The 2004 Le Mans 24 Hours lived up to all the expectations of a great race in the GTS Class.  It was always going to be a mammoth battle between the two Corvette C5-Rs and the Prodrive Ferrari 550Ms!  And what a battle it turned out to be .........

The #66 Ferrari started from pole position and, after a small mistake at Mulsanne Corner, Darren Turner in the #65 Ferrari managed to squeeze past Oliver into second place in class.  However, at the first round of pitstops, Oliver, who was double stinting in the #64 Compuware Corvette, came out ahead of the two Ferraris thanks to some lightning pit work from the Corvette racing team.

The #64 Corvette remained in the class lead for much of the Saturday running, going into the night ahead of #66 Ferrari, the #65 Ferrari and the #63 Corvette.  Ron Fellows in the #63 car had suffered from an early spin on oil that also claimed victim for two of the front running Audis.  However, the most dramatic incident for Ron was once darkness had fallen with a massive blow out at 175 mph pitching him into the barriers.  Not only that but a prototype car, in the confusion of smoke and dust, hit him after the accident causing Ron concussion!

It was to be a massive fight back for the 63 car - but more of that later!

The #64 Corvette also had an incident packed night!  Jamie Davis in the UK Audi came up behind Jan Magnussen and, without warning, dived up the inside, pitching him into the barriers.  Oliver was also squeezed between a Dome and Porsche, and went off at the first Mulsanne chicane when a flat spotted tyre created vibrations big enough to prevent him seeing the braking markers!!

The net result of all this was a 5.5 lap deficit to the the #66 Ferrari, but still second in Class.  Meanwhile, Johnny (O'Connell) and Max (Papis) were leading a fightback in the #63 Corvette and had soon overhauled the #65 car to reach third in GTS.

Then it was the turn of the #66 Ferrari to suffer from incidents!  The car had a wheel bearing failure which locked up the left front!  Tomas Enge brought the car back to the pits for repairs and, tantalisingly, came out of the pitlane after repairs immediately behind the #64 Corvette!  However, it wasn't to last as the problems on the left front continued and eventually put the car some way down the field.

So, it was now #64, #63 and #65 in that order in GTS and that was the way it stayed until the end of the race.  For Corvette Racing it was a great result - 1st and 2nd again in GTS!  For Oliver, Olivier (Beretta) and Jan (Magnussen) it was a triumph, and well deserved!

It was also 6th overall for the team - a wonderful achievement!