Peter Dumbreck went to the 1999 Le Mans 24-hour race hoping for a win with Mercedes. He left happy to have escaped with his life.

It's ten years ago now. I was 25 years old. At my first Le Mans 24. It's a big race; off the scale in terms of atmosphere. So I was nervous. But I'd no need to be; all the build up, preparation and testing suggested we were in with a good chance of taking a victory. I'd no idea that before the weekend was over I'd be splashed across the newspapers the world-over.

From the start of Mercedes' Le Mans challenge, I was involved in the CLR's development with its team, AMG. And needless to say, not once did the stability problem surface. I'd been at nearly all the test programmes, and prior to Le Mans we'd done two 30-hour endurance tests – all without a glitch.

That's not to say it's unheard of. It's happened before and it's since. But for three cars to flip at one event makes it more than a coincidence.

After the first flip [with Mark Webber at the wheel, following other cars, during Thursday's practice session] we told ourselves 'Oh, that's a freak occurence. He was just unlucky.'

For such a big car, it always felt quite light to drive – it was a big contrast between my Formula Nippon racer in Japan [F3000/GP2 equivalent]. The steering was very light and you could feel the car porpoising around, but that just seemed like a handling characteristic.

They rebuilt Webber's car, and he went out first. On the first lap, when no other car was near him, he went over a crest near Mulsanne Corner and the car just launched itself into the skies. It kind of raised our eyebrows a bit!

That car was withdrawn. But the other two were kept in the race. As drivers, we left everything up to Mercedes and the AMG team, who decided it all behind closed doors. I don't think any driver of my age at the time, given that opportunity, would have said anything about it. And then there's the racing driver mentality: 'It's never going to happen to me.'

Needless to say, Webber couldn't believe that we were going to race. AMG spoke with Adrian Newey [the Formula One race car designer, widely considered an authority figure on aerodynamics] and the cars' main change at such short notice was putting little winglets on the front.

The team put Christophe Bouchout out first, to keep a cool head amongst traffic and put in some fast times. Then Nick Heidfeld had his stint, before Bouchout took another turn at the wheel to try and make the ground early on. It was paying off. We were running in third place. Then I set off, saw my lap times, and thought, 'Actually, I'm doing well.' My times were good and I could see that I was comfortably catching the second-placed car [a Toyota GT-One].

But I had a dilemma. Following Webber's crash, we'd been given instructions not to slipstream other cars [travel directly behind the vehicle in front to cut the drag of your car's airflow]. But we'd never talked of a situation where you'd be chasing down a rival, and at a long circuit like Le Mans, slipstreaming plays a big part in gaining an advantage. In the cockpit I was thinking, 'Am I supposed to just wait behind him until the next pitstop?' I didn't know.

I was a good second or two a lap faster. But added to that, the other Mercedes was behind me. I didn't want him catching me.

Even so, I wasn't close enough at that stage for there to have been any effect on the car's balance. I distinctly remember taking loads out of the gap on the brakes into Mulsanne, and then he got on the power and went away from me. As I came out of the corner I thought to myself, 'OK, he's far enough away from me that I can stay flat on the power down to Indianapolis.'

I was about five laps into my stint. Fairly shifting, too. About 180 to 190mph. Until the car started going up into the air, I knew exactly what was going on. Then I just thought 'Oh… there's a nice blue sky up there. I'm on for a big crash here'.

A lot of people in near-death situations talk later about life flashing before their eyes, but I never had any of that. I just thought: 'Right, I'm gonna have a crash, but Webber's had two already and he's OK, so I'll be alright.'

I was massively lucky. After the flips, the car started coming into the ground backwards. If it had gone in sideways or, worse still, forwards or on the roof, it would have been a lot harder on my body. [After somersaulting five or six times and clearing the crash barriers by 200 feet, the car smashed down inside the adjacent forest.]

For whatever reason, they'd recently created a clearing in the forest and that was where the car landed. Luckier still, if I'd been racing a British car [right-hand drive] I would have had a tree trunk through my backside. The bottom of the monocoque was pierced by a tree trunk on the passenger side.

I remember some of it. But I was punch drunk from the blow of the impact and don't remember getting out of the car. The stretcher they put me on was a makeshift job with material and a couple of poles. I felt constrained, and demanded they let me move my arms and legs. So they let me wiggle everything around. Then my mind is a blank.

The next place I recall is the medical centre. The team doctor was there and some medical staff, as well as my mate, Darren Turner [reserve driver for AMG] and my mum and dad.

There was no major check over, or MRI brain scan. Everyone seemed happy with me. To them, I probably seemed compus mentis. But I was very dazed and confused.

Oddly, I can remember flashes, such as going to the race organisers' office, to explain what happened. It's the opposite of when you get drunk and you gradually start losing your memories then end up with none. I gradually started getting my memory back. I vaguely recall giving a breath test – because of a quirk in law as we were racing on public roads. But I could hardly breath, never mind be breathalysed.

Mercedes pretty much said the crashes were caused by driver error: driving too close to the other cars. But it's a motor race; what are you supposed to do if you can't do that? They went on to cancel the entire race programme for the CLRs. Clearly, there were fundamental design flaws at fault, not the guy behind the wheel.

Strangely, I came away from the crash feeling invincible, not vulnerable. I started doing daft things, not on the track, but in everyday life.

On the public roads I was taking too many risks, because I had this feeling I'd be OK, no matter what I did. And I had a lot of fun in Tokyo [where he was racing], living the highlife. It didn't get so bad that I had to seek help over it, but I had to sit myself down and calm it all.

My philosophy is not to think about how close it was. But I did take a different outlook on life from it. I'm not particularly religious, but today I feel if your number's up, your number's up. Mine wasn't.

Watch footage of the crash on YouTube.


Related links:

• 24 facts about Le Mans
• When things go wrong on the road
• What it's like to... survive death road
• What it's like to... drive a car underwater
• What it's like to... ride through suburbia at 185mph
   

This article originally appeared in issue seven of V-ZINE, the motoring magazine that is distributed exclusively to the members of the Shell V-Power Club, Shell's premium loyalty scheme dedicated to Shell V-Power customers. Click here to find out more about the club.