After the Ferrari 550 Maranello's success in endurance, Prodrive set out to develop the Aston Martin DBR9 when its founder, David Richards, took over part of the British constructor for sale by Ford, at the time in very bad shape. Since one avoids breaking up a winning team, engineer George Howard-Chappell was put in charge of developing the new car expected to go up against Corvette in a GT1 class dwindling in number of constructors due to the high cost of designing the cars.

So, nearly 50 years after its one and only win at the 24 Hours, in 1959, Aston Martin Racing returned to Le Mans as an official outfit. Though it had a great showing at the 12 Hours of Sebring for its first race, at the first test session at Le Mans in 2005, the DBR9 tumbled following some strategic errors up against the yellow American that went on to score a one-two in the class.

The following year was hardly any better: incapable of repeating its win in Florida, the English green DBR9 and numbered to recall its predecessors' appereances in the Bond films, had to settle for second place at Le Mans. Though it has made life difficult for Corvette in the American Le Mans Series, risky periods of down-time (quite different from how it's done in Europe) allowed the Americans to grab the win at the end of the season.

The confrontation between Aston Martin and Corvette is always fair-play, as demonstrated by the gesture made by the Pratt & Miller mechanics, in charge of the Chevrolets, who queued up to go and wish their British colleagues good luck before the start of the 24 Hours of Le Mans.

Finally, in 2007, the DBR9 boasting the number 009 clinched the long-awaited victory, helped a bit by the early retirement of one of the Corvettes, Oliver Gavin having stopped at a marshal's post on the circuit after 22 laps. David Brabham, who reached the highest step on the overall podium at Le Mans in 2009, Rickard Rydell and Darren Turner won thanks to a flawless race and their top speed.

This first vicotry (the DBR9 repeated the exploit in 2008) is so important to Aston Martin that the car has remained untouched so to speak and has been on display at the British constructor's Heritage Center. Not for much longer if it finds a buyer on the Fiskens website. The price is available by request.

Cécile Bonardel / ACO - Translation by Nikki Ehrhardt /ACO