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From the Batmobile to the DTM M3: Witness BMW's Greatest Race Cars in Action!

Taken from Motor Sport, March 2011

A bitter wind snakes through the Brands Hatch pits. Three cars stand within, racers of three distinct generations. Crew members check, prime, plug in starter batteries. Two race-suited figures look out at the empty track, talking quietly, then one jerks his head towards the furthest car.

Priaulx in the BMW CSL

Priaulx felt unprotected in the CSL.

“Had a look yet?” They walk over and admire the shape, pointing and nodding. Under the raised bonnet six huge orange intakes, like a bank of mortar launchers, gape silently, ready to inhale the cold Kent air. The two men gaze. They know it’s one of the great racing power units, and that if they were racing 40 years ago, this is what they would be driving. It carries the blue and white roundel they both revere, badge of the Munich marque that earns them both their living. BMW called it the 3.0CSL. Everyone else took one look at its fins and named it ‘Batmobile’.

Homologated for the European Touring Car Championship in 1972, its alloy, Perspex and thin steel qualified it to wear ‘L’ for ‘light’. Having taken the title in 1973 it grew up a little, sprouted those wings and carried the series every year from ’75 to ’79. In different forms CSLs scored successes in endurance racing, at Le Mans and in IMSA, and if you need an image of BMW’s motor sport passion it has to be a CSL off the deck at Pflanzgarten with Hans Stuck at the joystick.

Andy primes Soper for WTC drive

Andy primes Soper for WTC drive before, below, trying M3

Greg Pajo

Andy trying M3

This is what ‘touring car’ used to mean – long bonnet, long legs – but the meaning had changed by the time these two men raced them. By then ‘touring car’ was a way of avoiding the phrase ‘saloon’ – too prosaic. But there’s nothing prosaic about what this pair can do with a ‘family car’.

Steve Soper – touring car legend with a reputation for tight-lipped toughness – and Andy Priaulx – touring car legend with a ready smile and four titles under him. Racing in different eras – overlapping by just one race – they tackled the same job in very different ways. Soper wrestled victories out of anything he could elbow his way into: brawny V8 Rovers, popping and banging Sierra Cosworths, snarling homologation ‘saloon’ BMWs and McLaren’s F1 in Le Mans trim. He retired 10 years ago, but not before coming up against a young stand-in for the Vauxhall team in a BTCC round at Oulton Park. From nowhere Priaulx put his Astra on pole, and Soper noticed. Thanks to his lobbying Priaulx signed early for BMW, and that suited both. Soper’s Munich allegiance is strong – he’s now a dealer – and he still wants BMW to win. And he recognised that the affable young Guernseyman would be good for the marque. Now that one has inherited the other’s mantle, they’re here to swap mounts: Soper to try Priaulx’s 2010 320Si World Touring Car, while Priaulx gets into a DTM M3 and relives the 1980s. But first, some neutral ground, a car neither knows, the CSL.

“Right,” says Andy, rubbing his race gloves together. “I’m looking forward to this.” It’s not happy with the cold at first, but within a lap or two that six-pot bark rings out clear and sharp. Andy sticks scrupulously to his rev limit, but very quickly he’s getting the most he sensibly can from the orange-nosed beast. Though it carries emotive livery, this was not a Schnitzer Jägermeister racer – but owner Roger Wills has the perfect excuse for the paint job. He has another CSL, a works Alpina car with great history and so original it would be a crime to risk it. This is the ‘costume jewellery’ version, which Wills can and does race with gusto.

BMW CSL wings and arches

Wings and arches define CSL

Greg Pajo

Now a gruffer noise joins the CSL’s deep boom; Soper wedges himself into the WTC car and gives the signal to fire up. It takes a whirring age to catch – the injected, restricted four has none of the CSL’s eagerness. WTCC is a showroom formula, tightly tied down. Yes, its 275bhp is 100 up on stock, but block, head, suspension layout, H-pattern shift, bodyshell all match the road car. Barring a million mods by Belgian team RBM which has turned the car, and Priaulx, into title winners, first in ETCC, then three times in WTCC. But equivalency regs have jumped on such success – now it’s front-drive diesels which make good box office…

With a last blaaap Priaulx rolls into the pitlane and climbs out of the Batmobile. “I don’t know how Stuckie drove that round the ’Ring,” he laughs. “In compression the steering practically locks solid!” But he loves the torque, the noise, the forgiving nature. “It’s quite an oversteering beast, but it’s progressive, not snappy. You expect to slide it, where you never slide my car. That’s just throwing away time.” He knows the history, too; knows who drove, what races, when the first Art Car CSL appeared at Le Mans.

