It might have been wet, but we didn't care. Not at the end anyway. It was a wonderful, wonderful weekend, everything went according to plan and we had the result we had all been looking for for the last three years.
I think it's something like 48 years since Aston Martin last won at Le Mans, so it's been a long time coming and that just added to the 'specialness' of the whole weekend. From an Aston Martin Racing/Prodrive perspective, it's been two years of nearly getting there, of having a fast car but not quite getting to the end. This year was just a fantastic result - not only finishing first, but having all six Astons finish the race and having another one on the podium, in third, with the Christophe Bouchut car. It was just a great, great result, especially with the new owners having just come in as well.
As I think I have explained to you before, I bumped in to Prodrive's George Howard-Chappell at the
Autosport Awards and mentioned to him that I was free for Le Mans. His ears pricked up and he said that we needed to stay in contact. It wasn't long before a deal was done, especially after he explained to me the background of where they were taking the programme.
I went up to Prodrive and had a look at what they were doing and felt, right there and then, that this was our race, our year. We had everything we needed to succeed, so it was just a case of going out there and focusing on the job. Preparation is everything when it comes to Le Mans and the car ran faultlessly for the whole race. I think there were only three cars in the whole field that actually didn't go behind the pits, and they were the first three in GT1. That's how tough it was. But we were very well prepared and the team did a fantastic job.
