The build-up for this year’s race had all the ingredients of excitement and drama, and no-one was disappointed. The race took place despite the intervention of FISA president Jean-Marie Balestre during the winter, but he can be credited with arousing a still greater level of support for the 24-hours, and drawing the largest crowd in recent memory.
There were far more people at the track than last year when the figure was given as 220,000, and the number of spectators for the qualifying sessions on Wednesday and Thursday evenings possibly surpassed the numbers of spectators for the World Championship races held so far this year. As for the future, the ACO has declared itself anxious to rejoin the World Sportscar Championship in 1991 ‘but not at any price,’ and has asked FISA for guarantees of World Championship status, and 50 car entries, before starting the FF120 million modern pits complex which should be finished by next April. There’s a long way to go yet before peace breaks out.
Never before had five manufacturers such as Jaguar, Porsche, Nissan, Toyota and Mazda entered for the 24-hour race, the 58th in the series, with any degree of confidence that they could win. There should have been a sixth of course, Mercedes, but the Stuttgart manufacturer made a purely political decision not to support the event and may be regretting its decision. Had there been only one or two major entries the absence of the silver cars would have been of importance, but with five makes slugging out the contest the Mercedes were hardly mentioned throughout the weekend.
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