2011 Le Mans 24: 2 Days To Go!

2011 Le Mans 24: 2 Days To Go! Posted by: newsla on Jun 09, 2011 - 06:47 PM Former Le Mans 24 Hours winner Christophe Bouchut brings an enormous amount of experience to the Level 5 Motorsport team that will campaign their Lola LMP2 Coupe at Le Mans this weekend As he explains, the 1993 Le Mans winner Frenchman is relishing another opportunity to fight for another Le Mans victory, 18 years after he entered the history books by winning his very first Le Mans 24 Hours with Peugeot. “It’s really exciting to see what a brand new race car Lola built for us for this year. It is nice for me to drive a car like the Lola. Everything was new, of course and we had limited time to try the car at the circuits before we came to Le Mans for the test day in April. That’s why the Level 5 team selected Lola and Honda, for their experience and their reliability in long distance racing and at the test day we got some good running in with the two cars we entered to get maximum kilometers on the Lola." Bouchut has taken on a huge commitment with the Level 5 team and has acted as a mentor for Scott Tucker who only started racing in 2006. This year will see the 44 year old rack up the air miles in his quest to bring silverware to Level 5. “Well, I’m doing all the races for Level 5 this year so we are committed to the ALMS, ILMC and Le Mans. It’s more than enough because I am still living in France and after each race I have to go back to France, so the last year I have done about 19 trans-Atlantic flights, so I am really busy all the time but that is the way I like it!” Busy out of the cockpit and busy in it, Bouchut has long had a reputation as a 'firebrand' but his record at La Sarthe is excellent. Of the 17 Le Mans he has competed in, 11 have resulted in finishes. With his experience of working with works teams such as Peugeot (1993) and Mercedes (1999) , Christophe is in the perfect position to ensure his knowledge rubs off on Tucker at the highest level of global endurance racing. “ I am really proud Level 5 decided to engage at this level, especially more this year in Europe at Le Mans because of course with 17 starts already in my pocket at La Sarthe, I have the experience of this race to really help the team. Scott (Tucker) has not so much background in sports cars because he is just beginning his career really. He has been racing for 5 years, so we can consider him in terms of experience a very good gentleman racer but even this is not the right description for him because I think he can become a really accomplished driver and he has proved this with what he achieved in 2010. This year he will do the ILMC, Le Mans, ALMS but also, like last year, the Ferrari Challenge. Even when he is not racing, he is doing tests, so that means he is behind the wheel driving almost every weekend. Our minimum goal this year is to challenge for wins.'