HONG KONG - Hong Kong's Matthew Marsh has extra motivation firing his bid for glory at the gruelling Le Mans 24 Hour Race - to be the first driver from the Chinese territory to claim a podium finish.

Two years after becoming the first driver from the city to compete in the event, the 40-year-old will partner Japanese former Formula One driver Hideki Noda and Singapore-based Frenchman Jean de Pourtales in France this weekend.

The British-born Marsh had his first taste of the Le Mans 24 Hour in 2007, where he drove a Ferrari but failed to finish, and says the experience was overshadowed by his struggle just to get on to the grid.

"When I got there it was the culmination of so much money and effort and time that I suppose I was expecting it to be a lightning flash of ecstasy when the reality was just another motor race on another strip of asphalt," he said.

Marsh will be driving the Flex-Box Lola, an open-top racer powered by a 500bhp turbo-charged Mazda engine. The car is run by the German team Kruse-Schiller Motorsport and competes in the LM P2 class for prototypes.

The race features both the "Prototype" category, cars exclusively developed for competition, and the "Grand Touring" category, featuring adapted road cars.

Each of the categories is split into two parts. The overall winner of the famous race is almost certain to come from the LM P1 class, which will see a three-way battle between teams from Aston-Martin, Peugeot and Audi, the team that has won eight of the past nine races.

Marsh said the biggest challenge this year would be driving the powerful car, which could top speeds of 280 kilometres (174 miles) per hour around the 13.6-kilometre track.

"When I raced in 2007 I was in the entry level (GT2) but the prototypes are basically a F1 car. The car weighs 850 kilograms and it will generate 1500 kg of downforce at the end of the straight," said Marsh, who built up his neck strength by wearing lead weights attached to his helmet while karting.

Another pitfall to avoid is "getting sucked into having a motor race".

"Certainly the car I'm in is not the quickest car in its class. So there's no point in us trying to win on speed. We need to try and win by being clever and just being sensible really."

As the realities of economic belt-tightening and the need to cut down on emissions impact on motor racing, the 77th edition of the world's premier endurance race on June 13 and 14 will be the first to use new rules covering safety, reduction in costs and sustainable development.

"There are two pressures on motor sport," Marsh said. "One is the pressure on this moment, which is economic, but there is the greater ongoing pressure of our association with carbon emissions."

"There's a direct link between a car going round a race track and carbon going into the atmosphere."

Well-known on the racing circuit in Asia, Marsh, who moved to Hong Kong in 1990, won the Porsche Infineon Carrera Cup Asia in 2004.

Last year he became the only Hong Kong driver to have scored an FIA world championship point by finishing eighth in the final round of the FIA World Touring Car Championship in Macau.

But despite his success and the appearance of Hong Kong-based Darryl O'Young in the GT2 class at Le Mans, Marsh is not anticipating an explosion of racing drivers in Hong Kong or China.

"The sport hasn't grown locally probably because the economy is not yet ready for it. I think also the culture in China and in Asia generally doesn't really support the idea of talented people going into sport. I think that's a sport-wide phenomenon," he said.

So for now Marsh, who speaks of his pride at driving under the Hong Kong flag, is single-minded as the big race approaches.

"In the prototype cars it's far from a being certainty that you'll finish. I think if we make it to the finish we could be on the podium and to be on the podium at Le Mans would be quite something in front of a quarter of a million spectators."