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Home » Blog » Allan's Blog » 2007 Reflections... The Good, The Bad and The Ugly...
30 November 2007 | Posted in Allan's Blog
Looking back at the 2007 season as a whole, I have to say that it’s been a difficult one in some respects but an extremely satisfying one in other ways. With the regulations for the LM P2 cars in America, on American circuits, and the might of Penske and Porsche, those elements combined to make it difficult for us (Audi) at times.
But at the same time, their competition pushed us on to a different level I believe. That came from Audi Sport, the R10 TDI, the drivers themselves and the team. It was really good to have that level of competition. We’re always fighting with the best and when we do get ahead of them, as we did at the end of the season, then it just proves that we’re better than the best.
From that point of view I was really pleased with the way the year finished on the track for us. It’s quite easy in those circumstances, when sometimes it’s out of your control and the regulations are not so good for you, that you can let your head dip down and just think of class victories. But no one in the team ever did that. We only ever thought of outright wins – that’s what we were always gunning and going for it in every single race.
We fought back. We were knocked down a couple of times. We were close a couple of times. But by the end of the year we’d fought back very strongly which shows the character of every single person in our group.
Looking back at Le Mans, for sure, was the hardest one to swallow this year. Dindo, Tom and I were having a perfect race. We were leading by three laps after 17 hours through our sheer pace. We were at the point where we were in control, dominating, had everyone covered only for a wheel issue to occur 14 laps into Dindo’s stint. That was a situation that no one at Audi Sport had ever witnessed before and took everyone by surprise.
The Le Mans race comes just once a year while a championship, in some respects, is harder to conquer with a number of races throughout the year. But the burning desire for me was to add another Le Mans victory to my tally and in 2007 I thought it was there. Next year is 10 years since I won Le Mans and I think that seems to be a pretty good anniversary to add another one!
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We met in houston several years ago at the Audi dealership. I enjoyed our conversation...