A dream came true   by Emanuele Pirro   During this year, I had two operations, one on each knee. After the operation on the right knee, I won Sebring, and after the left, I won Le Mans. This second operation was just three weeks before the race and when I arrived at Le Mans, I didn’t feel so positive, because I didn’t do much testing. But I had a high motivation. That motivation changed a little bit when our car had two punctures in the early stages of the race. I thought that this wouldn’t be my race. I had a tyre explosion myself in practice and these two punctures seemed to confirm of all my worries. Tyres are a critical thing at Le Mans.   Later in the race, I felt more and more confident, especially when we got into the lead. Than I realised that a dream could become true. That we could make it. All of us, Frank Biela, Tom Kristensen and me, did a good job. I’m very glad that Frank and I won Le Mans, because we are the oldest Audi Sport drivers! After the problems of car No. 9, we had an advantage. But they were challenging us strongly. They were trying really hard and I guess that they were more careless with the car than us. The only team order was, not to do any silly things with the car. So, the race was open and we really had to push hard to keep the distance between us.   During my last stint I slowed down to save the car. My only worry was to bring the car home. During that time, meters became kilometres and seconds became minutes. Those two hours were probably the longest time in my life. But the last lap paid everything back. It was a tremendous atmosphere to drive slowly around the circuit and to see all the marshals with flags and all the fans. I wished, I could have taken all of you for a ride on this lap.   When I turned into the start finish straight, I knew, that we had won Le Mans.