“Having grown up 50km from the Circuit de la Sarthe, I’d always thought the 24 Hours of Le Mans was a race for superheroes,” recalls three-time Le Mans winner Benoît Tréluyer with a tinge of emotion. “When I finally stood on the top step of the podium there for the first time back in 2011, it was a huge relief and the very best present I could have given everybody who’d trusted in me. I’ve now created my own motorsport team because I want to relive that and experience that feeling again.”

The car with which Tréluyer and his teammates André Lotterer  and Marcel Fässler achieved that momentous victory was, of course, the Audi R18 TDI Ultra, the Ingolstadt marque’s final non-hybrid Le Mans Prototype. ‘Red Sonja’ was the internal name affectionately given to that winning chassis. And while the R18 TDI Ultra we took to the Festival of Speed this year and which Tréluyer drove up the Duke of Richmond’s driveway was not ‘Red Sonja’, it does wear the very same dress in honour.

“The 2011 R18 TDI Ultra holds such a special place in my heart,” the Frenchman continues, “so it’s honestly been such a great experience to climb back in and drive this car again. I remember it perfectly – the driving position, the field of view, the way the monocoque makes you feel so safe and actually how simple it is to drive. The only real disadvantage compared to the preceding open car was the reduced visibility, but I have to say we were not overtaken very often so this didn’t matter so much!”

Running as part of the ‘Joest Racing: Masters of the Mulsanne’ class, celebrating the legacy of the 15-time Le Mans-winning German team, it really felt like a family reunion in the assembly area before each run, with so many faces so synonymous with Audi’s modern-era endurance success. We did have to pinch ourselves when ‘Mr. Le Mans’ himself Tom Kristensen enjoyed a cup of tea while perched on the side of our R18, clearly relishing the chance to catch up with Tréluyer. Once a teammate, always a teammate.

Before Tréluyer fired up the R18 for the final time and disappeared with that distinctive diesel ‘whoosh’ down the hill ahead of the last run of the Festival of Speed weekend, we couldn’t not ask him about Truth in 24 II, the second behind-the-scenes documentary about Audi Sport and its victorious Le Mans campaign back in 2011. (If you ever wanted a raw and uncut glimpse of a well-oiled top-flight factory motorsport outfit operating at the very peak of its powers, we’d heartily recommend you watch it. It’s automotive storytelling at its very best, crowned with tension-building narration by none other than Hollywood hard-man Jason Statham.)

“I know it doesn’t seem it, but the sequel to the first Truth in 24 was never planned,” Tréluyer explains. “The production crew were actually invited to Le Mans in 2011 as spectators. But as the amazing story unfolded, they quickly realised this race was going to be too good to miss so captured everything they could on location at the circuit and conducted all the interviews afterwards. To be honest I was not someone who collected all my trophies – I always gave them away, which I don’t regret. But I have grown nostalgic, so it is really cool to have the documentary movie to look back on.”

No doubt the envy of most drivers at Goodwood last weekend was Emanuele Pirro. The Italian five-time Le Mans winner was an incredibly busy boy at the Festival of Speed, piloting an enviably diverse selection of cars including a Matra MS670, a 1980s Ligier Formula 1 car and, most notably for us here at Girardo & Co., our 1985 Lancia LC2 Group C. “I’m in an incredible privileged position to do this and I’m extremely grateful,” he tells us during a short break in his jam-packed schedule. “These cars represent the history of motorsport and they’re the cars people dream about. I never take it for granted.”

Pirro never raced the Lancia LC2 in period. But he came close. “I was asked by Lancia’s sporting director Cesare Fiorio to join his team with the Beta Montecarlo Turbo in 1981,” he recalls. “It was an absolute dream for me – the drivers in the team were a generation ahead and those I really admired: Michele Alboreto, Riccardo Patrese, Eddie Cheever and the like.” Alas, a move to Alfa Romeo in Formula 3 presented a contractual conflict of interest and Pirro was forced to leave Lancia just before their world-beating prototype endurance-racing programme really got going with the LC1. “That was really hard,” he remembers. “Contesting the world championship with an Italian brand and the iconic Martini sponsorship – what could have been!”

Driving chassis number 0007 took an a particular sense of significance for Pirro since the two Italian drivers who raced this LC2 in period, Alessandro Nannini and Michele Alboreto, were both teammates of his during his career. So, just what is it like to thread a 900bhp turbocharged sports-racing prototype up the desperately narrow Goodwood hill-climb? “It actually doesn’t feel too intimidating,” he explains. “Yes, the track is small, but in the end the racing line is one. There’s definitely an underlying sense of power, especially with those turbochargers. I’d love nothing more than to take people with me in the car, to feel the sensations and just how mighty it is.” To be honest, Emanuele, neither would we!

Twenty-seven years ago, in April of 1997, the British racing drivers Gary Ayles and Chris Goodwin earned the radical new ‘Longtail’ variant of the McLaren F1 GTR its very first victory, in the opening round of the British GT Championship at Silverstone. “I was a bit embarrassed because it was like bringing a sledgehammer to a knife fight,” recalls Ayles, who was reunited with the very F1 with which he scored that win, chassis number 27R, at the Festival of Speed last weekend. “I’d raced a Ferrari F40 before that and the McLaren was leaps and bounds ahead in terms of refinement.”

In recent years, this McLaren has been road-registered by Lanzante. But despite the subtle configuration differences, and the fact he hadn’t sat in the car for almost 30 years, Ayles took no time getting his eye in on the world-famous Goodwood hill-climb. “I’m a bit rusty, which makes things a bit nerve-racking, but the experience has been fantastic,” Ayles gushes. “When you’re younger you don’t really take things in like you should, but now I’m older I realise what a wonderful time in my life that was. I can’t help but smile every time I climb in.”

Ayles went on to contest the 24 Hours of Le Mans and the FIA GT Championship with chassis number 27R, racing hard against the might of the factory Porsche, BMW and Mercedes teams. Little could anybody have foreseen the McLaren F1’s stratospheric ascension in the collector-car market today. “I’d have never dreamed these cars would one day become so valuable,” says Ayles. “But then it’s a truly beautiful thing, a genuine work of art. When the owner contacted me to ask about driving it at Goodwood, there was a degree of anxiety and anticipation. But it was like all my Christmases came at once – I can’t thank him enough.”

Needless to say, the smoky 100-metre burnouts at the beginning of each run, with that glorious V12 ringing out in its wake, had us all giggling like children.

Photos: Robert Cooper for Girardo & Co.

A special thanks to Moto Historics, Sporting & Historic Car Engineers and Lanzante for the exceptional preparation and support in the running of these three phenomenal historic competition cars throughout the Goodwood weekend.