Young Version — August 1999

I was already running lap times on par with the leaders by my second stint, once I had gotten used to left-foot braking. Problems had also cropped up during the first stint. On the final straight at Hunaudières, traveling at about 340 km/h, the Porsche ahead suffered an engine failure. For a moment I couldn’t see through my windshield—I was covered in oil. The pit crew told me to come in, but a pit stop would cost about three minutes, so I kept driving and left it to luck. After that I kept attacking; we were about five seconds per lap quicker than the leading BMW… At that rate we could have taken the lead by morning. Even a lap down, I refused to give up. Around Sunday noon I was still running well: the BMW was doing 3:43.146, while I was at 3:37.8 (the OCR reading of these times is uncertain). Then smoke began filling the cockpit.

The smell was awful, and the smoke stung my eyes. I vomited on the straight. I felt so sick that I threw up, but I hadn’t eaten since the night before, so only water and sports drink came up. Lucky—if I’d eaten anything, my racing suit would have been covered in vomit. I pitted shortly after noon and handed the car to Ukyo. Because I had been sick, Ukyo and Toshio each ended up doing three stints. Both kept pushing hard. We knew we couldn’t win, but we kept attacking—that’s how you race a sprint. Ukyo drove to the finish, and we took the overall second-place flag. It felt incredible to finish second and have the Japanese drivers recognized for their driving. Our TS020 was a 1998 model, yet we secured second place. We also drove brilliantly. I’m grateful to Ukyo and Toshio. Kunimitsu once said that standing on the Le Mans podium might happen only once in a lifetime; that podium is special… How lucky I am. Four years ago, when I won the GT2 class with the NSX, I stood here with Kunimitsu and Akira. Now I’m on the Le Mans podium for the second time. I think this kind of happiness will never…