The 1987 24 Hours of Le Mans was the 55th Grand Prix of Endurance as well as the fifth round of the 1987 World Sports-Prototype Championship. It took place at the Circuit de la Sarthe, France, on the 13 and 14 June 1987. Jaguar was a strong contender, have won the four preceding rounds of the Championship. The Porsche works team had installed a new 3-litre engine into their 962s but their turbo engines would test their fuel economy.
Practice had been hampered by poor weather, and was notable for a big accident to Price Cobb who wrote off the third works Porsche. The rain continued into the race day and only eased as the race got underway. A chaotic first hour saw most teams diving into the pits to change off their rain-tyres. There was also a serious problem with the standard-grade fuel. Dropping from 105-octane, it played havoc with the engine-management systems of the Porsche turbo-engines, and the fancied teams from Joest and Kremer lost their cars with holed pistons. The second works Porsche was also afflicted, leaving just the single car hounded by the three Jaguars. Along with the Richard Lloyd car, these five cars jockeyed for position over the first quarter of the race, regularly swapping places. Rain returned as darkness fell, and a safety car came out when the Lloyd car caught fire at Mulsanne corner. Bell, Stuck and Holbert gradually pulled out a lead as the Jaguars had issues. Another safety came out when Win Percy had a huge accident on the Hunaudières straight. A tyre on his Jaguar blew out as he approached Mulsanne at over 350kp/h. The car rolled and disintegrated, but Percy was able to walk away unhurt. The race resumed two hours later as dawn was breaking, removing any fuel concerns for the Porsches. The Jaguars both failed in the morning and suddenly the Porsche was out on its own, with a fifteen lap lead. From there it was a simple coast to the finish giving Bell, Holbert and Stuck consecutive victories. The small Obermaier Racing team had a reliable race and survived the attrition for a fine second place, with local owner-driver Yves Courage third in his Cougar. Gordon Spice had a similarly convincing victory in the C2 class in his Spice-Fiero, finishing sixth overall over the Écurie Écosse, who in turn won the Index for Energy Efficiency. The twelve classified finishers was the smallest number since 1970.
Winning works Porsche 962C of Bell/Stuck/Holbert
Regulations
The FIA (Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile) aligned the Group C safety regulations with IMSA. The foot-pedals now had to be in a reinforced box and placed behind the front axle. Pushed by Jaguar and Walkinshaw, they also downgraded the fuel used from 105- to 98-octane [1][2] and removing toluene and other special fuel additives.[3] This would certainly impact the turbocharged Porsches to the level of around 20bhp.[2]
After the small adjustment to the Mulsanne corner last year, there was a much more significant change this year at the Dunlop Curve. The long right-hand bend was the first corner after the start-finish line and led up to the Esses section and Tertre Rouge. International motorcycle races used the shorter Bugatti Circuit. At the request of the FIM (Fédération Internationale de Motocyclisme) to reduce speeds approaching the Esses (where the Bugatti Circuit deviated away), the Dunlop Curve was tightened and a chicane installed just before the brow of the hill and the iconic Dunlop bridge. The net effect increased the overall circuit length by only 7 metres and increase lap-times by around 4-5 seconds.[1][4] The département also resurfaced the section from the Indianapolis corner to the Porsche curves.[1] Once again, the ACO (Automobile Club de l'Ouest) arranged a test day in mid-May. Of the prospective field of 50, only 23 cars arrived. Finally, the previous year's race had an English radio commentary broadcast locally on a limited basis. This year, Radio Le Mans was sponsored by the Silk CutJaguar team and Autosport magazine. It provided informed race-commentary for the legion of British fans onsite for the race, albeit not running right through the night, and would go on to become an established feature of the event.[1][5][4]
Entries
The five works manufacturers from the previous year returned to Le Mans, headlined by the showdown between Porsche and Jaguar. Indeed, Porsche could have been considered the underdogs after the dominant display by Jaguar, winning all four Championship races in the season to date. However, Porsche are masters of Le Mans and Jaguar still unproven over 24 hours of racing. The colloquial expression that "Le Mans is a British race held in France" was quite relevant, as 30-35000 British fans surged to the track for the big race,[6][7] estimated to be around a quarter of the total spectators.[5]
There were also three racing manufacturers each in C1 (WM, Sauber and Cougar) and C2 (Ecosse, Spice and ALD). The IMSA-GTP class would be a works contest between the Mazda rotaries and the Porsche four-wheel drive. With the dwindling field of GT interest and a full entry-list of prototypes, the ACO took no Group B entries. It was thus the first year with no cars homologated for production in the field since the class differentiation started in 1959.[8]
Class
Quantity
Turbo/Rotary engines
Group C1
31 / 26
25 / 22
IMSA-GTP
4 / 3
4 / 3
Group C2
25 / 19
7 / 5
Total Entries
60 / 48
36 / 30
Note: The first number is the number accepted, the second the number who started.
