1990 24 Hours of Le Mans
This was the last Le Mans run under the Group C formula, and a number of manufacturers put in a major effort to win, with the notable exception of defending winners Sauber-Mercedes.
The first major incident of the race was in the early evening when the Gianfranco Brancatelli in the race-leading Nissan clipped the Toyota of Aguri Suzuki as they passed by the pits at full speed.
Then in a cruel twist of luck, with barely a quarter hour to run, the engine broke on the Porsche and it sputtered to a stop at the Mulsanne hairpin.
[2] The racing license for the Circuit de la Sarthe was due at the end of the year, and FIA/FISA president Jean-Marie Balestre was prepared to use that as leverage with the ACO.
[1] Another target was the Ligne Droit – at 5.7 kilometres, Hunaudières was the longest straight in motorsport, and in the last two years both WM and Sauber-Mercedes cars had famously reached the 400 kp/h (248 mph) barrier.
[3][2][4][5] The ACO unsuccessfully appealed to the French courts and were therefore obliged to buy land and install two, roughly equidistant, chicanes along the Hunaudières straight to make it comply to the new decree.
[1][6] Nissan management believed the chicanes would slow lap-times by about 20 seconds, or 10%, and the overall distance covered by a similar amount, however they thought fuel consumption would stay about the same.
Four new aluminium monocoque chassis were built, fitting them with langheck tails that gave 10% more downforce, better fuel economy and greater straight-line speed – now up to 365 kp/h (225 mph).
[11] All four cars came to Le Mans, with a strong driver line-up: 5-time winner Derek Bell was with Hans-Joachim Stuck and Frank Jelinski; Porsche veteran Bob Wollek drove with Formula 1 drivers Jonathon Palmer and Philippe Alliot while the third car had Brit Will Hoy, Swede Stanley Dickens and German "John Winter" (Louis Krages.
The lead car would be driven by Sarel van der Merwe/Kunimitsu Takahashi/Hideki Okada while the second had gentleman-driver (and prime sponsor) Thierry Salvador with Bernard de Dryver and Patrick Gonin.
With both decked out in the hot-pink and white livery of their Italya Sports sponsor, the GTi would be driven by last year's winner (for Sauber) Manuel Reuter, James Weaver and JJ Lehto.
Setting up a base in England, he engaged his co-founder of Tiga Race Cars, Howden Ganley, and former JWA team manager John Horsman.
Results were promising, winning on debut at Fuji Speedway in the Japanese championship and an IMSA victory in May with Dan Gurney's All American Racers team (who raced it as the Eagle HF89).
This was a project from the small French sports-car manufacturer Norma Auto Concept and co-financed by Noël del Bello, who had previously raced at Le Mans in his privateer Sauber.
Descartes stepped aside from the driving this year, with his lead driver being French rally- and sports-car veteran François Migault with Gérard Tremblay and Jacques Heuclin brought in as co-drivers.
A suspension bolt on the rear of the Joest Porsche of Jonathon Palmer broke and the car had suddenly veered left at 320 kp/h (200 mph) along the back straight between the chicanes, slamming into the barrier.
Still managing 380 kp/h (237 mph) on the abbreviated Hunaudières straight, and with almost a completely clear track he put in a blistering lap of 3:27.0, fully 6 seconds faster than Larrauri that stunned the pitlane.
[23][36][37][38][39][35] It was the first Le Mans pole for a Japanese car and, proving a point, the Nissans of Hoshino, Brabham and Acheson filled the next three spots behind Larrauri with Stuck in the Joest Porsche grabbing 6th (3:36.1).
Acheson's Nissan parked up at the end of the formation lap after losing his brakes and busting the transmission trying to stop - a carry-over of problems found in the morning warm-up.
The langheck Porsches were proving a real handful for the Joest team and Wollek pitted on lap 6 to get the amount of rear wing increased, while Jelinski soldiered on, but slipping down the order.
[48] In the next round of driver-changes, Larrauri got back in the Brun Porsche and was immediately lapping 6–7 seconds faster than his teammates, and closing in on Leslie doing his first stint in the Jaguar.
[48][23][24][46] The Toyota had bent a good portion of the Armco barrier, pushing it back two metres, which would take a while to repair, yet incredibly the stewards chose not to deploy the pace cars.
[30] The other 787 had a miserable race with early fuel-feed problems leaving them marooned with the backmarkers until electrical failure in the middle of the night left them without lights and fried wiring.
[53][9] His efforts went unrewarded though, as later in the morning, the engine developed a misfire after a missed gear-change by one of the drivers shot fourth gear and the oil pressure plummeted, dropping a valve.
The only note of concern had been when Reid had been following a train of cars and debris (possibly a wing-mirror) had flown back and struck his windscreen, sending a small glass sliver into his eye, necessitating a stop to have it carefully removed.
The fifth Nissan had had a difficult race with many hours spent in the pits fixing water leaks, a lost wheel, a coolant pipe, gearbox and suspension problems.
However, at the back of the field with fuel consumption no longer an issue, Millen got a consolation prize setting the fastest lap of the race on the new circuit in the night hours.
The only car in the class for the second half of the race, they had spent 90 minutes at breakfast time getting the gearbox rebuilt, only getting back out by pillaging parts from their stricken teammates.
[28][41] For Jaguar, celebrating its 40th year at Le Mans, the 1-2 victory was a suitable farewell present for the company’s departing Chairman, Sir John Egan, who was up on the winners' podium with the team.
The short-tail Brun and Alpha Porsches had proven a point to Joest and the rest of the langhecks, that outright speed and high downforce are no longer the answer.
