A Day With: Nine-time Le Mans winner Tom Kristensen

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  • Le Mans legend: Tom Kristensen.

    Tom Kristensen is a motorsport legend. He won Le Mans a record nine times and perhaps even more impressively recorded six consecutive victories between 2000 and 2005. Most of his wins came behind the wheel of an Audi, although he also drove for Porsche, BMW and Bentley. He announced his retirement in 2014 and now works as an ambassador for Audi Sport.

    We caught up with him in the UAE when he was here to open the world’s first Audi Sport showroom in Abu Dhabi and he spoke to us about his glorious career…

    Why do you think you were so successful?

    That’s a tough opening question. I was born in a gas station and my dad was a racing driver so I guess it was my destiny. It was a pretty humble beginning going to race tracks watching my father but I wanted to show the world that I could be a race car driver and that needed a lot of energy and determination.

    As regards to Le Mans, I knew immediately that this was a fantastic place to be. You could feel from everyone that this was a race where you had to perform and that if you did well in that race it would help your career a lot. I had a lot of respect for that race and that certainly helped.

    Now I am looking back at 18 starts at Le Mans, nine wins, 14 podiums and four times where we didn’t see the finish. But it is important to say that it was never about ‘me’ but about ‘we’ – the team, because sometimes it was the mechanics that won the race for us.

    It is a balancing act between triumph and tragedy, not winning, or winning but I don’t think there is a secret to success. It’s a combination of hard work, determination and passion as you try to overcome the hardest race in the world.

    A lot of racing drivers started in karting when they were kids. Did you?

    Absolutely. When I first got into a kart I was immediately hooked. At a race track where my dad was racing a guy came over with a used go-kart which basically had a chainsaw engine. It was difficult to start and the first year was a disaster but it never put me off from what I wanted to achieve.

    The years in karting when I had to drive a scooter, at the age of 12 when I really wasn’t old enough, to the station to take the train and then a bus to the kart track, something I did for a few years, needed determination and commitment and, for sure, was character building.

    Do you think the fact that you had to struggle in those days with a kart that wasn’t that good helped you in the future?

    Absolutely, it helps you to keep focused and determined to do well and I took that into my later career. I remember in the beginning before I joined Audi I was racing a car and felt something itching on my back and it started to feel like it was burning.

    I stayed out on the track because I was determined to deliver and when I finished and got out of the car I was told that during the night before the mechanics had taken the seat out when they cleaned the car and petrol was used to clean the floor but it was sucked into the seat and on to my back which is still damaged.

    Kristensen helped Audi dominate the endurance racing scene.

    Kristensen helped Audi dominate the endurance racing scene.

    So you did karting, single seaters, you were successful in DTM, Formula Nippon and obviously endurance racing but there is no Formula One on your CV. Why?

    The simple reason is that F1 is commercialised and I didn’t have the money. Some people have kindly said I was the best driver not to have competed in Formula One but I have done quite a lot of F1 testing for Jaguar, Williams and Minardi.

    I was a test driver for Michelin tyres and I was pretty close to joining an F1 team on many occasions but it always came down to money. Yes, it was part of my ambition and dream to go that route but the way I look at it is that I might have missed out on some of my Le Mans career and I might not have joined Audi.

    Was there ever a proper conversation about joining Formula One?

    Alain Prost was very close to signing me and I had a deal to join Minardi where they would give me half a year for free but I didn’t want to gamble with that because after the free period I had to bring a budget. Williams was also a possibility but, as I say, it always came down to lack of a money. There are no regrets because I know I would have had a good career in Formula One.

    You describe Le Mans as the greatest race in the world. Why is it so special?

    We have to speak about emotions. When I went to Le Mans for the first time as a driver I had to control my emotions. You just have to look around at the mechanics working on the cars and you realise that even for them it is different; they know this is THE race.

    The circuit is very similar to the way it was in 1923 – the first Le Mans race – and you just soak all that history and energy in. The 24 hour format with four categories also means you constantly have overtaking, there is always something happening. You can also tell one engine from another – they don’t all sound the same – so it is probably the complete motorsport event and the fans also make it special.

    Do you have one Le Mans victory that stands out from the others?

    The first in 1997 for Porsche was special because it was the foundation of my Le Mans career. Then the one in 2001 when it was raining for 19 out of the 24 hours.

    And then 2008 when supposedly we had no chance against the Peugeots which were 3.5 seconds a lap faster than us but with the rain at night and everything that happened winning that ‘impossible victory’ has gone down as one of the greatest Le Mans ever.

    And of course, 2013 which turned out to be my ninth and final victory at Le Mans when I lost a great friend and colleague Allan Simonsen in a crash and my dad died a few months earlier.

    During that year we had local rain. You really can’t afford to go onto wet or intermediate tyres because it was only wet in certain parts of the track which made it mentally very tough so that was probably the most extreme Le Mans.

    How hard was it to give it all up?

    Drivers like Jacky Ickx and Derek Bell used to tell me when I asked them why they retired so early that I didn’t understand but that one day I would. They were right. You know when the time is right to go.

    Yes, it was a tough decision but I felt it was perfect timing.

    Audi have announced that they are pulling out of endurance racing and Le Mans to focus on Formula E. How do you feel about that?

    In a way it is sad for the WEC and Le Mans in particular. I am just so proud to have been part of their fantastic journey with 13 wins and two world championships but life moves on and Audi is moving on as well and they have an exciting future. It is going to be exciting to see that evolve.

    How do you see your role now?

    To carry the history and heritage of the Audi Sport brand forward and to work with the young drivers in training, team building and fitness work.

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