after crawling back to the pits, it managed to rejoin the track on the same lap as the No. 81 Panoz Esperante that had taken the lead with Tom Kimber-Smith/Richard Dean/Lawrence Tomlinson.

Farnbacher couldn't catch the Panoz, however, and a smash against the barriers ended his charge, paving the way for the Panoz victory.

The win was the US manufacturer's first victory at La Sarthe on the tenth anniversary of its first participation in the 24-hour race.

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