Group C1
This year the Rothmans Porsche works team arrived with an improved car ahead, not yet released to their customer teams. Their 962 now sported a fully water-cooled 3-litre engine. The chassis also changed from a 16"/19" front-rear wheel diameter to 16" all round, to allow more air to the redesigned, and lower, rear-wing.[9][8] Despite that, it was apparent that the width of the flat-six engine precluded optimal use of the air tunnels to create downforce, unlike the narrower V12 of the Jaguar.[10] The newest chassis was assigned to team regulars Bob Wollek and Jochen Mass. Lead drivers Derek Bell and Hans-Joachim Stuck ("BEST"), along with Al Holbert (the team who had won the year before) had a 1-year old chassis after Stuck had wrecked their new car in pre-race testing. The third car, a 1985-chassis that had already done two Le Mans, was given to Vern Schuppan, American Price Cobb and Dutch-Canadian Kees Nierop.[9][11][12]
Once again, Porsche was well-represented by strong, professional customer teams. With a dozen of the 75x 962s built in the field now, many teams were now making their own modifications to bodyshell, chassis and components. They still had the standard 2.85-litre engines, now capable of 640bhp.[13] Brun Motorsport, having won the 1986 Teams Championship carried the Number 1, and they had three 962s present. This year team principal Walter Brun stepped aside from driving duties, with his lead car with an all-French line-up led by Pierre de Thoisy. Season regulars Oscar Larrauri and Jésus Pareja, who had finished second last year, had the #2 car, while the third had the all-Canadian crew Bill Adam/Scott Goodyear/Richard Spenard, and was fitted with a TV camera.[13]
With reduced support from the factory, four of the chassis (both Kremers, a Joest and a Brun car) were built in Britain by John Thomson's TC Prototypes, with a lightweight honeycomb composite frame.[13] Both Joest and Kremer built their own engines. Kremer also fitted larger wheel-arches to accommodate their 19" Yokohama tyres. The 2.85-litre engines now put out 640bhp.[13] Kremer's lead drivers Volker Weidler and Kris Nissen had finished second at Jerez, and were joined by Kunimitsu Takahashi. In contrast, Joest Racing had two new crews for this race: regular team driver Stanley Dickens had veteran Hurley Haywood and Frank Jelinski (who had raced for Brun earlier in the season).[13]Richard Lloyd's Liqui Moly team (now called Britten-Lloyd Racing) had done a lot of innovative work with their new chassis, designed by Nigel Stroud.[14] So much so that it was renamed the 962C GTi, fitting adjustable suspension and moveable wings onto a honeycomb-composite chassis. Tyrrell F1 driver DrJonathon Palmer was the regular driver for the team and was joined by James Weaver and Pierre Petit.[13] The other Porsche 962 was from the smaller Obermaier Racing team, now co-sponsored by Primagaz. It was the first event for Jürgen Lässig's brand-new 962C, and he was joined by Pierre Yver (who brought the Primagaz money) and Bernard de Dryver.[13]
Jaguar XJR-8
Jaguar Cars arrived with Tony Southgate's new design: the XJR-8. The engineers at the workshops of Tom Walkinshaw Racing made over 60 modifications. The fuelling and cooling systems were overhauled. Revised aerodynamics gave greater downforce from the new undertray, and to take on the long straights the –LM version had a new nose and low rear wing. The cumulative effect was to make the cars far more reliable. They came in just a kilo over the 850kg minimum weight. The V12 SOHC engine was increased to 7.0 litres and TWR's engine-specialist, Allan Scott, could tune it up to 720bhp, giving a top speed of 355kp/h (220mph).[15][16][17] To cope with the increasing downforce, their tyre-supplier Dunlop developed special tyres laced with kevlar to hold their shape under the loads.[18] The regular season driver-combinations were Eddie Cheever/Raul Boesel and Jan Lammers/John Watson. The cars were completed in February and the team did extensive winter testing at Paul Ricard. In a dominant display, Jaguar had won all four rounds of the season to date, with the two driving pairs sharing them two apiece. The 1-2 finish at their home race at Silverstone cemented the belief in the minds of British fans that this would be the year of success. For Le Mans, TWR stalwart Win Percy joined the latter pair as a co-driver, while a third car was entered driven for Dane John Nielsen and F1 driver Martin Brundle.[15][16][11]
After an indifferent year with the C8, Sauber returned with its new model, the C9. A new monocoque chassis and improved aerodynamics gave it almost twice as much downforce as before. With an improved engine-management system, the Mercedes-Benz M117 engine was now 20kg lighter and put out 650bhp, or 800bhp in qualifying trim.[19][20] Combined with a tougher Hewland gearbox, it was a far more competitive package, qualifying second on debut at Silverstone and leading for a time. Once again, they were led by 4-time winner Henri Pescarolo, with Mike Thackwell and Hideki Okada. Thackwell was also cross-entered with the second car, supporting Scottish F1 driver Johnny, Earl Dumfries and American Chip Ganassi.[19] Peter Sauber also sold one of his C8 cars to French privateer Noël del Bello, who had stepped up from running his Tiga in the C2 class.[21]
Sauber C9
After the debacle at the 1986 race, Nissan returned to Le Mans, its only race this year outside of the Japanese Championship. The new March 87G chassis (designed by Gordon Coppuck) was now fitted with a purpose-built racing Nissan engine. The 3.0-litre DOHC twin-turbo V8 could produce 700bhp. The chassis was an aluminium honeycomb monocoque with a Kevlar/carbon-fibre bodyshell, the aerodynamic effect was to reduce drag by 20% over the R86V despite a weight-gain.[22] This year, the two cars both had Japanese driving combinations: Hoshino and Matsumoto were together again, with Endurance Champion Kenji Takahashi. The second car had Masahiro Hasemi/Takao Wada/Aguri Suzuki. One of the older R86V cars was co-entered by two Japanese teams, Team LeMans and Italya Sport team, and fitted with a European line-up of Anders Olofsson/Alain Ferté/Patrick Gonin.[22] In the close-season, Toyota were committed to sports-car racing and brought their racing division in-house, with TOM'S Racing designated the works team, with other staff brought in from Dome including chief designer Masahiro Ohkuni. The resultant Toyota 87C picked up the naming sequence from the Dome cars. The 2.1-litre turbo engine was derived from the 3S engine in the Toyota Celica. Although it could put out 680bhp, the car lacked top-end speed, only reaching 335kp/h (210mph). At the test weekend its times only put it amongst the fastest C2 cars.[23] Former F1 World Champion Alan Jones teamed up with Geoff Lees/Eje Elgh. Masanori Sekiya arrived with his fiancé and they got married during the race-week. He would be driving the second car with Kaoru Hoshino and Tiff Needell.[23][6]
