The former F1 driver says he is not unnerved by his previous experiences of the danger inherent in sportscar racing

The former Red Bull driver Mark Webber, who retired from Formula One at the end of last season, was energised and enthusiastic about his return to the Le Mans 24 Hours here at the Circuit de la Sarthe, despite having had his car go airborne twice the last time he competed at the endurance classic in 1999.

That year Webber's Mercedes CLR took off in qualifying at Indianapolis and in the pre-race warm-up on the Mulsanne straight and was withdrawn due to fears of a design flaw. Peter Dumbreck's Mercedes also took to the air and landed in the trees during the race itself, and the team withrew from competition altogether.

Webber went on to success keeping his wheels on the ground, racing in F1 for 11 years and winning nine races before opting to join Porsche, who have returned to the sharp-end of prototype sportscar racing this season. The marque last won here in 1998, the year before the Australian driver was last at Le Mans.

But being back on track for qualifying was nothing but a pleasure for Webber.

“It's a lifetime ago to be honest,” he said. “I accept that the cars back in the late nineties were dangerous. A lot of guys had problems, not just Mercedes.”

But he and the racing have moved on, not least in that the cars are now 15 seconds a lap quicker than at the back end of the last century.

“It was nice just to get back out there. The respect from me went up a notch. It really is a sensational track, to be successful here you need to get a lot of things right.”

Indeed, it is the circuit itself – eight and a half miles long and partly based on public roads –that is part of the attraction for Webber.

“It's an old-school venue, a real, raw, pure, endurance challenge out there,” he said. A challenge that is partly due to the very longevity of this unique motor race, enjoying its 82nd edition this year.

“The risks are there but we enjoy the precision and doing it lap after lap,” Webber said. “Parts of the track have been there for decades, that's the whole thing. With these tracks, it doesn't matter what era of motor racing driver you are, you still get a buzz out of the old stuff.”

He believes that buzz is missing from many of the identikit circuits that populate F1 in the modern era.

“It's very hard to build a track now with character,” Webber said. “There are some popping up but it's very hard to provide that element of mystique. Now it's like copy-paste – on some of the tracks now all the kerbs are the same. And that's the little detail we like – to manipulate the car and play with it – I can grab a bit here, but I can't grab a bit there, so within a lap you have all those micro challenges.”

One of his new challenges is dealing with the Porsche's hybrid powertrain that he has discovered was no disappointment after coming out of F1. It was, he said, “a breath of fresh air” – coming out or corners especially, the car compared favourably with his old formula. Moreover he was not put off by the technological innovation the prototypes are using (the other two leading manufacturers, Audi and Toyota, also boast different and unique hybrid technology).

“Look,” he said, smiling. “Concorde doesn't fly any more. It's the way it is. Things are moving on, I'm a bit old school but when you try this stuff you cannot help but have admiration for how special it is.”

He hopes to prove just that in the race in which, realistically, just seeing his Porsche 919 Hybrid to the end on its debut outing would be accomplishment enough. But there is no intent to just sit back.

“Our mentality is racing hard,” he said. “It's like a 100-round boxing match, it's an absolute ding-dong. You have to throw punches in every round.”

The bell will ring for the off in front of an expected 240,000-strong crowd at 3pm on Saturday (2pm BST) and Webber, as fans of the sport know well, is nothing if not a fighter.