Brabham & Peugeot victorious at Le Mans 24 hour
June 15, 2009 by Matt Brogan
Australian driver David Brabham has helped Peugeot to victory in the Le Mans 24-hour race breaking Audi’s decade-long hold on the French endurance classic.
Brabham, the youngest son of Australian Formula One legend Jack, shared the 382 laps with Alexander Wurz and Marc Gene, to give the French constructors their first victory in the competition since 1993.
“I am just happy to have won,” said Mr Brabham. “I recall my brother Geoff saying he was the only Brabham to have won Le Mans and I am proud to have had the chance to do this. However, it is not a one man show and there are a lot of people at the heart of this team who are responsible for this victory.”
Peugeot had been in charge after seven hours of action on Saturday with the French team in three of the top four places.
Print it: 
A great distance race of pedegree, patronised by marshals and fans throughout the world. The TDI machines as presented by the Volkswagen group and Peugot were ofcourse awsome.
And what do we get here, some paddock bashing taxis.
Well done to Peugeot and of course the Brabham kid, not many brothers have won the race.
3rd year, always faster than the audi, now 100% reliable, shame how they ran into each other in the pits, could have made it 1, 2 and 3!
Formation finish was the ultimate rub to audi.
Made In France rules!!
Cheers
F-0
This was a great race, good to see someone other than Audi win the 24-hour.
I’m not sure that you could call V8 Supercars paddock bashing taxi’s Will. They are true racing cars these days, fast, noisy and good fun to watch.
Yes the LeMans prototypes and GT Sportscars are awesome cars, but that style of racing does not sell well in Australia these days. Just look at how our GT races in Australia can’t pull a crowd despite having a good range of cars, drivers and the odd V8S/C guest driver. The last GT sportscar races (Sandown early/mid 80’s) did little to enhance the cause as they were run on a track that was a shadow of it’s old self with the infield “go-kart” track extension. Lindsay Fox is working on something at Philip Island but it’s doubtfull that they will pull a crowd without a V8 race on the same card.
#2
Yes, Peugeot won it easy [always nice to say that after the fact] and most of the past audi wins have been *soft* victories.
Lets face it no respect in beating quasi-backyard and weekend races against a unlimited budget factory works team, now audi have somebody to fight and they got spanked good and proper.
Another to get spanked [and not mentioned here] was the Ferrari 430GV v Porker GT3, ANOTHER case of the germanns getting demolished, Ferrai cleaned up 1st for spots in its class, all the Porkers failed.
Flag starter Ferrari CEO LucaD mentioned “would like to see Ferrari compete and win at LeMans again” ANOTHER warning to the F1 clowns Ferrari will pull the pin if they dont budge.
Cheers
F-0
Great race pretty crap coverage from one stopping to show netball was a bit much
Thank god for the net found a live danish feed
Would love to see more of the gt cars racing next year more fun to watch then the LMP cars
And you can’t compare these to the V8 supercars for what it is our morotsport is great but for what audi spend on Le Mans every year you could run the entire V8 series be happy we got what we do
EH179,
Locally I find GT Sportscar formula very rewarding.
EH, buy yourself a HR (perhaps Premier) with disk break option. You will do youself a favour. Alternatively…HK underpinnings…
The GT racing is Australia is quite good and healthy as it is, its main problem is the coverage that it doesn’t get. But this goes with most Motorsport in the country that isn’t V8 Supercar.
Take a look at the Shannon’s National racing series around the country. It is good quality racing, with talented drivers and a good assortment of cars.
I have found that the racing in most of the Shannon’s Nationals categories is actually better than V8SC as it has become quite processional over recent years.
Disappointing that an Australian won Le Mans and received very no coverage that I saw in the mainstream media.
Well done David.