Sir Chris Hoy: ‘Le Mans is nothing short of magical’

This Sunday on BBC Two at 9pm, a special, one-off documentary will air which maps out the journey Sir Chris Hoy took from the velodrome to la Sarthe.

“My dad bought me the Le Mans edition Scalextric when I was five or six,” cycling legend Sir Chris Hoy told TopGear.com a while back. “I had to ask my dad why these cars had lights, and he said ‘because they race in the night in the 24 hour race at Le Mans’. I never dreamt that I’d actually get the chance to race here.”

And race there, he most certainly did. After scaling the lofty heights of British cycling – he’s the first British Olympian to win six gold medals – Sir Chris Hoy didn’t really take to the retired life. Instead, he decided to transfer his considerable determination and see out a childhood dream: competing at the world’s hardest, most demanding 24hr race. Le Mans.

Why, though, take on an entirely new discipline on a notoriously difficult circuit? “It’s special because of the history of it,” Sir Chris says. “It allows amateur drivers to race side-by-side with some of the best professional racing drivers in the world.”

On the hardest thing about Le Mans

“The lack of time that you get in the car. I’d say it’s a bit like trying to learn a musical instrument but only getting the chance to play it three times a month. Most of the work I did was done virtually in a simulator, because you’d only get one or two test days on the track every couple of months and then you’re racing on tracks that you’ve never been to before.

“Even Le Mans itself is only open for that one week a year so you can’t go down there and practice.”

On how it compares to cycling

“The biggest challenge is the extreme level of concentration. It’s the mental exhaustion: you get out of the car after a two-and-a-half hour stint, and you’re absolutely soaking wet from sweat, your brain is just frazzled and you’re exhausted mentally.

“Physically your muscles aren’t aching, not like they are after racing on the bike, but it’s the mental focus that you’ve got to maintain for those extreme lengths of time and that’s what is so tough about it. Then there’s the lack of sleep and having to do it again 3 to 4 hours later.”

On the moments just before the race starts

“When you’re finally standing there and you’re waiting to get into the car, when you’ve got all your kit on, you can hear on the radio that there’s one lap to go before he comes in to hand the car over to you, you’ve just got adrenaline coursing through your veins.

“Once you get that done and you’re going down the pit lane, and you press the button that releases the car to take off the speed limiter and you pull out onto the track, it’s nothing short of magical.

“It’s hard to explain because its different to any other track I’ve been on or any race I’ve done because you suddenly realise that you’re now part of the history of this amazing event. Every part of the track has history, and moments and crashes and things have happened that you know about and you realise you’re now racing wheel-to-wheel with the best drivers in the world on this historic track.

“It takes a few laps for that to bed in, but you’re realising that you have to switch on and not keep thinking ‘wow, this is amazing’ because you’ve got to focus on the race and not lose 1/10th of a second here and there.”

On doing it all over again

“I would love to do it again, desperate to do it again! I thought it might just be something that would be a box ticked and I’d move on to something else. But just the enjoyment of it, the adrenaline and the sense of speed and excitement that goes with it, it’s just different to any other race and there’s something about Le Mans that’s special.

“It’s not even just because I’m a first-timer there because you speak to some of the Formula One racing drivers like Mark Webber or Bruno Senna who have raced at every level, in all kinds of races all over the world and you can still see that they’re excited about the race and highly motivated by it and really up for it - that just speaks volumes for the event itself.”

On aspiring racing drivers

“Go for it, first of all. You don’t have to have a ridiculous amount of money to race cars. There are a lot of misconceptions that you’ve got to be some sort of multi-millionaire to race cars, but once you’ve got your licence you contact the MSA and you sit your test and it’s very straightforward.

“You can buy a car for £500 to £1000 and race novice level with similarly like-minded people with similar budgets and have a huge amount of fun with it. There are all different types of racing but you don’t necessarily have to be racing at the sharp end and doing things like Le Mans, you could be doing local races for fun - once you get into it, it’s really addictive.”

Sir Chris Hoy: 200mph at Le Mans airs Sunday 9 October on BBC Two at 9pm