Andy Priaulx and Stece Soper laugh

Steve returns, levering himself out from the deep seat and complex rollcage.

“Thought I’d better come in before I crashed. It’s so heavy, once it goes it doesn’t want to come back.”

Priaulx knows what he means. “Shame it was cold. If there was some heat in the tyres you’d like it more.”

Now it’s Soper’s turn to be Batman. “I’ve never driven a CSL… Or have I?”

“Stevie, be careful,” calls Andy. “The throttle and brake are very close.” A flash of orange and Soper is away, plunging through Paddock, blipping into Druids, surging on to Cooper Straight as we watch. He’s at home now, and soon Andy is after him in the compact, muscular, blaring M3.

BMW WTC’s specialised lap technique

WTC’s specialised lap technique demands smoothness above all.

Greg Pajo

Ah, the ’80s – when if you wanted your car to win in Group A you built a racer that looked like it and sold some to the public. It might be going a bit far to call it a silhouette racer, but they say it shared only bonnet and sunroof with the road car. And it didn’t have a sunroof. Instead it had a 2.3-litre four, virtually two-thirds of the glorious M1 unit, a Getrag gearbox, LSD and wide-track suspension, all clad in a stiffer, broad-arched, airdammed body. In various Evo iterations it raised its spec, its capacity and its game, muscling its way between 1986 and ’92 to a sheaf of British, European, Italian, German and Australian saloon titles, not to mention rallying, and – especially if Soper was inside – continuing to punch above its weight in Germany’s much more liberal DTM even when the Audi 4WD steamroller looked unstoppable. A race winner which privateers could buy with theoretically the same shot at success as factory-supported teams. Except that they had first call on the aces – Roberto Ravaglia, Johnny Cecotto, Marc Duez and that man Soper.

Since then there’s always been an M3 for road and track – in fact, there are currently two racers, both V8s. There’s an almost standard GT4 and a more radical GT2 which races in the American Le Mans Series, won the 2010 Nürburgring 24 Hours, and ran at Le Mans as the latest Art Car, bedecked by Jeff Koons. And Andy Priaulx drives it, so when Soper makes unappreciative comments about the WTC car you can sense his frustration that his mate hasn’t enjoyed what a proper current BMW racer can be.

BMW logo

Dials change, but not much else – except safety factors

Greg Pajo

BMW steering wheel

But now both are out in these historic machines, enjoying themselves remembering what opposite lock feels like, the urgent scream of the M3 interweaving with the Batmobile’s deep bark. It’s not racing, but it’s more joyful than running your dealership or battling midfield in a ballasted car… Andy returns first.

“Enjoyed that more than the CSL. Really nice, really racy.” The CSL crackles into the pitlane and with a defiant last blip shuts down. The guys from CCK Motorsport who maintain it on behalf of Twyman Racing (and handle four other CSLs) roll it inside and Soper unbuckles. Priaulx is there to quiz him. He’s never effusive, Steve, but he’s nodding, mouth pursed in restrained approval. He liked that. “Yes, it drove well. Good car for long distances.”

“I’d love to do a lap of the ’Ring in it,” says Andy. “But only one!” Then he hesitates. “Steve, did you feel – um, scared?” Soper looks puzzled; he never raced with the sort of protection the WTC car gives Priaulx.

“I liked it,” Andy continues. “The only thing that was tiring was the feeling that you’re going to die at every corner!”

Steve approves too. “If it weren’t for my back injury [in a Peugeot in that 2001 Oulton event which ended his career], I’d like to do some historic racing in that.”

Meanwhile there’s a warm M3 begging for walkies, and it’s clear from the crisp way Soper nips onto the track and attacks Paddock that, although he hasn’t been here for a decade, he’s feeling at home. We hear the revs whisk up to the identical limit on each gearchange, see him skittering on the edge of adhesion without falling off it. He’s in the blue-and-white zone.

