Benjamin Goethe is a long time sportscar racing driver, having done his first Spa 24 Hours in 2020. 2026 however is the first time that the Danish-German racer, who holds a British passport too, are going to compete at the 24 Hours of Le Mans
Racing24-7.net caught up with him prior to the Sunday test day, to hear about his expections for the race week.
Are you looking forward to your first Le Mans as a driver?
“Yeah, yeah, very much looking forward to. It’s a race, I’ve always dreamed of doing. It’s the pinnacle of endurance racing, so yeah, really looking forward to it. ”
I guess your dad (Roald Goethe, three time Le Mans starter) has already told many stories from here?
“Yeah, exactly. I’ve come here a lot as a kid, to watch him watch him do it, so I’m excited to be doing the race for my first time. It’s cool, that he’s coming next weekend to watch the race, so yeah, exciting second one in the family to do it.”
Photo: JJ Media
The McLaren has showed quite okay pace at Spa Francorchamps, and also partly at Imola, so you feel like it’s been a good start, pace wise?
“Yeah, the last two races have been really good for the brand, obviously, Obviously Imola didn’t go as planned (with a bad starting position for the race, ed), but Spa, obviously the sister car won, we finished in the top five – showed really good pace. So if we can hope that continues into this race, I think we’re in a really good shot of achieving a good result.”
But you never know. It’s so marginal with everything here. Contact or puncture or the wrong place, wrong time…
“Exactly, you almost, you don’t need to have the best pace out of all the cars, you just need to make it to the end, and if you make it to the end, then you’re in with a shot of a good result. So yeah, for the first 22 hours, it’ll be about keeping it clean, no penalties, no crashes, no contact. And then maybe in the last two hours, we can push for a result, but let’s get there first.”
Photo: JJ Media
The dynamic here, is very different from, for example, the GT World Challenge races, where it’s very rare to get a Safety Car here, to reset everything.
“Yeah, exactly. You can’t lose the lap to the leader. You need to stay as close as possible, but it’s finding the balance of doing that without taking too much risk. So yeah, without the Safety Car bunching it all up, it makes it a bit more complicated. But hopefully we’ll be the leader, so it won’t be matter to us, but yeah, we’ll see on the day.”
Benjamin Goethe shares the Garage 59 McLaren #58 with Swedish racer Alexander West and German racer Finn Gehrsitz. The three drivers where 6th and 16th in the two practice sessions on Sunday, respectively.
