Stéphane Sarrazin has rated his chances of still triumphing in this year's Le Mans 24 Hours round-the-clock classic as 'maybe one per cent', but the Frenchman has vowed to 'push like crazy' from here to the chequered flag.

Sarrazin – together with team-mates Pedro Lamy and Alex Wurz – had established a slight advantage over the two sister 908 HDis when he brought the #8 car into the pits to repair what he had mistakenly believed to be a puncture – but ended up being something far worse.

“I didn't have any problem when I was driving,” the pole star told Crash.net. “I went into the pits for what I thought was a puncture, but in fact it was not a puncture. The gearbox wouldn't then work, however, and I lost my downshift, so we had to change some pieces on the car and lost 21 minutes.

“We've never had this problem before, even last year. It's the first time – incredible.”

The 32-year-old stressed, however, that he was confident it was purely a one-off issue, and that there were no concerns that it would crop up again in either the #7 or #9 car, which currently sit second and third respectively, the former delayed by a puncture and the latter a broken headlight and subsequent stop-go penalty. After three-and-a-half hours of racing, the #2 Audi of Dindo Capello, Allan McNish and Tom Kristensen leads the race.

“It's just the kind of problem that sometimes happens in racing,” Sarrazin added. “We don't know why, but a small piece that costs a Euro broke. It's sh*t.

“Now our chances are maybe one per cent, I don't know, but we'll push like crazy for the remaining 21 hours.”

by Russell Atkins at Le Mans