It had been nearly three-quarters of a century since a Bentley turned a wheel in anger on the famed Circuit de la Sarthe, but in 2003 the #7 car made Bentley’s return official by winning Le Mans outright. It took just two years of racing for the company from Crewe to learn important lessons about handling and aerodynamics with their new cars. Despite being in the final year of the racing program, Bentley incorporated all of their recently-acquired knowledge from the earlier cars into the new 2003 Speed 8, which was essentially a new car from the ground up. Retained is the 4-liter Audi-sourced V8 engine (Bentley and Audi share a corporate parent), producing well in excess of 600 horsepower. The new design and proven engine were more than enough to propel the #7 car to victory in the hands of Guy Smith, Dindo Capello, and Tom Kristensen.