As always, the small WM Secateva team had its focus solely on Le Mans. The new P87 had been two years in gestation with a lower, wider body and a longer wheelbase. The shape was refined by testing in the St Cyr wind tunnel. The V6 Peugeot engine was developed further, with improved KKK (Kühnle, Kopp & Kausch) turbos, each with their own intercooler now. It raced at 600bhp but could be wound up to 900bhp for qualifying. The car was targeted to be the first to reach 400kp/h on the Mulsanne straight. However, issues stopped it doing a full lap at the test weekend. Leading up to race-week they got special dispensation to use the new, unopened, section of the A26 autoroute where François Migault hit 415kp/h (260mph). Team principal Roger Dorchy would race the P87 with Philippe Gache/Dominique Delestre, while Migault raced the older P86 with team regulars Jean-Daniel Raulet/Pascal Pessiot.[24]
As well as supporting Hans Obermaier's Porsche, Primagaz continued their support of Le Mans local constructor Yves Courage. With the new structure regulations, Courage rebuilt his C12 as the new C20. It was now fitted with the bigger Porsche 2.8-litre twin-turbo engine of the 962. It also had revised suspension, braking and cooling. Despite being 18kg heavier, the Courage was the fastest car at the test-weekend, reaching 370kp/h (230mph) on the Mulsanne Straight. Once again, Courage drove himself alongside Pierre-Henri Raphanel and Hervé Regout.[25] Jean-Philippe Grand's Graff Racing brought its Rondeau M482 to Le Mans for the fifth, and final, time as the sole representative of the marque. It was modified to meet the new safety regulations and Grand raced himself, along with Jacques Terrien and motocross champion Gaston Rahier.[26]
Group C2
Écurie Écosse had won a closely fought C2 Teams Championship in 1986. Expectations were high for the race, 30 years since the original team's last Le Mans victory. The team entered two cars, which were now fitted with Cosworth DFLs, after Rover withdrew its free engine-supply at the end of the last year.[27] The new C287 won its class on debut at the Silverstone round. It was recorded as the fastest C2 on the Hunaudières Straight, reaching 345kp/h (215mph). Ray Mallock and David Leslie were joined by former teammate Marc Duez. The re-engined C286 had Mike Wilds driving with Americans Delano and Petery.[27]Spice Engineering was developing their new lightweight SE87C for this, but after the test weekend, chose instead to carry on running the reliable SE86C with its DFL Cosworth prepared by John Nicholson. Together Gordon Spice and new co-driver Fermin Velez had won three of the four rounds of the season, including a fourth overall at Jerez. They were joined at Le Mans by Philippe de Henning who brought sponsorship from the Church of Scientology.[28]Chamberlain Engineering had fitted their SE86C with a 1.9-litre Hart engine with its Holset turbo.[28]
ALD 03
This year, the most numerous name in the C2 class was Tiga, which had seven cars on the grid, fitted with five different engines. Four were the new GC287 model. Fastest was that of the Charles Ivey team (who had previously run Porsche GTs at Le Mans). They had managed to squeeze the 2.65-litre twin-turbo engine of the Porsche 956 in the back. It was wound down to 0.8-bar of boost but still put out 500bhp. It would be driven by Moroccan Max Cohen-Olivar with Brits John Cooper and Tom Dodd-Noble.[29] Duncan Bain and Neil Crang had formed the Dune Motorsport team and fitted their GC287 with the 3-litre, 380bhp, Rover V6 engine, from the MG rally-car.[29] Dane Thorkild Thyrring used the turbocharged Cosworth BDT rally engine, tuned by Brian Hart to put out 600bhp. Whereas, Roy Baker had swapped out his BDT to go with the more reliable Cosworth DFL, updating his GC286 to the new specs.[29] After the unpleasant experience with Nissan the previous year, Keith Greene had formed a new team with Dave Prewitt. GP Motorsport ran in conjunction with Anglo-Greek Costas Los' team, Cosmik Racing, also running a G287 with the DFL.[29]
The nature of the C2 class attracted privateers and keen amateurs and a number filled out the grids. French driver-constructors Louis Descartes and Jacques Heuclin had started the season with their ALD 02 but arrived at Le Mans with the new ALD 03 model. Originally to have a new, turbocharged 1.8-litre Audi S4 engine, they had swapped back to their regular BMW 3.5-litre after the Audi had proven troublesome. The older ALD 02 (with BMW engine) was also brought along.[30] John Bartlett and Robin Donovan brought the Bardon DB1 back after not qualifying the previous year. It had a number of improvements to the rear that improved its top speed significantly up to 285kp/h (175mph). Donovan had pay-drivers Tim Lee-Davey and Raymond Boutinard with him.[31]
Mazda 757
Royale Racing had been successful in the lower levels of single-seater racing, before changing up to Sport Cars. They uprated Argo cars for the IMSA series then released one of their last cars, the RP40, for C2. Olindo Iacobelli raced it, supported by Chamberlain Engineering. Norwegian Rallycross champion Martin Schanche sold his JM19 to German Peter Fritsch who got Dahm Cars to fit a heavy Porsche GT-turbo engine. Schanche, meanwhile, had bought a new JM19 and put in a more powerful Zakspeed engine, now 1850cc and KKK-turbo. Very fast in the early-season races, he ran with regular teammate Will Hoy, as well as Robin Smith.[32] Roland Bassaler had his SHS C6 at its fourth Le Mans;[33] Luigi Taverna returned with his 3-year old Alba. [21] Perhaps the most unusual entry was from José Thibault, who arrived with an old Chevron B36 fitted with enclosed bodyshell with a central fin, designed by the Sthemo team. With an equally old 2.1-litre ROC-Talbot turbo, it was so light it needed ballast to get it up to the 850kg minimum.[32][34]
IMSA-GTP
