Bentley's stunning 2003 Le Mans win: ‘Audi said it would never work’

“I negotiated an engine deal with [then-Audi CEO] Dr Paefgen of Audi, and we shook on it. But he said ‘you’ll never get it past marketing to get an Audi engine into a Bentley race car.’”

Gush had Paefgen’s theoretical support guaranteed if he managed to make the unthinkable happen at the crunch meeting.

“I had to convince VW AG that it was a good thing to do. So that was quite a career moment, presenting in front of Dr Piëch – the man behind the Porsche 917!” he remembers laughing.

“I had a model of the Bentley car in the room, and we explained what we wanted to do. He didn’t say yes, he didn’t say no, he just asked for more detail – from there the project evolved.”

Although Gush didn’t have the full green light, he knew he had to invoke the spirit of Bentley’s bygone age: press on regardless, but be pragmatic to the hilt.

“There was a lot of pressure to wait,” he says. “But I felt if you waited too long, the moment would pass and we wouldn’t get it done.

“The key to the whole thing was actually budgeting and so I worked very closely with [sports car team boss] Richard Lloyd, and then John Wickham, in putting a budget together that was ‘zero based.’ Ulrich Baretzky [Audi’s engine guru] really took the project to heart and helped us a lot. Getting the right people on board was critical.

“So, we started at zero and said, ‘Well, what do we need to go and compete, to make our car really competitive?

“That budget was just a fraction of what the VW group was spending on motor sport which led to a bit of an incredulous attitude: ‘You’ll never do it for that!’ Which was a big motivation for me to get it done.

“Adrian Hallmark’s been on record saying that our expenditure was less than the hospitality of Audi, but that’s very difficult to verify! I was just proud of the fact we got it all done, we never wanted for anything.”

Bentley’s 2001 Le Mans return

Bentley’s first effort for its Le Mans return in 2001 would be the EXP Speed 8, and Gush emphasises that autonomy was the name of the game for a racing story which some suggest is just an Audi R8 prototype with a roof on it.

“The operation that we took over had an incredible depth of manufacturing, which was really good – there was more British content in the Bentley than there was German content in the Audi: the R8 chassis was designed by Dallara, the gearbox was from Ricardo,” he asserts.

“When I presented the project to Piëch, I said it was a three-year project: finish the race the first year, podium in the second and win it the third,” says Gush. “I got that slightly wrong!

“But that podium in 2001 was as sweet as the victory in 2003. It was fantastic, and the amount of support we had [from the fans] was incredible.”

Bentley had shown great potential in ’01, but had still lost out to the dominant Audi R8s. While the British brand perhaps didn’t need a quantum performance leap, it still required sizeable gains to win.

“Dr Paefgen was then assigned to be managing director of Bentley,” says Gush. “He just said ‘Can this Le Mans car win as it is?’ I told him ‘No. We need a new car.’

“He said ‘Right, you’ve given me your budget already. For 2002, I want you to go from two cars down to one car and halve the costs. Use your saving for a new car in 2003.’

“We all know that doesn’t work! But we made a lot of savings. We had to start again with everything – and Pete Elleray was getting some fantastic results out of the wind tunnel.”

“I’d had the idea for the car a while back,” Elleray told Andrew Frankel in 2012, “but I didn’t feel well enough established to stand there in the early days and state ‘this is what we need’”.

What Elleray and co produced in the Speed 8 was a monster, a well-handling “giant go-kart” which, according to Gush, the drivers loved both to wheel and admire.

“For me, the Bentley is still the most beautiful-looking Le Mans car ever,” Kristensen said in 2010, a driver who regularly reunites with the car for historic events, including the Goodwood Members’ Meeting two weeks ago.

Also helping was the grunt in the back, which had been new for 2002.

“I’d decided we were never going to use a 100% customer engine again,” Gush says. “So I asked Baretzky what can we do to develop this?

“We went to a 4-litre direct injection engine, which then became our own, and then you’re no longer a customer. That was a turning point.”

“When the full weight of Audi’s development programme was thrown behind Bentley for 2003 it became a superb engine,” Guy Smith said to Keith Howard in 2007.

Did Audi gift 2003 Le Mans win to Bentley?

2002 had brought a fourth-place finish for the sole EXP, before Audi had come to the end of its initial three-year cycle with the R8 at the end of 2002, pulling back to focus on its new diesel developments – though many R8 customers were still in the ’03 field.

With this new car, the reduced Audi works presence and Joest team members — including Kristensen — seconded to Bentley, was Audi simply ‘letting’ Bentley win in ’03?

“I wouldn’t have thought it was the case,” contends Gush. “I don’t think any of its customer teams would have allowed that sort of thing to happen. Those guys are all racers.

“Piëch’s philosophy was always internal competition improves the product” Brian Gush

“Dr Piëch’s philosophy was always internal competition improves the product. Keep the pressure on. There was a big rivalry.”

With Bentley now the de-facto VW works operation though, what had been conceived as a pseudo indy effort suddenly had a huge weight of expectation on it for 2003.

“Certainly the management team expected us to win – I felt very uncomfortable with that,” says Gush.

“It’s not something that you say upfront, and a lot of people [from VW] were saying it. They also booked the Savoy in Mayfair for a party before the race, which I really was uncomfortable about.”

On the big day though, Le Mans 2003, Gush and his team delivered – Smith, Kristensen and Rinaldo Capello took the win with Mark Blundell, David Brabham and Johnny Herbert making it a Bentley 1-2, the two cars relatively unchallenged with the next closest finisher – an Audi R8 – five laps behind the winner. Not that it was easy, or free from corporate intervention.

“Dr Paefgen asked me to arrange that the cars came across the line together, because an Audi had done this before,” remembers Gush. “I refused – I felt it was just a stunt.

“If you ask one driver to slow down, that’s when he falls off. I wasn’t prepared to risk anything right at the end. We had some tense words in the pitlane.”

Once corporate relations were smoothed over, Bentley took its first Le Mans win in 73 years – and a hugely popular one at that. With the incredible Speed 8 looking to be a contender for years to come, Gush already had the future mapped out.

“We were geared up to continue. I did my budget, I had my plan, all ready for 2004.

“I had quite a few meetings with Dr Paefgen about it. But in the final meeting, he said to me, ‘So what are you going to do differently in 2004?’

“I replied ‘We’re going to win again, we are really competitive, and we’ve invested in this and this etc.’

“He said ‘But you finished 1-2, how can you improve? Now we have to repay VW’s investment in Bentley and concentrate on developing the GT road car and making a profit.’

“It was disappointing, but you could see the point.”

However, what that team achieved in a relatively small period of time is something which will stick in the minds of motor sport fans for eternity – just like the stunning Bentley Speed 8. A restoration of British racing pride.

“I’d say [getting the win was] equal with the podium in 2001,” asserts Gush.

“Firstly, getting the programme approved was right up there, and doing it for the money that I promised to – because there’s a lot of bullshit in terms of programmes and expenditure.

“Standing on the podium is something that is just very, very special, and the amount of support that we got [from the fans] was fantastic.

“The other thing that was amazing was that it was about revitalisation of the Bentley brand.

“Before, whenever you asked anyone who they worked for at the factory, they always said Rolls-Royce.

“After 2001, when we came back and got a podium, there was no question as to where you were: it was Bentley. That demonstrated the power of motor sport as to brand identity and brand building.

“WO Bentley, was the last motor sport director before I started the racing programme again – I was quite proud to say I was the second Bentley motor sport director!”