Between 1997 and 2014, Tom Kristensen won the world's toughest motor
race, the Le Mans 24 Hours, a record nine times and finished on the
podium on five more occasions. Every time his car made it to the finish,
in fact, he was in the top three. It is no wonder that this great sports
car driver is known as 'Mr Le Mans' to motorsport fans around the
world.
Now retired from racing, Kristensen shares in this book his deepest
personal reflections and insights from inside and outside the
cockpit. He looks back on more than 30 years spent striving for
perfection in racing and tells of the battles and setbacks that
sometimes seemed impossible to overcome, including a terrible accident
in 2007.
- Climbing the racing ladder, from karting into Formula 3
single-seaters, including championship titles in Germany (1991) and
Japan (1993), then Formula 3000 and a Formula 1 testing role with
Tyrrell.
- Winning as an underdog on his first visit to Le Mans, in 1997 driving
an elderly Joest-run privateer Porsche in which he impressed all
onlookers with a night-time charge to vanquish Porsche's
factory-entered favourite.
- His second Le Mans victory came in 2000 on his maiden drive for Audi
in the R8, a car that was to become all-conquering.
- Kristensen won the next five editions of Le Mans, four times with Audi
and once with Bentley (in 2003), his last victory in this sequence
taking him past Jacky Ickx's previous record at the Circuit de la
Sarthe.
- His eighth win came in one of the all-time classic contests at Le
Mans, in 2008, a rollercoaster of a race in which his ageing
diesel-powered Audi was never expected to beat the fancied works
Peugeots.
- One more victory with Audi in 2013 sealed his reputation as a true
legend of Le Mans.
- His story includes exploits at other racetracks all over the world,
none more prolific than Sebring, home of America's long-established
classic endurance race that Kristensen won six times.
- Personal reflections together with contributions from notable
observers -- including English journalists Gary Watkins and Charles
Bradley -- complete a truly rounded portrait of the man and his
achievements.
Voted 'Sports Book of the Year' when originally published in
Kristensen's native Denmark, this thoughtful memoir is now available in
English.
