EXCLUSIVE: Interview with Loic Duval 13 | 06 | 2015

AUDI ACE LOIC DUVAL, who last won the Le Mans 24-Hours with Scot Allan McNish in 2013, was involved in a controversial high-speed crash two-hours into the race when he was battling for the lead. And the 33-year-old Frenchman believes confusion between the officials caused the crash.

Pre-race favourite Duval, driving the No8 LMP1 Audi R18 e-tron quattro, collided with a pack of slower-moving GTE cars as they approached Mulsanne Corner.

In trying to avoid the extremely slow cars ahead, Duval darted past them on the right-hand side, clipping the wall before slewing across the track and ploughing nose-first into the armco on the left-hand side of the track.

But Duval claimed — and his claims are backed by TV footage — that marshals were waving green flags, indicating the track as 'clear', immediately before he came across the slower-moving cars.

Scotcars spoke exclusively to Duval — who managed to get the badly damaged car back to the pits, where Audi replaced the car's front end, rear end, engine cover in four minutes — shortly after the incident.

Jim McGill: Loic, can you please take me through what happened in the build-up to the incident.

Loic Duval: Basically there are three different options in terms of communication to the drivers regarding incidents on-track.

First you have the communication from the Race Director to our engineers, and then the engineers pass that information on to us. That's the first thing.

When I started the lap, I got the information from my race engineer that we had a Slow Zone at Indianapolis. I then did the first two chicanes at race pace, then out of the second chicane, heading towards Mulsanne, my engineer came on the radio and told me 'the track is green', and there was no more Slow Zone.

That's the first information, because he got it from the race director.

So then, for me, it's completely fine. Then I went into Indianapolis and could see … the second option is we have electronic light display panels at the side of the track which illustrate the 'flag' colour. This was on with the orange lights, like a yellow flag.

But the key point is, all the marshals were waving the green flags. They have the priority over the other two options, so that is what we except first and foremost. They over-rule everything. So that means it was green.

Basically for me, I stayed flat-out based on the information I received from my engineer, who received the information from race control, plus I saw the green flags. So for me the track was fine.

Then, unfortunately, a few cars in front of me decided to slow completely, almost to a full stop: then we go side-by-side.

JM: Have race control commented on the situation?

LD: Basically, the best comment I can give is that they didn't even ask me to report to the Race Control. If it was a Slow Zone, and I didn't respect the Slow Zone, and I crashed into anybody, I think everyone knows I would have had a penalty. But they didn't even call me because they know I didn't make a mistake.

JM: How big was the impact?

LD: It was quite big, actually. Unfortunately we had to repair the car, which cost us a lap, but we were a bit lucky because of the Safety Car.

JM: I assume you'll be back out again?

LD: For sure: of course. I will be back on-track in the dark.

JM: Can you still win it from here?

LD: We never say no at Audi. Of course it'll be tough, and we need things to work in our favour, but Audis have won from further back than this.

With 16hrs 40 ins of the race remaining, Duval's No 8 Audi — co-driven by Cambridge's Oliver Jarvis and Brazilian Lucas di Grassi — had fought back to sixth, albeit a lap of the 8.45-mile circuit behind leader, the Porsche of Aussie Mark Webber.

Related: Porsche seals Le Mans 24-Hours 1-2

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Jim McGill