24 Hours of Le Mans - Eric Hélary: the reality of Le Mans "hit me hard."
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24 Hours of Le Mans - Eric Hélary: the reality of Le Mans "hit me hard."

Eric Hélary, who has competed in the 24 Hours of Le Mans 11 times, managed a masterstroke at the 1993 edition by winning at the wheel of the Peugeot 905 in his very first participation. The French driver shares his thoughts about that impressive achievement...

1993 win - Peugeot Talbot Sport's #3 Peugeot 905 with Geoff Brabham and Christophe Bouchut: "It was a fantastic week because I was a part of the 24 Hours of Le Mans, I had never participated before. At the time I considered it a race for older drivers, where you had to drive like an old guy. A total newbie, I arrived in Le Mans at the Place des Jacobins for Scrutineering. I saw the crowd, the inspection of the cars, the three Peugeot 905s together, Jean Todt (Director of Racing for Peugeot from 1982 to 1993, Ed.). So I realized, this is the real deal, this is really something!"

"We had run the car a great deal, seven 24-hour tests at the Paul Ricard circuit. It's a long track and eventually you feel more comfortable. Geoff [Brabham], Christophe [Bouchut] and I were fast and in the zone. Meanwhile, once at Le Mans during the qualifying sessions, we had to go more than 360 km/h on the Mulsanne Straight, with trees all around and among other cars, that year the performance level differences weren't too bad. During my first laps I really wondered what I was going to do. It was very impressive. Later, all that got better!" 

"The realization hit me hard because the idea of this race for old guys who go slow, I quickly understood that wasn't the reality at all (laughs, Ed.). In the end, we won, we followed our guidelines to the letter, respected what we were asked to do. Jean Todt and André de Cortanze (the team's technical director, Ed.) had guided us well. We were a line-up of young drivers, we just had to make sure to avoid contact with the curbs, incidents and resist overstepping. In the #2 Peugeot 905, Philippe Alliot (in the driver line-up with Jean-Pierre Jabouille and Mauro Baldi, Ed.) had an incident and lost some time. As for the #1 (driven by Thierry Boutsen, Yannick Dalmas and Teo Fabi, Ed.), the drivers hit the curbs so the mechanics had to change out several parts."

"A little anecdote about the race...shortly before 8:00 p.m., I was about to get in the car when Jean Todt told me: 'It is out of the question that you let the Toyota's overtake you.' I ended up with Eddie Irvine (146 Formula 1 Grand Prix, with four wins, Ed.) on my back bumper and that's how I had to do my two stints, pedal to the metal. It was kind of funny looking back on it. I remember struggling a lot because it was very hot that year, and when I got out of the car I had nothing left, but it was amazing."

1994 - Michel Hommel's Bugatti EB 110S with Alain Cudini and Jean-Christophe Boullion, retirement in the last hour: "The car was doing excellently. We were hoping it would rain because we had four-wheel drive on that Bugatti. Yet the weather was beautiful. We did a great race, we were 11th shortly before the finish, but the car was very unstable braking. Jean-Christophe Boullion was surprised at the first chicane of the Mulsanne Straight. He braked a bit late, the car went off and hit the safety railing. At the time, the team manager had asked us to accelerate a little because a competitor was coming gaining on us. We were forced to retire 45 minutes from the finish. Jean Christophe was still not used to Le Mans back then because he could have come back to the pit and then go on to finish the race."

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