Mazdaspeed continued its program in the IMSA-GTP class. The Mazda 757 was further developed and improved, still lighter than all the C1 cars. They had the same six drivers as the previous year, with the Japanese works drivers Terada/Yorino/Katayama in one and Kennedy/Dieudonné/Galvin in the other.[35] The FIA had closed the Group B category at the end of 1986. So this year, the Porsche works team entered their 4-wheel drive Porsche 961 in the IMSA-GTP Class, after it had already been raced at Daytona. Rally-driver René Metge would again drive the car, this time partnered by GT veteran Claude Haldi (in his 20th consecutive Le Mans start).[36]
Practice and Qualifying
The two days of qualifying were hampered by intermittent showers. It was the Porsche work team that, once again, judged its runs best. On the first day, Stuck put in a time 3:21.1 (over 6 seconds slower than his 1985 record time) only to be beaten minutes later by his teammate Wollek by four-hundredths of a second.[37] However, the shine was taken their performance with a big accident to their third car. Price Cobb hit oil at the Porsche Curves and went into multiple spins. The car went over the guardrail and burst into flames. Price was unable to find the button for the onboard extinguisher in the fire, and was lucky to emerge with only singed eyebrows.[37][38][11] The car was out and the drivers redistributed: Nierop joined the 961 crew, with whom he had raced at Daytona;[36] Schuppan teamed up with the Wollek/Mass car. Cobb himself went to the Richard Lloyd car, substituting for the inexperienced Pierre Petit.[13] After an average first day, the Jaguars were up to speed on the next, all in the 3:24s – collecting 3rd, 4th and 5th on the grid, led by the Cheever/Boesel car. The Cougar had also lost time on the first day (ignition problems) but Raphanel finally got a quick lap for 6th (3:26.1). The Saubers had been 3rd and 4th behind the Porsches on the first day, but ended up 7th and 8th.[19][37][39] The top-10 was rounded out by the best of the customer Porsche teams: Joest #7 (3:27.5) and the Britten-Lloyd car. Palmer had tried to qualify with a special 3.2-litre engine but it blew up on the first lap so they had to change it back.[13][40]
There were high expectations for the superfast WM, but fans were disappointed as the P87 suffered turbo-boost, and then ignition, problems. They only managed to qualify 21st (3:38.7), six seconds behind the sister car, in 13th.[24] This year, the works Japanese cars were closer to the Porsches, all qualifying in the top-20. However, even the quickest (the Toyota of Jones/Less/Elgh) was thirteen seconds back, just behind the WM, in 14th (3:34.5). it was ten seconds faster than their times the year before, so the team remained hopeful.[23] The three GTP cars qualified within three seconds of each other, with the Japanese-driven Mazda leading in 27th (3:45.6).[24]
In C2, the Spice-Fieros set the pace with Nick Adams in the Chamberlain car comfortably setting the fastest time with a 3:40.0 (22nd).[40] The works car was second 3:42.3 (25th) but had to rebuild the rear end after Velez spun on oil and crashed.[28] They, in turn, were well ahead of the Tigas – the fastest being the Charles Ivey car with its Porsche turbo (3:50.3 for 30th).[40] In GTP, the three cars qualified in the mid-field, with the European-Mazda 27th (3:45.6), the other just behind in 28th (3:47.5) with the Porsche 31st (3:50.9).[40] The last car on the grid was the Chevron hybrid, with a distant 4:14.3. [32]
Race
Start
This year the honorary starter was Gerald Lascelles, chairman of the British Racing Drivers' Club.[41] The day had started with occasional showers but by the time the cars set off on their pace-lap it had cleared and the circuit was drying.[42] In a chaotic first hour, a number of cars were pitting. Aside from changing from wet or intermediate tyres to slicks as the track dried (Lammers & Palmer pitted after the first lap), the standard fuel mix was burning out their pistons as the Bosch engine-management computers ran the mixture too rich for the engines to cope with. Both the highly fancied Joest cars were in the pits and retired within 7 laps, as was Kris Nissen in his Kremer car.[42][38][43] Even the works team was not immune, with the pole-sitting Wollek/Mass/Schuppan car out after 16 laps, right on the hour, with the same issue.[9] This all contrived to blow the race wide open, as the other Porsche teams scrambled to correct their ECUs to compensate.[43][44] The Rothmans Porsche team was now down to one car with 23 hours to go, and under pressure from all three Jaguars. As the sun came out, it was the Jaguar of Nielsen locked in a thrilling tussle with Stuck.[45] It was briefly curtailed when the safety cars were brought after two separate accidents: when Schäfer somersaulted the Brun Porsche over the barriers at the Porsche Curves, and Heinrich beached the Chevron on the racing line at Arnage.[13][32] Upon resumption of racing there was nothing between the top five and as twilight fell, the rain returned.[42] Alan Jones did not make the first stop – a misunderstanding on the size the Toyota's reserve tank saw him run out of fuel.[46] At the first fuel-stop, Hasemi's Nissan had a sudden flash-fire, costing 20 minutes in clean-up. They lost another 3 hours with electrical problems during the night, before finally retiring in the early morning. It was followed soon after by its stablemate, hobbled by engine issues.[22]
The Sauber-Mercedes team had a dismal race: the Dumfries/Ganassi car had been running sixth after the second hour. Dumfries set the fastest lap of the race in the third hour. He had finally handed over to Ganassi, but then only ten minutes into his stint the gearbox packed up.[43][19] The Pescarolo/Thackwell car had been delayed early on with an intermittent engine system, and then pushed hard making up the lost time. Pescarolo had just got back into the top-dozen in the 5th hour when the Sauber stopped out on the circuit with a seized universal joint. That would sink most drivers but Pescarolo, a veteran of 20 Le Mans, set to work with his on-board tools fashioning a repair. After two hours, he got mobile and limped back to the pits to find the crew were packing up.[19] Soon after 11pm they were back in the race, but to no avail when a puncture at 4.30am shredded the rear bodywork and damaged the suspension irreparably.[46][43][47] After three hours, the Porsche was leading the Brundle/Nielsen Jaguar by barely a car's length. This gradually stretched out, until the Jaguars fought back and both Brundle and Watson got past to lead for three hours. Not far behind was the other Jaguar and the Palmer/Weaver/Cobb BLR Porsche.[45] These five pulled away from the rest of the field and at the 6-hour mark, the Obermaier Porsche was 6th, followed by the Mazda, the Cougar, the C2-leading Ecosse with the Porsche 961 rounding out the top-10.
