Audi Sport Japan Team Goh

This Audi was chassis no. 602 used by the factory in 2002 and by Team Goh in 2003, but this
year it carried the colours of Kazumichi Goh. The car is based in Germany for the LMES and last
year it won the LM 1000 kms race on the Bugatti circuit driven by Tom Kristensen and Seiji Ara.
In 2004 they were backed up by Rinaldo Capello who won Le Mans in 2003 in a Bentley together
with Tom Kristensen.
In the training on 10th of June Team Goh left the two Audi UK Team Veloqx cars to battle for pole. The
no. 5 R8 spent the eight hours of practice getting the race settings needle sharp. Tom Kristensen was
the quickest in 3m 34,038 secs just 634/1000s ahead of Capello and it was enough to put the car
outside of the second row just in front of Bourdais Pescarolo.

Capello who drove the first stint, was
obliged to push hard to keep up with the
two Veloqx Audis. The Italian took the
escape road in the Michelin chicane at
16h16 and ten minutes later ended up in
the Dunlop gravel trap letting Borudais into
4th place. The R8 suffered littel damaged
but fell down the classification and at
17h00 the future winner was a lap behind
the other three Audis.
At 18h00 the Japanese Audi was back in
the hunt in 2nd place - due to McNish and
Letho's crash - just one lap down on the
leader.
At 04h00 the gap between Kristensen-Ara-
Capello and Herbert-Davies-Smith officially
was a lap, but in fact is was lass than two
minutes.

Two hours later - or after 237 laps - when the no. 88 Audi pulled into the pit to change a rear
suspension which resulted in a 7 minutes stop, the Goh Audi was now one lap ahead and the last 8
hours of the race would be one long pursuit on the Goh Audi.
The intervention of the safety car can cancel an advantgge of few minutes or more on a long circuit like
Le Mans and this explained why the no. 88 Audi was able to unlap itself in the morning. In the Goh Audi
camp it was hard talk time as they saw the no. 88 closing the gap which was now so small that a
puncture could make all the different.
The two teams battling for victory were under extreme pressure. A fuel spillage ignited as the Goh Audi
was leaving its pit after refuelling. The fire was quickly put out and the R8 went out

still in 1st place. The no. 88 spun in the
Dunlop chicane and the gap was still under
2 minutes.
But the Japanese driver Ara crossed the
finishing line after four consecutive stints
and he was only the 2nd driver from Japan
to win Le Mans.
Team boss Kazumichi Goh was the happiest
man when the race finished. He had shown
Dr. Ulrich what his squad was capable of
with wins in the Spa and the Le Mans 1000
kms races in 2003 and followed by victory
in this year's Le Mans 24 Hours
The no. 5 Audi R8 did 379 laps in 24 hours
and had an av.speed of 215,418 km/h.

Hour by hour:
Start - 4th
1h - 13th
2h - 6th
3h - 2nd
4h - 2nd
5h - 2nd
6h - 2nd
7h - 2nd
8h - 2nd
9h - 2nd
10h - 2nd
11h - 2nd
12h - 2nd
13h - 2nd
14h - 2nd
15h - 2nd
16h - 1st
17h - 1st
18h - 1st
19h - 1st
20h - 1st
21h - 1st
22h - 1st
23h - 1st
24h - 1st