How Brabham overcame the odds

Championship tables never really tell the full story. A motorsport fan of the future might glance at the 2009 American Le Mans Series standings and think little of the fact that Highcroft's David Brabham and Scott Sharp extended their points lead at Petit Le Mans by finishing sixth in LMP1 while their title rivals Gil de Ferran and Simon Pagenaud were only classified ninth in the De Ferran Acura.

However that score sheet requires a big fat asterisk on that sixth place and a footnote reminding the world that the result was achieved in a car built up from a bare tub in just 15 and a half hours after Sharp had somersaulted the original chassis to destruction in opening practice - and that the new machine ran so smoothly that Brabham was able to come from last to fifth in his first stint, even though his car had not existed one day earlier.