The first to crack was the Jaguar of Cheever which had a puncture them a broken throttle-link as dusk fell. These contributed to dropping the car two laps off the lead. At the same time, the drizzle returned making it very difficult for the drivers with the setting sun and slick circuit. [48][42] In C2, the very quick Chamberlain Spice had pitted with a water leak after only half an hour. It was only after several more stops costing an hour that the fault was traced to a fault in the cooling system.[28] This left the Spice/Velez car duelling with the Ecosse. They had been running 11th and 12th after two hours and kept advancing. When the former was delayed by a water-leak, the Scottish team were able to build a lead over them.[28]
Night
The Goodyears on the BLR Porsche were not as effective in the wet as the Jaguars' Dunlops and they slipped back, passed by the recovering Cheever.[48] It was only when a second shower swept the track that Stuck was able to eke out a bit of a lead.[48] The race then went under safety car a second time, when the BLR Porsche suffered a broken oil-line and caught fire at Mulsanne corner soon after midnight. Weaver was only on his second out-lap after a pit-stop and although the car was burnt out, he got out unscathed.[13][48][2] By 1am, the works Porsche had built a 3-minute lead over of the Jaguars.[48] Their order had been changed when the Watson/Lammers car lost time when its engine cover flew off going down Hunaudières, and dropping them to fourth. With the core of the customer Porsches now retired, it was the Obermaier Porsche now up in fifth, ahead of its co-sponsored cousin, the Primagaz Courage. The attrition was so severe that the C2-leading Ecosse was running smoothly in 8th overall, with the Spice/Velez car not far behind in 10th.
The World Champion Brun Motorsport team had a wretched race, losing all three cars before half-time. After Schäfer had planted his car in the barriers early on, de Thoisy also went off at midnight. Finally, two hours later the Canadian entry faltered with a water leak.[46][13] With all the tribulations during the night, the Ecosse and Spice had got in the top-10 overall. The scrap continued throughout the night and into the morning, with the Spice finally catching up soon after 9am when the Ecosse had exhaust problems.[28][27]
At 2.45am, Win Percy had a massive accident in his Jaguar. He had only been in the car for six laps when a tyre blew out on him at over 350kp/h (220mph), coming over the hump at the kink approaching Mulsanne. The Jaguar slammed in the right-hand barriers, did several somersaults scraping the roadside trees and disintegrated, ending up 300 metres beyond the corner. With his open-faced helmet, Percy was skating upside-down along the road. Amazingly, he got out the wreck unhurt.[15][48][49][50] Car designer Tony Southgate was justifiably proud that the cockpit was left intact and not a drop of fuel from the nearly-full tank had been spilled.[12] Torn-up barriers and debris strewn all over the track meant a third safety period for nearly two hours.[51] The length of the safety period was sufficient to relieve any fuel-consumption concerns for the leading Porsche, negating the big advantage the Jaguars had over it.[48][52] There was a scare when the Porsche's battery lost charge behind the pace-car and had to be changed.[46][9] Less fortunate was Mike Wilds, whose Ecosse's battery failed behind the pace-car stranding him out on the circuit.[47]
Morning
It was dawn before the green flags came out again. At this time, the works Porsche and the two Jaguars were still on the same lap. Around 7am, Boesel went off at Arnage and had to pit for a new nose-section.[46] Then Brundle retired his car from second place at 7.45am with water dripping from a cracked cylinder-head.[39] Around 9am, "BEST" were leading, having done 250 laps. The Obermaier Porsche was second (235), a lap ahead of Cheever/Boesel. With the Jaguar retirement, the Cougar inherited 4th (231 – though yet to overtake them on the track) with the Kremer Porsche next (230). The C2-class battle continued with the Ecosse 6th (222), a lap ahead of the Spice and the GTP-leading Mazda in 8th (218 laps). A wretched couple of hours for Jaguar continued with the Cheever/Boesel car: being delayed by fuel issues, loose rear bodywork and then a tired Cheever mistakenly grabbed reverse gear, stripping off teeth and firing them through the casing. Replacing the gearbox took forty minutes and dropped them down to fifth place.[46][50][15][51][39] Later, Boesel coasted to a stop out on the circuit. He hooked up the auxiliary power and was able to get going. However, he did not affix the engine cover properly and it blew off on the return to the pits, damaging the rear-wing.[46][15]
The restored Porsche 961
The quick demise of the Jaguar team left no-one else to seriously challenge the works Porsche. Over the next three hours, the lead built up to sixteen laps.[46] The fancied customer Porsches had been decimated early on with their fuel issues. The Japanese teams were again a disappointment. Both of the Toyotas were out before nightfall. The Nissans fared a bit better, with the Takahashi/Matsumoto/Hoshino car getting into the top ten late in the night, until delayed and finally retired with a broken gearbox. The other two were already out with engine failures.[46]
After a delay overnight, the Porsche 961 had climbed back into the top-dozen by morning, well behind the remaining Mazda running 9th. Then at 10am, Nierop crashed on the approach to Indianapolis when he mistakenly downshifted to second gear instead of fourth. The car spun and backed into the guardrail hard. He was able to get going again, until team manager Peter Falk radioed him to park and get out immediately. Unseen by the driver, but picked up by the TV coverage, the savaged rear bodywork had cut a turbo exhaust and started a serious fire. Nierop got out safely, but unfortunately had parked too far from fire posts and the car went up in flames.[36] The car would later be recovered and fully restored for museum display.
