Pirro vs McNish vs Brabham – which Le Mans legend will you choose for the Hall of Fame?

Pirro won with the latter on its Le Mans debut, adding three more consecutive titles as Ingolstadt set a new benchmark for La Sarthe performance.

Audi changed the game again by introducing its diesel-powered prototype, the R10 TDI. The ever-reliable Pirro was at the wheel once more, sealing an historic first victory for diesel power at the famous race.

He did it again the next year, meaning the Italian had an incredible five Le Mans wins in eight attempts, in addition to scoring two ALMS titles in 01 and ’05, again at the wheel of the mighty R8.

Unassuming, modest and yet mightily fast, will you choose Pirro to join the Hall of Fame this year?

 

Allan McNish

In a career which had remarkable parity with Pirro’s, Allan McNish was also regularly taking the bullet train to Suzuka to help with the McLaren juggernaut in the late ‘80s.

Winner of the 1988 McLaren/BRDC Young Driver of the Year Award (along with David Coulthard), McNish was thought to be the next Jackie Stewart, such was his fearsome pace and tenacity shown at junior level. However, three years testing for Woking from ‘89 and another for Benetton blew him off his racing course.

Then, after losing out on a Champ Car drive to Mark Blundell, it seemed like McNish’s racing career might be all washed up. His saviour came from the most unlikely of avenues: after a British GP cameo in the 1996 Porsche Supercup, the Scot suddenly found himself in the frame to drive a Porsche GT1 at Le Mans the next year – his career finally had lift off.

His race lasted less than half an hour after a damper issue on his first Le Mans attempt in 1997, but the Scot claimed victory at the second time of asking.

After leading brilliantly in the rain, McNish and his team-mates Laurent Aïello and Stéphane Ortelli had to fight back from a 20-minute repair delay to beat the Toyotas. McNish’s talent had at last been rewarded.

The Scot jumped to Audi for 2000, claiming the ALMS title with six wins out of 12 in the mighty R8.

Eight victories in 2009 and nine in ’07 brought another pair of crowns in that series, and the year after McNish took his second Le Mans in some style.

A race-long battle with the faster Peugeot 908s saw the aging R10s cars lose out in the dry, but once the rain came down McNish, along with co-drivers Tom Kristensen and Rinaldo Capello managed to fight back and claim an unlikely and famous win.

In his final year in endurance racing, McNish truly went out with a flourish. Finishing on the podium in all but one race at last brought him a world championship in the form of the 2013 WEC crown, which included his third La Sarthe win, sealing the Scot’s legend in endurance.

McNish’s was a career which was slow to get going, but ended up being a benchmark in motor sport.

 

David Brabham

Being the son of a three-time F1 champion might seem like the perfect finishing school for any budding race driver, but in fact it was quite the opposite. Whilst David Brabham saw his brothers Geoff and Gary go off racing, grand prix legend Dad Jack was priming his youngest for a life on the family farm.

However a visit to Geoff, who was then racing in IndyCar, changed all that. The junior Brabham became hooked on racing, setting him on a path to one of racing’s greatest prizes.

Like the two other nominees though, it wasn’t without its severe challenges. After finding himself 38th on the grid for a junior single-seater support race at the 1987 Australian Grand Prix, Brabham’s father Jack told him: “The days of you ever getting into F1 are finished.”

So riled up was the youngster that he stormed through to field to lead by lap 13, going on to win what was only a 15-lap race.

Winning the ‘89 British F3 championship (and beating Michael Schumacher at Macau in the same year) along the way, Brabham found himself in the F1 team which bore his family name for 1990. A far cry from the championship-winning outfit his father had founded, the season was littered with retirements and DNQs.

Brabham’s career at a dead end, Tom Walkinshaw then came calling in 1991, asking him to drive in the one-make Jaguar XJR15 series. So impressive were his performances that he found himself parachuted into the TWR sportscar team in a XJR14. He won on his debut at the Nürburgring 1000Kms, thus starting a fine sportscar career.

Next, Brabham was in an XJ220 at Le Mans ’93, overcoming the alarming sight and smell of petrol leaking into the cockpit to win his GT class with David Coulthard and John Nielsen, only to be disqualified on a technical infringement.

An ill-fated return to F1 with Simtek followed, before Brabham took on the bizarre front-engined Panoz Esperante and was an unlikely runner-up at Le Mans in ’98. He finished second in the 1999 ALMS.

Brabham told Motor Sport in 2012 that he felt “dead inside” after losing out to the sister car when part of Bentley’s Le Mans effort in ’03, but the Australian would finally seal his endurance legend six years later.

Peugeot enquired about a one-off Le Mans entry with Alex Wurz and Marc Gené, and the low-key third entry was allowed to keep to its own devices.

What resulted was Brabham finally achieving his dream of winning Le Mans, scoring the 908 victory which the French marque craved.

Brabham would then claim a pair of ALMS titles in ’09 and ’10, and when tallied with his La Sarthe victory and a string of Sebring podiums, the son of an F1 champion from a farm in Australia has truly marked himself out as a true great in endurance racing.

 

The stats

	Emanuele Pirro	Allan McNish	David Brabham
Le Mans entries	13	14	18
Le Mans Wins	5	3	1

 

Which of the trio makes the Motor Sport Hall of Fame? That is for you to decide. Vote below