Steve Soper name on BMW

Steve Soper name on BMW BMW Steering

Andy pats him, laughing, as he climbs out. “Didn’t want to come in, did you?” And even Soper has to release a grin. They’ve both met this M3 before; both have caned it up the hill at Goodwood. Plus it’s one of Steve’s own racers, part of the Bigazzi team for the Mainz DTM race in 1990, with Jo Winkelhock and Jacques Lafitte. Owner Howard Wise is still trying to confirm who drove which when, but anyway it brings back favourite days for Soper.

“Those years with Bigazzi in the DTM are my fondest memories of racing,” he muses, gazing at the M-power stripes. “Zakspeed were too German, but I clicked with Bigazzi.” After his Cosworth triumphs and the demise of the ETCC, it was Zakspeed which in 1989 gave him his first BMW drive, a loyalty which lasted 11 years, mostly with the Italian outfit.

“I’d love to do a lap of the ’Ring in it. But only one!”

There’s a whine as the Batmobile is winched onto its transporter, leaving the saloons. Side by side in the pit it’s a shock to see how distinct these two 3-series are. Though the M3 arrived in 1986, that body shape dates back to ’82, and with its slim pillars and clear-cut, boxy outline it looks leaner despite its bulging wheel arches than the squat and solid 320. Today’s car, hunkered down on rubber-band tyres, is larger, a softer, subtler shape despite the aero add-ons, while inside it the crash cradle of rollcage, deep A-pillar brace and bear-hug seat with helmet lugs seem to imprison the driver. Did Andy feel exposed in the M3?

“I admit I did. In the modern car you’re shut in you can hardly see the road, but the M3 is more like a stripped road car. Of course, I came from hillclimbing, so I’m used to not much protection, but things have changed a lot. For sure it’s not as safe as the car I drive now. And the performance is like a mountain peak – it falls off rapidly just a fraction either side. What revs did you use, Steve?

Andy Priaulx name on BMW window

BMW interior

“This is red-lined at 9200. The hot ones hit 10k, but they’d only last 300km. You couldn’t practice and race the same engine.”

“But you can get away with a lot more,” Andy continues. “In my car you have to drive to the grip. After only a lap in the M3 I felt ‘this is a proper racing car’ and I got aggressive with it. WTC punishes you for overdriving, whereas in that DTM car you can push the envelope. I think that’s why you see the driving you do in WTCC. Steve was always known for being aggressive, but now WTCC is like karting, or BTCC. You’re touching, you’re pushing, you’re nudging because you feel safe. It still hurts when you go off, though, when you stop dead from 150mph. I suppose when you were driving that DTM car you never thought about it?”

“Never gave it a thought. But we did lose a couple of people in touring cars. Kieth Odor was T-boned and didn’t survive. I thought – bloody hell, touring cars are meant to be safe…”

“Mind you,” Priaulx recalls, “I won a historic race in Copenhagen this year, in an old BMW 2002, and it got a bit stupid because I was racing with Tom [Kristensen] and Allan McNish. And it was raining, a street track, but you go for it, don’t you? Your pride won’t allow you to back out.”

The two of them muse on how you forget to be scared once in the car, how Soper hated Le Mans but always said yes, how Priaulx sometimes says hopefully ‘I don’t mind if I don’t do that one’, but always signs on because racing is a team game.

“Of course,” says Andy, “if you’re scared actually in the car it shows in your lap time.”

“I was scared at Le Mans,” Steve ripostes with a sly glance, “but it didn’t show in my lap time.” Gamesmanship doesn’t stop just because you’ve retired.

“You could get away with some nice drifts,” says Priaulx of the M3. “It would reward slight overdriving where in our car you’re really penalised for it.”

“I think that’s right,” Soper replies. “In WTC there’s a lap time technique, and it’s not a race technique, it’s to get the max out of the car. Very tidy and early on the throttle with lots of grip is quick, and the ragged edge is slow. Because it’s so heavy, once it gets away it scrubs off speed very quickly, and the delay in getting that slide back takes even longer if you have to get off the throttle. A little slide in a single-seater can lose you a split second, whereas in that a big oversteer will probably lose you around three tenths.”

“I don’t think your DTM is as stiff as ours,” says Andy. “I wouldn’t want to clatter over too many kerbs in that car. I don’t know if you used a lot of kerbs in DTM?”

