1989 24 Hours of Le Mans
The 1989 24 Hours of Le Mans was the 57th Grand Prix of Endurance, taking place at the Circuit de la Sarthe, France, on the 10 and 11 June 1989.
Although the Saubers started on the front row, it was the Jaguar of Davy Jones that led for the first three hours until the car suddenly came to a stop on the back straight, dropping them well down the field.
Baldi's Sauber lost its chance to fight back when the gearbox broke leaving co-driver Acheson to run home stuck in fifth gear.
[4] Group C cars would still run to the fuel restrictions, with an additional 50 kg of minimum weight added and manual control of the turbo-boost now banned.
This year, under new TWR Technical Director Ross Brawn, they were moving quickly to prepare the new twin-turbo V6 car (called the XJR-10 for IMSA and XJR-11 for Group C).
The third car had Americans Davy Jones and Jeff Kline, with Derek Daly; while the fourth had the Ferté brothers, Alain and Michel, racing with Chilean Eliseo Salazar.
Hermann Hiereth and his team at Mercedes-Benz developed the new 5.0-litre twin-turbo V8 M119 engine: now a double overhead cam design with four valves per cylinder, it had improved power and fuel efficiency and could put out 720 bhp.
After the tyre failures the previous year, Michelin had done extensive high-speed testing to supply reliable rubber to the team,[10] although their cornering performance still left a bit to be desired.
Schlesser's co-driver at Suzuka, Mauro Baldi raced with Kenny Acheson and Gianfranco Brancatelli, while the other works driver, Jochen Mass had Manuel Reuter and Swede Stanley Dickens with him.
[12] Although not contesting the Championship, the Porsche factory sent crews to support their favoured customer teams: Joest, Brun and Schuppan – all with the 1988 3.0-litre water-cooled engine.
The other two cars were ex-works chassis – to be driven by Frank Jelinski/Pierre-Henri Raphanel/"John Winter" (Louis Krages) and the very experienced Henri Pescarolo/Claude Ballot-Léna (with 22 Le Mans starts each), with Jean-Louis Ricci.
[15] Walter Brun was continuing with his expensive, unsuccessful foray into Formula 1 with his EuroBrun team, yet still managed to assemble five cars for an all-out effort at Le Mans.
The other car had 20-race veteran David Hobbs racing with Formula 3000 debutants Damon Hill and Steven Andskär[18] The other three Porsches were small teams who had taken the big commitment to run a full season: the German Obermaier Racing, with its Primagaz sponsorship; Briton Tim Lee-Davey had a car bought from Porsche GB; and the French Alméras brothers back at Le Mans for the first time since the 1970s.
[18] Nissan was becoming the car to beat in the IMSA competition with the Geoff Brabham winning the 1988 GTP Drivers' Championship for the Electramotive Engineering team.
A brand-new chassis had the all-Japanese crew of Kazuyoshi Hoshino/Toshio Suzuki/Masahiro Hasemi, while the third car had the IMSA drivers Geoff Brabham/Chip Robinson/Arie Luyendyk, who, earlier in the year, had together won the Sebring 12-Hours.
The two cars sent to France had Écosse manager Mallock, Leslie and David Sears in one, and veteran Brian Redman with Costas Los and Michael Roe in the other.
Two cars were sent to Le Mans: Team principal Gordon Spice (who had announced he would retire from driving after this race) had his regular co-driver Ray Bellm, along with American Lyn St. James.
His regular team drivers, Fermin Velez and Nick Adams had the new car, while for Jean-Philippe Grand Le Mans was his sole focus for the season.
Now owned by French driving-school director, Philippe Farjon, he knew a careful fuel-consumption strategy would be needed with the big turbo and the tighter fuel restrictions.
[34][35] Practice week had a tragic start, with a terrible accident on the night before, when a TWR crewman was killed crossing the road on the Ligne Droite (which formed the Hunaudières straight).
They also suffered from chronic "porpoising" as the cars got into a pendulum-like cycle of gaining and losing downforce, that was both dangerous and detrimental to shaking the drivers and engine to bits.
[30] As the Saubers slipped back into their designated race-pace, it was the hot-pink Joest Porsche driven by the experienced Wollek that was chasing Jones in the leading Jaguar.
[17] The Mercedes challenge faded in the second hour: Reuter had just taken over from Mass, but slipped out of the top-20 when he had to pit after running over exhaust debris on the back straight.
He was also followed in by Dominic Dobson in the second Schuppan Porsche fielding a badly dented nose and tail – he had just been nerfed into the barriers by Wollek cutting his overtake too fine.
[8][36] Meanwhile, the two Jaguars delayed in the first laps had been relentlessly powering back through the field – the Ferté brothers were now second and Lammers in third, until his co-driver Gilbert-Scott brought the car in with a broken exhaust.
Although looking spectacular, the Japanese driver was unhurt and an extended local caution was sufficient for the safety-crews to repair the stretch of flattened barrier.
The system may have sustained damage in the earlier incident, and when he was exiting the Mulsanne corner, the rear of the car suddenly erupted in a big ball of flame.
[48][8] In a situation similar to the Saubers earlier, this nearly ended badly when Tambay had a lurid 360 degree spin at Tertre Rouge right in front of his teammate and on live TV.
A satisfactory race for Joest was completed with sixth to their French-crewed car, which had run consistently apart from a leery moment when a tyre burst at speed on the Hunaudières straight.
Although 98 laps (2025 km/825 miles) behind the winners after their gearbox and battery delays, the calculations showed they had run the most economical race, with the Challenge Econergie prize by a wide margin over the two Saubers.
