by Russell Atkins

David Brabham has said his Le Mans 24 Hours success last month is something that will remain forever etched in his memory, after Aston Martin finally vanquished Corvette in the French round-the-clock endurance classic.

The Australian – sharing one of the GT1 class Prodrive-run DBR9s with tin-top aces Darren Turner and Rickard Rydell – had finished respectively third and fourth in class in 2005 and 2006, and second outright with Bentley back in 2003, but until this year he had never tasted victory champagne. It was, he admitted, a magical moment.

“It was an absolutely amazing result,” he told Crash.net Radio during Prodrive's open weekend at its Banbury headquarters. “Three years' hard work went into it, and the preparation leading up to the race was excellent, the best I'd ever seen.

“The expectation was probably the highest it had been too, and rightly so because twice we had the chance to win but didn't. We all went there feeling very confident we had everything we needed to actually pull off the result, but at the same time we had the attitude 'we have to win this race – there are no ifs or buts, this is our race'. I think it helps to have that mentality, because it means you go there in the right frame of mind and tackle every situation with that in your head.

“We just had one of those perfect races. We never had one issue with the car or made a mistake out on the track, and the guys in the pits gave us very good pit-stops every time. That's what was really needed to win because Corvette had the same race as us but we just had a faster car; that's what it took to beat them after they had won the class for the past three years.

“I'm extremely happy for both the team and Aston Martin. It's pretty cool for any driver to actually drive for Aston Martin at Le Mans, and for me personally crossing the finish line at the end to win was something special.”

Indeed, Brabham, Turner and Rydell's success at La Sarthe came despite the GT1 class boasting arguably its strongest contingent in years, with a whole gaggle of DBR9s, the two bright yellow 'Vettes and a brace of Oreca-run Saleens thrown into the mix for good measure too. And that's to say nothing of the challenging weather conditions.

“I think the GT1 competition this year was as tough as we've seen it for a long time,” the 41-year-old acknowledged, “and that made the victory even sweeter. The other Astons in the class were all very good cars; the Saleens I knew would be fast – the S7R is an extremely quick car with a great team behind it and we had a bit of a battle with them at the beginning – but I have to admit I thought they would be more of a factor in the race than they were, although it was their first time so the expectations may have been slightly high.

“Leading up to the race we got very little dry running, and because the race started dry that made it a bit of a guess on set-up. We weren't 100 per cent sure we had that correct, but as soon as I started doing a few laps and the tyres got up to the right temperature and pressure, the car was right on where we really wanted it to be. The guys did a great job in giving me that car, and obviously Darren and Rickard did a great job behind the wheel too.