With a total of 5 successes at Le Mans, Frank Biela comes in third position in the table of wins. The German might even have joined Jacky Ickx as a 6 time winner in history had he not made ​​a terrible blunder. It shows that even the best are capable of the worst!

Le Mans, Saturday, June 14, 2003 - With no official Audi R8 on the entry list, the manufacturer distributed its drivers to the five cars involved. Frank Biela ended up in the Audi Sport UK/Arena Motorsport team, whose performance at Sebring was not convincing. The Germans relied on the experience of their triple winner (he has five wins today), rather than Jonny Kane, originally planned to drive alongside Mika Salo and Perry McCarthy. However, in the second hour of the race, the oldest serving Audi driver (since 1991), committed the unforgivable ... He said: "The light of the fuel reserve was on and the team told me to pit. On leaving the Porsche curves, a Panoz appeared before me. I wanted to keep my momentum to try to pass on the left, but I was surprised by its acceleration and I got stuck. I could not turn in to the pit lane entrance, which meant that I had to start another lap, but I knew it would be impossible to finish it. The car started to splutter and I tried to reach the pits with the starter motor but I could not."

After a good start to the race and a safe first stop ...
Frank Biela runs out of fuel in the Ford chicane ... And returned to the pits mad!

Julien HERGAULT /ACO - Translated by Tony Light/ACO