McNish wins WEC openerposted in LMANS14 | 04 | 2013
SCOT ALLAN MCNISH took advantage of the fact there are no team orders in the Audi sportscar team to win the opening round of the FIA World Endurance Championship at Silverstone.
The 43-year-old from Dumfries delivered a brilliant drive over the closing 30 minutes of the six-hour race to overhaul a 29-second gap to his Audi team-mate Beniot Tréluyer.
In identical hybrid-diesel Audi R18 e-tron quattro, the pair battled throughout the six-hour race.
But with 34 mins remaining, the Scot lost the lead when he spun avoiding a slow Aston Martin GT car at the apex of a corner after a strategic short pitstop by Tréluyer's crew.
McNish, aware he would need to drive flat-out over the closing half-hour of the race, immediately pitted for new Michelin tyres having flat-spotted his tyres avoiding the Aston. The decision proved pivotal.
Watched by the two co-drivers — Dane Tom Kristensen and Frenchman Loïc Duval — who shared his car, the feisty Scot set about hunting down Tréluyer.
With 20mins remaining, the gap had closed to 14secs; with 14mins to go, it had closed up even further to 9s; with 9mins remaining, the gap was 4.3s.
But with just four-minutes remaining, and having just set a new lap record of 1min 42.7secs, McNish swept past the Frenchman on what was the penultimate lap.
Alonso powers F1 win in China
"That was intense: maximum attack," McNish admitted afterwards. "I knew when I started the final stint that it would be a case of going hell-for-leather to the end of the race, and that's exactly what I did.
"The car ran faultlessly all day, to be honest, but it was absolutely perfect over the closing half-hour.
"This is a brilliant way to start the season. It puts us in pole position for the World Endurance Championship, and puts down a good marker for the Le Mans 24-Hours in June."
And three weeks after the Red Bull F1 'Multi21' team orders debacle in Malaysia, McNish was quick to applaud Audi's approach to team-mates racing.
"We have one simple instruction from Audi," McNish stated. "You're free to race each other, but don't put each other out of the race.
"Every driver who races for Audi has total respect, and confidence, in each of the other Audi drivers. That why we were free to battle right to the end of the race today."
The Scot, who started third on the grid, finished the race 3.462s ahead of Tréluyer, with the Toyota hybrid of England's Anthony Davidson third, a lap adrift.
And the win was all the sweeter for McNish, who collected the coveted RAC Tourist Trophy for the first time.
"The RAC Tourist Trophy been an integral part of British motor racing for over 100 years," McNish explained, "and this is the first time it has been presented for a sports-prototype race at Silverstone.
"It's an honour to win it, and hopefully we can add the Le Mans win and the WEC title at the end of the season."
McNish targets world title
Keep up-to-date with all the latest news by following us on twitter.com/scotcars
Jim McGill