Allan McNish left Le Mans yesterday feeling “very hollow” after yet more bad luck in the 24-hour classic. He and his co-drivers, Dindo Capello and Tom Kristensen, dominated for 16½ hours before being forced out and all that was left for them was to congratulate fellow Audi drivers, Frank Biela, Emanuele Pirro and Marco Werner, in the sister R10 TDi, on their second successive triumph.

McNish has competed in the event eight times, has led on each occasion but only once stood on top of the podium, in 1998. In contrast, Biela and Pirro have won five times apiece while this was Werner’s third win in succession on his sixth outing. McNish, though, is intent on returning next year because he is confident that his victory in a Porsche nine years ago will not be the only one.

“I am confident I will win here again one day,” he said. “I wouldn’t want to come back otherwise. Too much pain, effort and emotion goes into it. It’s too much a part of your life, there’s too much build-up. If I ever have a day where I think I am never going to win this race again, it will be the day I decide never to return as a driver.”

McNish woke yesterday suffering from food poisoning but driving took his mind off the discomfort before Capello’s 160mph crash at the high-speed corner of Indianapolis after a nut worked loose on the left rear wheel.

“I was having breakfast, eating some muesli, which was the most substantial thing I had eaten in the previous 26 hours,” McNish said. “Then I saw a rear shot of an Audi . . . but I didn’t know which one it was until Dindo’s helmet popped up. That meant he had undone his belts and the crash was significant, that he was in trouble.

“When he got out and walked away from the car, I knew it was over. It was cruel because we had been so dominant. But when Le Mans bites, it does so when you least expect it.”

Biela, Werner and Pirro drove steadily to take the flag in a race in which the last two hours were driven in a downpour. They finished ten laps clear of the Peugeot driven by Sébastien Bourdais, Pedro Lamy and Stephane Sarrazin, with the Pescarolo of Emmanuel Collard, Jean-Christophe Bouillion and Romain Dumas third.

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