Finish and post-race
The Rothmans Porsche cruised to victory with the biggest winning margin of the decade – of 20 laps (260km). For Bell and Holbert, it was their fourth consecutive 24-hour victory, with the unique double of both the Daytona and Le Mans in the same year.[38] The small Obermaier team had their greatest day after running reliably and keeping out of trouble. After the demise of the last Jaguar, they had held second place for the final six hours to the end. A fine result for their Primagaz sponsors was capped by third place for the Cougar. They had a degree of good-fortune, almost running out of fuel, and getting a broken CV-joint within coasting distance of the pits. Yves Courage did his only driving-stint of the race, to bring his car to the finish.[25]
Kremer Porsche #11 finished 4th
Fourth was the Konrad/Fouché/Taylor Kremer Porsche. After getting its engine-unit reset in the first hour and dropping to 27th, they had driven back into the top-10 after four hours. Delayed by a brake-fluid leak at sundown, they were untroubled thereafter.[13] The bedevilled Jaguar, once fighting for the lead, finally finished fifth, now 30 laps behind the winners.
The 1987 Le Mans trophy, at the Porsche Museum
In the C2 class, having seen off the challenge from Ecurie Ecosse, Spice, Velez and de Henning romped to a class-victory. They had been running sixth overall since mid-morning, to finish 13 laps and over 160km (100miles) ahead of the Ecosse.[28] After a broken exhaust had cost them a quarter-hour and the class-lead at 9am, Mallock, Leslie and Duez lost an hour at the middle of the day with clutch and transmission problems, eventually finishing 8th overall. Some consolation was had by them winning the Index of Energy Efficiency over the Spice team.[27] The only Japanese car to finish was the European-driven Mazda – the only finisher in the GTP class and 7th overall. Louis Descartes had his most successful Le Mans, with both his cars finishing. The second car was not classified after too many delays in the pits, while Descartes own car was 11th overall, fifth in class.[30] The hard-luck story of the race was the SHS C6 of Roland Bassaler. Clutch problems had struck almost immediately in the race, but thereafter had made quiet steady progress. In early Sunday afternoon they were into the top-10 overall, and then with an hour to go the clutch gave up. The team parked in the pits to go out with ten minutes to go for a last lap. However, it could not restart and Yvon never got out the pit-line.[21] With just twelve classified finishers, this was the lowest number since the seven in 1970.
With this, his fifth victory, Derek Bell became the second-most successful driver at Le Mans, after his good friend Jacky Ickx (with 6 victories). Having achieved the unique double of winning both premier 24-hour sports-car races (Daytona and Le Mans) in the previous year, Holbert and Bell had repeated the achievement again this year, in a remarkable double-double. For the Porsche marque, this was their twelfth victory and 7th in a row.
Although Jaguar lost this battle, they won the war: with eight wins out of ten races this season, Jaguar would go on to take their first Manufacturer's World Title – a feat not accomplished even during the glory days of the D-Type in the 1950s.[7][53] Raul Boesel would be crowned the Drivers' Champion, and it appeared there was a changing of the old order. The works Porsche team had quite a predicament – having dominated the Group C category to date, they essentially had a 7-year-old design to take on the more advanced Jaguar. Until now, their approach had been to develop their car within limits to not aggravate or alienate their customer teams. Those teams were now resorting to doing their own independent development to improve their cars.[10] In fact, after the next round at the Norisring withdrew from the Championship,[54][55] ostensibly to focus on its F1 TAG-engine program with McLaren.[18][55]
The Spice and Ecurie Ecosse teams dominated the C2-class – the normally-aspirated Cosworths proving unbeatable, and together they won nine of the ten rounds (Tiga-Cosworth winning the other), while the turbo-charged teams were fast but suffered from chronic unreliability.[56] Spice Engineering took the Teams' Championship, and Spice and Velez were the Drivers' Champions.
Official results
Finishers
Results taken from Quentin Spurring's book, officially licensed by the ACO[57][58][59][60] Class Winners are in Bold text.
