McLaren, at its first attempt!

The 1995 24 Hours of Le Mans was one of the wettest races in the event’s history with about 17 hours of steady rain. The race was won by the #59 McLaren F1 GTR driven by JJ Lehto, Yannick Dalmas and Masanori Sekiya.

It was McLaren’s first Le Mans win, … at its first attempt.

Star of the event was JJ Lehto who put a remarkable performance. The Finnish driver, who had just recovered from two broken vertebrae sustained in an accident just a year before while testing the F1 Benetton, was lapping as much as 23 seconds (!) faster than anyone else during his night stints in the pouring rain.

As he climbed out of the car, a reporter asked him how it was driving at such speed in these conditions, he just answered “it was fun” with a big smile on his face.

It was a first victory for a Finnish driver (Lehto) but also for a Japanese driver (Sekiya) at the 24 Hours of Le Mans. For Dalmas, (left on the picture below) it was the third of four victories.