All motorsports enthusiasts (like yours truly) moan that regulatory bodies are always castrating the sport. And if it wasn’t for racing bodies, motorsports would be more fun 🙄. Well, once (just once) FIA said what the hey and essentially pulled all the stops. That’s basically how Group B came to be, and tragically, it was too much.
The video above succinctly explains what happened.
An interesting look on how the Daytona Coupe, in the hands of Bob Bondurant, won the World Manufacturers’ GT Championship in 1965. Until seeing this I wasn’t aware of the all the team drama that happened that year.
Produced by Ferodo (yes, the brake pad brand), this is a 30 minutes glimpse into the 1968 race. With footage both from the race per se and the paddocks, it gives a good idea of what was Le Mans 52 years ago. Things were a LOT different back then compared to nowadays. Almost to a point, that if I didn’t know better, I would say it didn’t look “professional”.
So if you have 30 minutes to spare, it’s a nice film. Just for fun, I tried to spot the cars that I have in the film. However I wasn’t very successful, since I only have four cars of that race. And even worse, two are stinkers 😖.
Yes, in 1999 Mercedes-Benz built a flying car for Le Mans. Well, in all honesty I don’t think they specifically made a wingless airplane, but that CLR took flight. Despite the horrific (and absurd) crash, Peter Dumbreck walked away unscathed, a proof of Mercedes ruggedness. Though maybe they should consider a built-in parachute.
PS: That was the second CLR to reach for the clouds at La Sarthe. During practice on the Friday of the race Mark Weber flipped car #4 🛫.
A couple of months ago Ford released in their YouTube channel the documentary “Ford GT: The Return to Le Mans”. In almost 80 minutes they talk about the whole project, from the original GT40 to the new GT project. And just as cool, you can see a lot of race backstage.
For a race fan this is a real treat, to the point that I downloaded it to watch on a big screen TV. And one last thing: guess what will be the next model review here at W-143? 😎
Le Mans, June 14th, 1990. Nissan Motorsports had three cars on the track, ready for the gruesome 24 hours of racing on the following Saturday, June 15th. Two of them were RC90CK and one was the older RC89CP. Mark Blundell was piloting RC90CK #24, and it was his turn at qualifying on that Friday.
Specially at high level endurance racing, there’s an equilibrium between raw power and engine lifespan. All cars can produce more power then what they race with, but their engines would not last the 24 hours. So essentially engines are detuned for reliability. However, unbeknown to Mark or the whole Nissan team, his engine was faulty. When he started his qualifying lap, the wastegate for his RC90CK’s turbo system stuck shut. That translated to instead of the optimal 700-800 hp normally produced by his 3.5-liter twin-turbo V8, the turbos were delivering in excess of 1000 hp!
With that kind of raw power he lapped La Sarthe in an eye-watering 3m27.020s. Okay, but is that fast? If you take into consideration that the second fastest came a full 6 seconds (!!) behind, that’s unheard of. During that lap, on the Mulsanne straight he reached 383 km/h. As a comparison, the 2019’s pole position (Rebellion’s R-One AER #13) clocked 339.1 km/h in qualifying.
So unbelievably, a mechanical issue in your own engine can bizarrely be to your advantage 😲.
In the 90s, with everybody trying their hand at GT1 racing, Lamborghini didn’t want to miss the fun. So despite basically ZERO racing experience, they contracted French Signes Advanced Technology to build them a race car. Based on the lines of the current Diablo, they came up with the Lamborghini 132 GT1.
With a specially designed 6-liter engine delivering around 655 hp, they built one road-going example. And even got it homologated by the FIA in April of 1998. However, in September Audi bought Lamborghini and the program stopped right there.
And that was that, no Diablo at La Sarthe. What a shame! I for one would love to have a racing Raging Bull in the W-143 Garage.
VINWiki brings up another cool car story. After their piece on the Whittington brother’s win in 1979 (as told by John Ficarra), I’m always stopping by their YouTube channel. This time John tells the tale about the 1965 Le Mans race. I’ve read about this story before, but he provides a LOT more detail on the whys and hows. Trust me, if you’re a Le Mans nut it will be a very well spent 20 minutes.
The bad part is that I don’t have the 1965 250 LM #21 in the W-143 Garage.
And now I need it.
Bad…
Late this week Petrolicius uploaded a delightful article about the 1976 Japanese Grand Prix. Full of fantastic shots of the race and backstage, it captures very well the huge drama that occurred. The Japanese GP was the last race of the season, and both Niki Lauda and James Hunt had a solid shot at the title. However, Mother Nature played an important role, that meant victory for one and defeat for the other.
Click on the link above for the full article and photos.
You HAVE TO stop at the Museo Ferrari, at Maranello. From the web site:
The Ferrari Museum in Maranello invites visitors to live the Prancing Horse dream first-hand. It offers a unique and enthralling voyage of discovery, a story told through cars that have made automotive history on streets and circuits the world over.
The coolest part, of course, is to see the cars. Right now the current exhibition is called “90 Years”, celebrating Ferrari’s 90th anniversary in 2019. With that, you can see from the Alfa Romeo 8C 2300 Spider of 1932 to the Laferrari. So without a doubt there will be LOTS to see for the petrolheads. And to drool for.