The 1986 24 Hours of Le Mans was the 54th Grand Prix of Endurance as well as the third round of the 1986 World Sports-Prototype Championship. It took place at the Circuit de la Sarthe, France, on 31 May and 1 June 1986. This year saw the return of a full Jaguar works team, to take on the strong Porsche works and customer teams. However, with the fuel regulations relaxed, the turbo-charged cars would be able to use more of their potential power to outrun the normally-aspirated 6-litre Jaguars.
The 1985 24 Hours of Le Mans was the 53rd Grand Prix of Endurance, as well as the fourth round of the 1985 World Endurance Championship. It took place at the Circuit de la Sarthe, France, on 15 and 16 June 1985. The works Porsche team returned, with a Group C version of the 962. As favourites, they could expect from their customer teams and the works Lancias. In qualifying, Hans-Joachim Stuck set a new lap record in his works Porsche, with an average speed over 250 km/h for the first time. Mercedes returned for the first time in 30 years, as engine supplier to the Sauber team. The return was short-lived though, as the car got airborne in practice and crashed. With tighter fuel regulations this year from FISA, the teams would have to be more mindful of fuel economy and speed. However, from the start the Joest and Richard Lloyd Racing teams had the measure of the field. Working in tandem, Klaus Ludwig and Jonathon Palmer took turns leading and slipstreaming behind the other. Then at 9pm Jean-Claude Andruet had a major accident when his WM had a tyre blow out a high speed at the Mulsanne kink, sending him into the Armco barriers. Andruet was uninjured, but the race went behind the pace-cars for a half-hour as repairs were done. Just as the race resumed James Weaver pitted the RLR Porsche with an engine misfire. Traced to a faulty sensor, they returned to the race in 7th.
The 1984 24 Hours of Le Mans was the 52nd Grand Prix of Endurance, and took place on 16 – 17 June 1984. It was also the third round of the 1984 World Endurance Championship. There were two big stories going into the race weekend: the absence of the Porsche works team and their drivers, and the return of Jaguar. Bob Tullius had commissioned the new Jaguar XJR-5 to run in the IMSA series and entered two for Le Mans. Earlier in the year, FISA had announced abrupt changes to the fuel regulations to bring them more in line with IMSA. Porsche and Lancia objected strongly because of their strong investment in the existing rules. In the absence of dominant Porsche works team, the race was left wide open between Lancia and the number of strong Porsche customer teams.
The 1983 24 Hours of Le Mans was a motor race staged at the Circuit de la Sarthe, Le Mans, France on 18 and 19 June 1983. It was the 51st Grand Prix of Endurance and was also the fourth round of both the 1983 World Endurance Championship and the 1983 European Endurance Championship. The 1983 race was held eight days before the 50th anniversary of the inaugural race held in 1923.
The 1982 24 Hours of Le Mans was the 50th Grand Prix of Endurance, which took place on 19 and 20 June 1982. It was also the fourth round of the 1982 World Endurance Championship. As well as a significant anniversary, this was a watershed year for Le Mans, with the highly anticipated advent of the FIA's Group C regulations, the essence of which was to allow an open engine formula but a minimum weight for safety and a proscribed fuel allocation.
The 1981 24 Hours of Le Mans was the 49th Grand Prix of Endurance, and took place on 13 and 14 June 1981. It was also the eighth round of the World Endurance Championship of Drivers, and the fifth round of the World Championship for Makes.
The 1980 24 Hours of Le Mans was the 48th Grand Prix of Endurance, and took place on 14 and 15 June 1980. It was the seventh round of both the World Championship for Makes and World Challenge for Endurance Drivers. With neither the Porsche nor Renault works teams contesting the big Group 6 sports-cars for outright victory, it left the prospects open for a privateer victory from Joest, Rondeau or De Cadenet, or from Group 5 again, if they were to fail. The wet weather throughout the race further added to the uncertainty, reducing the advantage of the more powerful cars.
The 1979 24 Hours of Le Mans was the 47th Grand Prix of Endurance, and took place on 9 and 10 June 1979. With no other major works cars this year, the Porsche team were the strong favourites to win. Their competition would be from Cosworth-powered Mirages and Rondeaus and a swarm of Group 5 and IMSA-class Porsche 935s. The other big talking point was the presence of Hollywood actor Paul Newman, driving for Dick Barbour Racing.
The 1978 24 Hours of Le Mans was the 46th Grand Prix of Endurance, and took place on 10 and 11 June 1978. In many ways it was a continuation of the race from the year before – the two main protagonists would be the very evenly-matched works teams of Alpine-Renault and Porsche, with four cars each. The race was not valid for any championship.
The 1977 24 Hours of Le Mans was the 45th Grand Prix of Endurance, and took place on 11 and 12 June 1977. The second year of the FIA Group 5 and Group 6 regulations, it produced an exciting race right up to the end. Porsche had withdrawn from the Group 6 Championship, citing a lack of broad competition. Renault, before their move into Formula 1, decided to put its main racing focus for the year onto Le Mans. The two works teams were the pre-race favourites.
The 1976 24 Hours of Le Mans was the 44th Grand Prix of Endurance, and took place on 12 and 13 June 1976. This year the FIA introduced its new Group 5 and Group 6 regulations and the race was now open to nine distinct classes, although it was still not part of the World Championship seasons. Porsche introduced its new models, the 936 in Group 6, the 935 in Group 5 and the 934 in Group 4. In response, BMW had its modified 3.0 CSL in Group 5. It was the year that turbos arrived in considerable numbers, with over a dozen turbocharged entries, led by the Renault Alpine A442. It saw the arrival of French prototype manufacturers Jean Rondeau and Gérard Welter in a new GTP class and a first-time invitation to American IMSA and NASCAR entries.
