1986 24 Hours of Le Mans
Although the works Porsche team locked out the front row of the grid, the Joest car (victor in 1984 and 1985) took the challenge to them from the start of the race and holding the lead till nightfall.
Early on Sunday morning, third-placed Jochen Mass crashed out when he hit the C2 class-leading Ecosse of Mike Wilds who had spun on oil dropped in the Porsche Curves.
A transmission failure speared the Kremer Porsche into the barriers, and then got airborne hitting a telephone pole before ending upside down on fire, killing the driver instantly.
The FIA (Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile) changed the championship format this year, introducing several shorter-length races among the longer, endurance events.
After the serious accidents in the previous year's race, the ACO (Automobile Club de l'Ouest) started putting triple-tier Armco along the length of the Hunaudières straight.
[2] The biggest news was the full return of the works Jaguar team to the World Championship, and they had immediate success in the first two races in the series.
[6] With the retirement of Jacky Ickx, the lead #1 car was now run by Derek Bell and Hans-Joachim Stuck, with 1983 winner Al Holbert brought in with them for this race.
The third car, just running at Le Mans, and driven by Vern Schuppan and Drake Olson, was fitted with Porsche's experimental, new, dual-clutch PDK transmission that offered automatic electronic gearshifts (and an in-car camera).
Decked out in stars-and-stripes livery, Kenper Miller drove with former Can-Am champion George Follmer (20 years after his other Le Mans appearance) and John Morton.
Owner Walter Brun stepped up to the lead car for Le Mans with Massimo Sigala and Frank Jelinski, bought in as a replacement for Stefan Bellof, killed in 1985.
[13] Jaguar Cars had been impressed with the strong effort in the past seasons by the American Group 44 Racing team of Bob Tullius.
The company thought a full works effort was viable, but instead chose to ally with Tom Walkinshaw Racing - who had latterly been running the Jaguar XJ-S in the ETCC (European Touring Car Championship).
The C8 of John Nielsen had got airborne and flipped on the Mulsanne straight during practice, but subsequent analysis showed that it was due to mechanical failure not the fault of aerodynamic design.
Adjustments were made to the Toyota 2.1-litre turbo engine to improve fuel economy, however its unsatisfactory power output meant it could not keep pace with the Porsches.
All the drivers returned, although the teams were rearranged – Geoff Lees/Satoru Nakajima/Masanori Sekiya ran the TOM'S car, while new man Beppe Gabbiani (ex-Lancia) joined Eje Elgh and Toshio Suzuki were in the Dome entry.
They had previously run cars in the home races at Fuji Speedway, and in September 1984 they set up NISMO, as a dedicated motorsport division in the company.
Meanwhile, Richard Cleare had bought an IMSA March 85G, fitted an older single-turbo Porsche engine, and entered it in the GTP class.
The four-wheel drive was set up to put more power on the back wheels, and composite bodyshell kept the overall weight down near the 1150 kg minimum for Group B.
Michael Krankenberg's MK Motorsport engaged Helmut Gall (who had taken the class victory in the past two Le Mans) to prepare and race the car, alongside Jean-Paul Libert and Pascal Witmeur.
After doing only two laps, Juan Fernandez in the second Fitzpatrick car, found the circuit too daunting and ceded his place to South African George Fouché.
A grumpy James Weaver, sidelined by the team, qualified the older car a lowly 33rd, while the new R86V was 24th (3:41.5) – with a top speed fully 70 kp/h (45 mph) slower than the Porsches and Jaguars.
They held the lead until 8pm when a collision with a C1 car forced a half-hour in the pits to repair the suspension, only to crash at the Ford Chicane soon after returning to the race.
[9][47] The initial phase of the race had been an intriguing tactical match between the two Porsche teams, with the advantage narrowly in the Joest favour with its slightly better fuel economy.
[16] Meanwhile, Bell and Ludwig had been trading fastest lap-times back and forth through the night, usually barely seconds apart, and the Rothmans Porsche finally got to the lead at 2am.
[47] Then soon after 3am, Jochen Mass, running third, wrote off his car when he came through the Porsche Curves and spun on spilt oil, to find the class-leading Ecosse of Mike Wilds in the middle of the road having just done the same thing.
[48][30] In a mammoth quadruple-stint, Larrauri had driven through the night bringing the Brun Porsche back up to fourth, which became second with the demise of the cars ahead of him.
Their team-mates in the 962 copped all the bad luck, with delays from faulty lights, water leaks, a loose door and run-ins with backmarkers.
[12] It was a better story for the small Obermeier team and privateer Ernst Schuster, their cars running like clockwork to keep their 5th and 6th places, albeit over 20 laps behind the winner.
[22] Nissan came home 16th after its morning trials and, despite the lead car failing before nightfall, the management team were delighted confirming their commitment to sports-car racing.
This followed the recent deaths of Henri Toivonen and co-driver Sergio Cresto in a Group B Lancia at the Tour de Corse rally a month earlier.
