Every so often something happens in the world of Motorsport which makes the whole world sit up and take notice, something that really shouldn’t be possible.

That something took place in the Petit Le Mans series race at Road Atlanta on Saturday 4th October 2008. The cars in the Le Mans Series are the pinnacle of sports car racing and teams spend time carefully preparing and prepping the cars all weekend, adding small and calculated adjustments to the car to perfect the handling for the optimum race performance when the lights turn green.

For the No.1 Audi team, preparation for the 12 hour race couldn’t have been much worse. Whilst Allan McNish made his way out on his reconnaissance lap to the grid, he lost control of the R10 TDi and crashed heavily causing damage to the front and rear of the car.

The Audi mechanics worked furiously and frantically in the pits in an attempt to get the car ready for the start of the race, however the damage suffered was too extensive and they were forced to start the race two laps down on the rest of the field.

Allan stayed at the wheel and determined to make up for his earlier mistake charged through the field. By the end of the first hour the car was back up to 15th position in the race and by the third hour the No.1 Audi was back on the lead lap, allowing the team to settle down and concentrate on running a tactical race to pull them back into contention.

The team of Allan McNish, Dindo Capello and Emanuele Pirro, would run through the next few hours slowly clawing their way closer to the front pair of the Peugeot 908 HDi driven by Christian Klien, Nicolas Minassian and Stephane Sarrazin and the No.2 Audi team of Lucas Luhr, Marco Werner.

Their progress had been helped by a couple of yellow flag cautions that caused the field to bunch back up, but their rise to the head of the pack was still impressive and maybe had some of the lead teams looking nervously over their shoulders at the daunting and ominous sight of the No.1 plated Audi. At the front the battle raged on as it had done over the previous eight hours with little more than five seconds covering the No.2 Audi and the Peugeot.

With 35 laps remaining the field bunched up under caution allowing Allan McNish to make his move on the restart, charging from fourth through to the lead ahead of the Peugeot of Christian Klien. The Peugeot driver attempted to fight back but he was unable to find a way back past the No.1 Audi which had completed an astonishing comeback from the jaws of defeat, crossing the line to take an unbelievable victory.

Allan McNish said. "To get 16-17 people from both crews on that and get it repaired when I thought we were out, they did something I didn't think was possible. No one in our team does the work to finish second. There's no question in my mind that when we got in the position at the end that I was going to do everything I could do to win this race. If it took us to the top step, then it was just desserts for the team.”

Allan McNish and Dindo Capello made a bit of history as well to add to the sweet taste of victory by becoming the first drivers to win at Petit Le Mans for three consecutive years.