Tom Kristensen keeps the record straight

Fell bleary-eyed off the plane from Beijing and drove straight to Goodwood to a get-together of hacks and racing drivers hosted by Audi. Last year’s event was the best ‘working’ job I did all year that didn’t involve a steering wheel in my hand.

My good luck was once more to sit by Tom Kristensen, who can talk with equal passion about racing an Austin Westminster at Goodwood or an Audi R18 at Le Mans. Sadly a diary clash will keep him away from West Sussex this Autumn, but he is as enthusiastic about racing at Goodwood as ever, and describes trying to keep the Daytona coupé on the track en route to winning last year’s drenched TT as “unbelievably difficult. Towards the end there wasn’t a single point on the track where I could use full throttle…”

Tom also took the time to point out an error of mine. When I wrote in Motor Sport about driving the Bentley Speed 8 with which he won Le Mans in 2003, I said that Dindo Capello had put the car on pole, Tom had started it and Guy Smith finished the race. Not so. Guy did drive it over the line but it was Kristensen who set the pole time and Capello who started the race, a record I am happy to set straight.

Another fascinating thing about Kristensen is he appears to have total recall. after he described his pole lap in the Bentley in detail, I started firing random races at him from the dozen years he’s been a works Audi driver in both sports cars and DTM. not only can he recall it all, but in incredible detail.