Breaking news
WEC 24 Hours of Le Mans
British GTE driver Kapadia escapes Le Mans fire
Team AAI driver Alex Kapadia emerged unscathed from the fire which caused a long red flag-period during last night's qualifying for the Le Mans 24 Hours.
Sam Smith
Edited: Jun 12, 2015, 11:34 AM
Copy link
Share on Viber
The British driver, who is making his Le Mans debut this week, endured a dramatic moment when he was forced to stop on the Mulsanne Straight in his blazing No.67 Porsche 911 RSR last night.
"I had the oil pressure light coming on a few times and radioed through to tell the team," recalled Kapadia.
"We have an oil re-fill button which I was told to use and then I came in to the pits and everything was checked out."
"I went back out and then at Dunlop Chicane the light came back on again," continued Kapadia. "My engineer Massimo then came on the radio and said: 'stop the car, stop the car.'
"I dipped the clutch immediately and pulled off close to the Hunandieres restaurant on the Mulsanne. It was then I could smell smoke and could see some fire at the back."
Having been forced to immediately stop the car, Kapadia then looked on anxiously as marshals had to sprint a reasonable distance from a marshals post to extinguish the oil fire.
"I was helpless for about a minute as the car burnt but the damage is confined to the engine bay and there is no damage to the shell, just a lot of the components around it, like sensors, lights and camera mounts," Kapadia stated.
The team, which is being overseen by experienced engineer and ProSpeed Competition team manager Rudi Penders is installing a new engine which is arriving from Porsche this afternoon.
The team had just fitted the race engine which was damaged beyond repair in the fire.
"It was a real shame because we had just made progress with my team mate Xavier (Maassen) going four seconds faster," continued Kapadia.
"We will be replacing literally a thousand parts on the car today, so hopefully we can get it back to a good race prepared state before the race tomorrow."
We want your opinion!
What would you like to see on Motorsport.com?
Take our 5 minute survey.
- The Motorsport.com Team
Read and post comments
Read also :
Share Or Save This Story
Copy link
Share on Viber
Previous article ACO reveals 2017 LMP2 regulation details
Next article Ford GT aero guru revealed
Top Comments
There are no comments at the moment. Would you like to write one?
View More & Comment
More from
Sam Smith
Formula E won't change roadmap for new manufacturers
Formula E
Formula E
Formula E won't change roadmap for new manufacturers
Didier Artzet: The French F1 talent that slipped through the net
Formula 1
Formula 1
Didier Artzet: The French F1 talent that slipped through the net
Formula E teams warn against manufacturer-led "arms race"
Formula E
Formula E
Formula E teams warn against manufacturer-led "arms race"
More from
Alex Kapadia
Le Mans 24 Hours: Brits on top in every class at La Sarthe
WEC
WEC
24 Hours of Le Mans
Le Mans 24 Hours: Brits on top in every class at La Sarthe
Puncture costs Chandhok and Murphy Prototypes podium at Silverstone
European Le Mans
European Le Mans
Puncture costs Chandhok and Murphy Prototypes podium at Silverstone
Chandhok qualifies in 3rd position in first ever European Le Mans race
European Le Mans
European Le Mans
Chandhok qualifies in 3rd position in first ever European Le Mans race
Latest news
Charles Milesi "can’t really remember what happened" in huge WEC crash
WEC
WEC WEC
Monza
24 min
Charles Milesi "can’t really remember what happened" in huge WEC crash
Qatar Grand Prix grid down to 16 as Luca Marini withdraws
MotoGP
MGP MotoGP
Qatar GP
57 min
Qatar Grand Prix grid down to 16 as Luca Marini withdraws
‘I’ll try to win, somehow’ – Can Lewis Hamilton and Max Verstappen fight back for F1 Brazilian GP victory?
Formula 1
F1 Formula 1
Sao Paulo GP
2 h
‘I’ll try to win, somehow’ – Can Lewis Hamilton and Max Verstappen fight back for F1 Brazilian GP victory?
Kyle Busch Remembered: Winning two NASCAR Cup championships at Homestead
NASCAR Cup
NAS NASCAR Cup
Homestead-Miami
3 h
Kyle Busch Remembered: Winning two NASCAR Cup championships at Homestead
Feature
Discover prime content
Subscribe and access Motorsport.com with your ad-blocker.
From Formula 1 to MotoGP we report straight from the paddock because we love our sport, just like you. In order to keep delivering our expert journalism, our website uses advertising. Still, we want to give you the opportunity to enjoy an ad-free and tracker-free website and to continue using your adblocker.
You have 2 options:
- Become a subscriber.
- Disable your adblocker.
Subscribe now Already subscribed? Sign in here
Already disabled your adblocker?
Reload page
Manage Alerts
Subscribe