“Le Mans is one of the oldest places in endurance racing, but I think now in the GT1 category it has become a sprint race,” he explained. “You have to be flat-out for 24 hours, and of course I hope I can use my experience to not have any small incidents or problems or whatever. We need to be always on the limit, and we will hopefully be fast enough.

“The overall position is no goal for us, but I think winning in GT1 for sure is possible with the car that we have. I think we have a very good car to compete with – it looks very nice and very fast – and I'm just looking forward to the race.

“We have very strong competitors, especially the Corvette factory team, with good cars and good drivers. It's 24 hours, night and day, with strong competitors on a difficult circuit – it's certainly a long and challenging race, tough for the drivers and hard for the car, but we are well-prepared.”

As to his FIA GT Championship campaign with Jetalliance Racing – also in an Aston Martin DBR9 – Wendlinger admitted his bid for glory could not have gotten off to a better start, as he and team-mate Ryan Sharp triumphed first time out at Silverstone as the duo attempt to make it third time lucky in 2008, even if round two at Monza would not prove to be quite so straightforward.

“The season started well – first race, first win,” he recounted, “whereas last year, for example, we scored no points in the first race and also struggled a little bit in races two and three. This year we are on the pace right from the beginning, so I think everything is possible.”

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