Quotes & Sayings About Le Mans

I never had any financial support or sponsors, and so I always had to, at every level, prove myself the hard way. I was five years in Japan before I got my debut at Le Mans. And I think this is a humble way to get through as a racing driver. — Tom Kristensen

I am part of a circuit called 24 Hours of LeMons, where it's a sort of riff on 24 Hours of Le Mans. It's a poor man's weekend warrior racer event. — Michael Trucco

I have been waiting to win a world championship since 1985. I've had three cracks at a world title - in karting, I finished third at Le Mans; that hurt because it was very close, but then in Formula One there wasn't really an opportunity to finally crack it, so it's third time lucky. — Allan McNish

Le Mans is such a great race because you can never do anything alone. You have to work as a team member. And being a team member makes you a better person. — Tom Kristensen

My last race was at Le Mans in 2000, my first race was in 1959, so I dodged a lot of bullets along the way, I can tell you that. — Mario Andretti

My proudest moments are beating Ferrari for the World Championship in 1965, and working with Ford to win Le Mans in 1966 and 1967. — Carroll Shelby

Le Mans takes the best out of everyone. Winning is important but it's not everything. It's such a big and great event in motorsport. You do more kilometres in that one race than Formula One do in a season, and probably a higher average speed. We average about 220km/h including pit stops and cover nearly 5000km. — Tom Kristensen

In Le Mans, despite increasingly cold days, Wilbur, having switched to wearing a black leather motorcycle jacket, was busy practicing takeoffs without the use of a catapult. He had decided to compete for the Michelin Cup, a prize newly established by the French tire company, and in the competition such launching devices were not allowed. On the day of the event, December 31, the last day of the year and Wilbur's last big event at Camp d'Auvours, in spite of rain and cold he was barely able to endure, he put on his most astonishing performance yet, flying longer and farther than anyone ever had - 2 hours, 20 minutes, and 23 and one fifth seconds during which he covered a distance of 77 miles. He won the Cup. — David McCullough

I drove long distances like the 24 hours of Le Mans for years. But even this racing is now over. I retired. — Jacky Ickx

The trick at Le Mans is to get the car 'in the window.' Everything is critical: the tyre pressure, the brake temperature, and that means you have to push the car a lot to get it into the window - it's about getting everything to work right and getting the car to flow through the corners. — Tom Kristensen

My realisation that all I had ever done in life, not only in France but in England also, was to watch people, never to partake in their happiness or pain, brought such a sense of overwhelming depression, deepened by the rain stinging the windows of the car, that when I came to Le Mans, although I had not intended to stop there and lunch, I changed my mind, hoping to change my mood. — Daphne Du Maurier

Yes, with Le Mans, obviously, the approach needs to be different. You have a race only once a year, so in the whole focus, the whole energy, you know that you cannot change the world and have a race two weeks later. — Tom Kristensen

Any finish at Le Mans is great but every time I go to Le Mans my mission is to win. — Tom Kristensen

'Le Mans' is the only racing movie that is totally realistic. — Jenson Button