Saturday & Sunday - The Race

Traditionally, the race starts at 4pm, but for 2006, this was put back to 5pm to avoid a clash with World Cup football matches.

Quite what happened during lap 4 is debateable, but at the time it did appear that one Aston indirectly took a second out, but whatever, the events on lap 4 essentially decided the race result for AMR. Car 69, driven by Fabio Babini, spun at the esses du Karting on an oil spill. Since there is little run off at the point of the track, the car made contact with the crash barriers on both sides of the track damaging the entire front suspension, radiator and rear bodywork. At the time, it was postulated on Radio Le Mans that the oil had perhaps come from 007. 007 had needed a long unscheduled pit-stop on lap 4 to fix a spilt oil pipe on the sump. The pipe was damaged on a kerb - this was claimed to have occurred at the entry to the pit lane when Darren Turner got a late instruction to pit after the Safety Car was deployed following the crash of 69. Who knows - but the action of one car had an indirect effect on the other. After the first hour, 009 was 15th overall, (second in GT1 just behind Corvette 64), car 62 was 22nd overall (7th in class) with 007 way way back in 47th (last in class).