A piece of Le Mans history was made when the #3 Peugeot claimed victory at the 24 Hours in 1993. Two thirds of its driver line-up were event debutants, each with only a single race in the car under their belts. That rookie pairs had won just twice in the event’s 70-year history suggested that they weren’t the favourites to conquer the world’s biggest endurance race, a point underlined by the fact that their car’s third driver, while a veteran of two Le Mans starts, had never before raced the 905 Evo 1 Bis.
But on the final hurrah for Group C cars at the Circuit de la Sarthe, Christophe Bouchut and Eric Helary were joined atop the podium come Sunday afternoon by Geoff Brabham, and a pair of first-timers netted Le Mans glory for the first time in more than 40 years. The era-concluding 24 Hours had spawned two new French stars, who between them would rack up a further 19 (Bouchut) and 10 (Helary) appearances at the great race and come within touching distance of the grand prix grid.
“It’s even a bit unbelievable, you need time to realise what happened,” reflects Bouchut, who like Helary was 26 years old at the time. “Especially when you come for the first time to Le Mans and you’re still a young driver in terms of endurance racing, because at that time the drivers were older than they are now. It was also something special.”
Yet Bouchut, a podium finisher on his Macau Grand Prix debut in 1989, is clear that Le Mans wasn’t the