The 1975 24 Hours of Le Mans was the 43rd Grand Prix of Endurance, and took place on 14 and 15 June 1975. Colloquially called the “Le Mans Economy Run”, stringent refuelling regulations were put in place. Unable to match the requisite 7mpg fuel economy the manufacturer teams from Ferrari, Alfa Romeo withdrew and Matra had retired from the sport at the end of 1974. Therefore, this only left Gulf and Ligier as front-running works-teams.
The 1974 24 Hours of Le Mans was the 42nd Grand Prix of Endurance, and took place on 15 and 16 June 1974. It was the fifth round of the 1974 World Championship for Makes. After Alfa Romeo had won the first race of the season at Monza, it had been Matra all the way and they came to Le Mans as firm favourites for a third consecutive outright victory, especially after Alfa Romeo withdrew its cars just before raceweek.
The 1973 24 Hours of Le Mans was the 41st Grand Prix of Endurance and took place on 9 and 10 June 1973. It was the eighth round of the 1973 World Championship of Makes.
The 1961 24 Hours of Le Mans was a motor race for Sports cars and Grand Touring cars staged at the Circuit de la Sarthe, Le Mans, France on 10 and 11 June 1961. It was the 29th Grand Prix of Endurance and the fourth race of the 1961 World Sportscar Championship. Ferrari and Maserati were the main contenders, with Aston Martin an outside chance.
The 1960 24 Hours of Le Mans was the 28th 24 Hours of Le Mans Grand Prix of Endurance, and took place on 25 and 26 June 1960, on Circuit de la Sarthe. It was the fifth and final round of the F.I.A. World Sports Car Championship as well as being the fifth round of the inaugural FIA GT Cup. It was held just a week after the tragic Belgian F1 GP in which four drivers, including Stirling Moss were either killed or seriously injured. The prospect of a duel between the 3-litre (180 cu in) Ferrari versus the 2-litre (120 cu in) Porsche championship-leaders was enough to draw large crowds to the 24 Hours race and some 200,000 spectators had gathered for Europe's classic sports car race, around the 13.5 km (8.4 mi) course.
The 1959 24 Hours of Le Mans was the 27th 24 Hours of Le Mans, Grand Prix of Endurance, and took place on 20 and 21 June 1959, on Circuit de la Sarthe. It was also the fourth round of the F.I.A. World Sports Car Championship. The prospect of an exciting duel between Ferrari, Aston Martin and giantkillers Porsche was enough to draw large crowds and some 150,000 spectators gathered for France's classic sports car race, around the 8.38-mile course.
The 1958 24 Hours of Le Mans was the 26th running of the 24 Hours of Le Mans, Grand Prix of Endurance, and took place on 21 and 22 June 1958, on the Circuit de la Sarthe. It was also the fifth round of the 1958 World Sports Car Championship, which was running to new regulations introduced at the beginning of the season. Some 150,000 spectators had gathered for Europe's classic sports car race, around the 8.38-mile course. The prospect of an exciting duel between Ferrari, Jaguar, Aston Martin and giantkiller Porsche was enough to draw large crowds to the 24 Hours race.
The 1957 24 Hours of Le Mans was the 25th running of the 24 Hours of Le Mans, Grand Prix of Endurance, and took place on 22 and 23 June 1957, on the Circuit de la Sarthe. It was also the fifth round of the F.I.A. World Sports Car Championship. Some 250,000 spectators had gathered for Europe's classic sports car race, around an 8.38-mile course. The prospect of an exciting duel between Ferrari, Maserati, Jaguar, Aston Martin and Porsche was enough to draw large crowds to the 24 Hours race, now back at its usual date and reintegrated into the World Championship.
The 1956 24 Hours of Le Mans was a race for Sports Cars which took place on 28 and 29 July 1956 on the Circuit de la Sarthe. The race was won by Ron Flockhart and Ninian Sanderson driving a Jaguar D-Type for the new Ecurie Ecosse team. This race also marked the golden jubilee of the Automobile Club de l'Ouest (ACO) founded in 1906, however because of the previous year's disaster, celebrations were deferred to 1957 to go along with the imminent 25th anniversary of the race.
References
Clarke, R.M. - editor (1999) Le Mans 'The Porsche & Jaguar Years 1983-1991' Cobham, Surrey: Brooklands Books ISBN1-85520-483-5
Laban, Brian (2001) Le Mans 24 Hours London: Virgin Books ISBN1-85227-971-0
Hodges, David – editor (1987) Automobile Year #35 1987/88 Lausanne, Switzerland: Editions Lamunière S.A. ISBN2-88260-003-8
Spurring, Quentin (2012) Le Mans 1980-89 Yeovil, Somerset: Haynes Publishing ISBN978-0-85733-128-1
Williams, Richard (2023) 24 Hours – 100 Years of Le Mans London: Simon & Schuster ISBN978-1-3985-1722-6
Wimpffen, János (2008) Monocoques and Ground Effects Hong Kong: David Bull Publishing ISBN1-893618-97-8
External links
Racing Sports Cars– Le Mans 24 Hours 1983 with entries, results, technical detail and photos of every car. Retrieved 14 July 2023
Le Mans History– Le Mans entry-list and hour-by-hour placings (incl. pictures of every car, quotes, highest speeds per car, YouTube links). Retrieved 14 July 2023
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