19th - 20thJune
SUMMARY :
The 1994 24 Hours of Le Mans was the 62nd Grand Prix of Endurance
Report
The argument will probably go on for years. Did Porsche really aim to win Le Mans in 1994, or was a GT success the goal?
It may sound like a peculiar conundrum, because the Dauer 962 LM Porsches finished in first and third positions, sandwiching the SARD Toyota, and won the GT class by miles. "Believe me" demanded Porsche's Max Welti, "we did not expect to win the race."
The Stuttgart company' s 13th victory did not come easily, that was for sure. The SARD and Trust team Group C Toyotas had controlled the race with difficulty until they fell back with mechanical problems, the SARD car in fact due to a faulty gear linkage in the last hour of the race.
We could agree with Welti that Toyota should have won the race... but after all, they were not full factory teams, and the sheer weight and experience of the Porsche factory, plus Joest personnel, carried the day.
Hans Stuck, Porsche' s last Le Mans winner in 1987, was again the leader of Porsché's 'works' team in the 24-hour c1assic in 1994. Again the Porsche was a 962, but this time a development of a road car version engineered by Jochen Dauer, cleverly modified to run as a fully road legal Grand Touring model.
Never, at any time before, during or since the race, did Porsche's management admit that outright victory was the goal. "At the planning stage I made numerous calculations" says senior engineer Norbert Singer. "All led to the assumption that we would win with the Group C, particularly because of the time advantage during tyre changes."
But Porsche would not compete in the Group C category. This firm decision was taken some months before, when the Automobile Club de l' Ouest announced that - Group C cars would compete for the very last time.
Toyota's private teams SARD and Nisso', Trust were certainly keen to have one more shot at winning the race with the well pro ven Group C car, which is powered by a 3.6 litre twin-turbo V8. In Norbert Singer' s opinion, the ACO' s complex regulations favoured Toyota, not Porsche.
The two Porsche powered Dauers were entered for Stuck, Danny Sullivan and Thierry Boutsen, the taller drivers in one crew, and shorter drivers Mauro Baldi, Yannick Dalmas and Hurley Haywood. Between them, these men could c1aim five outright victories at Le Mans, a record that would increase to eight on June 19!
The contest between the two Dauer 962LM Porsches and the two Group C Toyotas was
fascinating, from beginning to end. The Toyotas were 50 kg lighter and turned in faster lap times, but only by a couple of seconds at best, thanks to their higher cornering speeds. They had to stop every 40 minutes for fuel, though, since their tanks were restricted to 80 litres.
The Porsches had superior top speeds and their tanks held 120 litres, which meant they could run a full hour between stops. Except at night, though, they had to change their tyres at each stop, and the ACO decreed that no routine work could be carried out during refuelling.
SARD and Nisso Trust made their tyres last for 80 minutes, which meant that their intermediate fuel stops were very fast.
The Clayton Cunningham team Nissans, easy winners at Daytona and Sebring, proved just not fast enough to do the job at Le Mans. They were well above the minimum weight of 1,000 kg for GT cars and lacked experience to win the race at the first attempt.
Frank Honsowetz, Nissan' s. competitions manager in North America, vowed to return with cars built to win the 24-hours, raising the prospect of good battles in 1995.
Neither of the Dauer 962LM Porsches looked lucky in the early stages of the race. Danny Sullivan had a tyre deftate just as he passed: the pit entry lane, and spun~ through the Ford chicane in full view of the entire Porsche management. It was a long, slow journey back to the pits but the Goodyear tyre stood up to the treatment and ptotected the car from damage.
Then Stuck' s car ran out of fuel within sight of the pits and needed to the pushed the last few metres, and later lost time having all driveshaft changed. All the greasel had escaped the gmters, a most; unusual failure. Le Mans is that sort of a trial, though. The race is often won or lost for the most trivial of reasons and the SARD team Toyota lost the contest in the final hour.
The Nisso Trust team, which had led through the night, fell back on Sunday morning when its gearbox needed a rebuild. Eddie Irvine, Mauro Martini and Jeff Krosnoff looked more than likely to win until, 40 minutes from the end, a broken weld allowed the gear selectors to flap in the wind.
When Irvine went back into the race Porsche' s lead car was in a winning position, but Boutsen was within the Toyota' s range. With the last pit stops completed it was down to speed, in the last 40 minutes of the race, and Irvine had that.
For a moment, nine minutes from the flag, Boutsen was baulked by some back- markers already lining up for the finish. Irvine seized his chance and passed the Belgian ace, holding on to second place by a few lengths.
After all, Porsches were first and third, sandwiching the SARD Toyota, and the result did justice to the evento
Americans were in the three leading cars, Hurley Haywood celebrating his third Le Mans victory with encouragement from Mauro Baldi and Yannick Dalmas.
Jeff Krósnoff, from Los Angeles but based in Japan, was second in the Toyota, and former Indy 500 winner Danny Sullivan was a strong member of the third placed crew. A single lap covered the top three cars making it one of the closest Le Mans results in recent times.
That was not the end of Porsche' s success story. Derek Bell, five times a winner at the Sarthe, drove to sixth place overall in the Kremer K8 Porsche which he shared with Juergen Laessig and Robin Donovan. They had backing from Gulf Oil (UK) Limited, reviving nostalgic memories of Bell' s first full season in sports car racing. The year was 1971, when he shared a Gulf Porsche 917 with the incomparable Jo Siffert.
Seventh was the Porsche powered Courage C32 driven by Jean- Louis Ricci, Andy Evans and Philippe 0lczyk, hotly pursued by atrio of Porsche 911 Carrera RSR 3.8s which dominated the result of the GT-2 category.
It was an outstanding weekend for Helmut Schwingen and his FAT Express transport company, which backed not only the winning Dauer 962LM, but the GT-2 class winning Carrera as well.
The Larbre team did a fine job, as usual, in preparing the eighth placed car for Dominique Dupuy with Spaniards Jesus Pareja and Carlos Palau, who enjoyed a trouble-free race.
In their wake carne the Ecurie Beinoise Porsche Carrera raced by Enzo Calderari, Lilian Bryner and Renato Mastropietro, and third in c1ass were Dutchmen Cor Euser and - Patrick Huisman with Slovenian Tomlje Matjaz.
Their clean sweep of the GT-2 (production car) category was not without a warning shot from Reeves Callaway' s Chevrolet Corvette, which fairly domínated the category until midnight.
The American V8 demonstrated a great turn of speed which was underlined later with c1ass victories at Vallelunga and Spa-Francorchamps, at GT races organised by the BPR Organisation.
The Kremer prepared Honda NSXs showed promise, too, although they were not ready to challenge Porsche' s traditional finishing power in GT-2. Two months later, at Suzuka, the Hondas were in much better shape.
Le Mans 1994 was a Porsche affair, though. The victory was not really expected, but it was all the nicer for being a surprise. The Dauer 962LM Porsche may not race again in 1995, but it will surely not be another seven years before Porsche's 14th Le Mans victory comes along.
Sports Car Races
Author: ArchitectPage
