The return of Porsche's Le Mans winner that never was

Built to conquer the 24 Hours, the Porsche LMP2000 was instead shelved after a sole test outing. Allan McNish gets reacquainted with the car he once hoped to take to glory

The future looked as bright as the Swabian day for Allan McNish. It was early November 1999. Already a Le Mans 24 Hours winner, he’d just completed the first test of the new car he believed he’d be racing at the French enduro the following year. It was clearly a step forward on the machine in which he had triumphed in 1998 and, with a three-year contract in his briefcase, sportscar superstardom beckoned.

McNish did go on to become an all-time sportscar great, but he never got to race the car he tested that day at Porsche’s Weissach test track after a brief shakedown the previous evening. For him there would be only one more race in a car built by the marque with which he had been victorious at the Circuit de la Sarthe the previous year.

In this article

Gary Watkins

Le Mans

Allan McNish

Porsche Team

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Author Gary Watkins

Gary Watkins has, for reasons best known to himself, devoted all his working life to covering sportscar racing. This season is his 33rd as a motorsport journalist, during which time he has reported on major long-distance events on four continents and approaching 80 24-hour races. He reckons a degree in political philosophy makes him well qualified for covering the sometimes Machiavellian world of international sportscars.

Gary, who also writes for Motor Sport, Autocourse, RACER and others, lives in Surbiton close to the former workshops of the Cooper Formula 1 team but spends more time on the road than at home for most of the year.