As the 100th Le Mans 24 Hours approaches, we revisit an archive piece about the most controversial change to the event back in 1990. Feature:
There aren't too many 97-year olds that retain a capacity for constant reinvention to keep up with the times.
"If you didn't get exactly the same revs, you'd know that the car was getting worse and you had time to really analyse the problem. "I'm very glad that I got to race on the original Le Mans circuit," says the 1992 British Touring Car champion."There was nothing like sitting at full-throttle for 60 seconds at 230mph.
Steve Farrell, race engineer on the #2 Jaguar of Andy Wallace, Jan Lammers and Franz Konrad, agrees:"I don't remember any driver in Jaguar being unhappy about it because that straight was just so damn dangerous. Nobody in our team was complaining about it, I think it's just everybody bitches when there's a chance, no matter what the change is."
"Because we didn't have the low-drag car, suddenly things like Porsche Curves that used to be quite tippy-toey with a low-drag car was a bit more normal," says Farrell."Braking was better for Indianapolis too. It was still a 200mph stop, but it was much more stable." Receiving a trophy marked Le Mans 1990: Amicale Des Commissionnaires from the ACO - as Autosport put it,"the marshals' consolation price for the most deserving team" - was scant consolation afterThat it had been in contention at all owed much to its decision before the race to ignore the advice of the factory to keep the same long-tail, low-downforce configuration that had been used in 1989.
."I'd never been to Le Mans before, but I just loved the feel of the higher-downforce set-up. It gave me more confidence and you could brake later for the chicanes, and the tyre runs were very good. "I believe we must have had a conversation that was black and white. The drivers didn't like the low-downforce car because that V12 engine was such a lump that it always wanted to overtake you under braking. I remember it being a very straight-forward decision."Photo by: William Murenbeeld /Sure enough, the Joest cars were troubled by persistent brake problems throughout the race.
"It was also much busier in the sense that on the old straight, the slower cars would stick to one side whereas now, you've got cars traversing the width of the circuit in the braking areas and entry and exits to the two chicanes and so there was a lot more opportunity for mishap." "But the one thing that you could make a difference in those days was being more reliable and the drivers played a big part in that. Martin was absolutely unbelievable on fuel, he could go faster than anyone, more reliable than anybody, less fuel than anybody."
"Franz was a very good team player, a very nice guy, fitted into the team perfectly and made one mistake."
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