BMW M-Power engine

“We did. But on Howard’s car the ride height is too high; we’d be burning wheel arches. (Howard here points out that surprisingly there’s no series to race his car in, so he hasn’t needed to tweak it.)

“Your car would do a quicker lap time than mine, I would think,” Priaulx says.

“Oh yes. And if you spent a day messing with it you’d get more out of it for you than if I spent a day in adjustments with yours.”

“Yes. You might find a tenth, a tenth and a half, but you could find much bigger chunks with the DTM. That’s because these formulas nowadays are so controlled, so restricting; they’re so much about equality it doesn’t give you much you can do technically.” Both men look ruminatively at the 2010 car. Priaulx is a sound company man, putting up with the heavily restricted machine because the close-racing stock series brings brand exposure. And of course there’s always the GT2 to race for enjoyment. One wonders if Soper would have been so tolerant.

“I’d love you to drive the GT2 car, Steve.” He turns to me. “Can we do this again sometime with the GT2?”

“We could compare it with the last of the DTM M3s,” says Soper. They’re both excited by the thought, even though Priaulx has come here straight off the plane from Macau. Well, it’s another chance to drive racing cars. If he can find a gap between WTCC, ALMS, V8 Supercars and the GT2 programme. Not to mention doing pretty well in the Race of Champions. Soper used to be the same – 37 round trips to Japan in 18 months.

“Or the new DTM car. You’d love that, Steve.” Following its withdrawal from F1, BMW is preparing to return to the DTM for 2012 with a new M3.

“What’s the spec?” asks Soper.

“I always said I’d like to be Steve Soper in a BMW – I owe him a lot”

“The regs aren’t out yet, but it’s going to go in the direction of a GT2 car. But it’s good. It feels like a sports-proto – you can really feel the aero. Round the Nordschleife it’s very, very quick.” Enthusiasm for DTM bubbles out. “All rear-drive, all the same weight, same spec engines – that’s more like production racing. That to me is exciting; you can push the envelope, whereas with the WTC you have a very small envelope you’re trying to expand.” Steve wants to know more, but I have to steer them back to today.

“Jumping into the WTC car after 10 years away,” says Soper, “it just felt heavy, under-powered, under-tyred. Engine and gearbox were quite nice, and all the seat and security. But it made me focus very quickly that if you’re not careful this thing will bite. It’s what – 1200kg and 280hp? Mine was probably 975 kilos, with plastic glass, etc. That’s 200 kilos lighter, and over 300 horsepower. It was hard work to get them under 1000kg, mind you, and the more successful you were, the more weight you had to carry.”

“We’re on 1175kg. But in this formula they’re trying to equalise everything. The BMW would be the best car, with RWD and better brake balance, so they slow us down to make it equal to a FWD diesel. The tyre is made for a heavy front-drive diesel and doesn’t work for us.” This is why the triple WTC champ was mid-grid last season (what he calls ‘the shunt zone’) while Chevrolet and SEAT made hay. “But having driven sports and DTM Steve will never be impressed by a WTC car,” Andy says. “I’m not impressed by it – but what makes any championship exciting is how close it is.”

“I know – it’s the regulations, not the car. But having driven it – well, I knew Andy was good, but if he can win in that sort of car he’s even better than I thought!”

“Steve, from you I take that as a real compliment.” Andy turns. “I grew up watching this guy race. I always said I’d like to be Steve Soper in a BMW. I owe him a lot. He’s the reason I wear this badge.”

Soper explains about pushing a guy he didn’t know towards the team. “There were a lot of phone calls. But I knew he was right. I’ve got BMW branded on my forehead. At Munich even the receptionists know your last results. It’s in the blood. That’s worth a lot when you drive for a company like that.”

With so much to look forward to next season and beyond, Andy Priaulx’s repeated nod of agreement is entirely genuine.

Thanks to: BMW Park Lane, Roger Wills, Joe Twyman, CCK Motorsport, Howard Wise Cars, Soper of Lincoln, Brands Hatch.

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How a ‘Pig’ Became a Porsche Legend

Taken from Motor Sport, November 2011

It’s not unusual for a racing driver to describe a racing car as a pig. It is rare, however, for a senior designer to declare that a racing car resembles a pig. And rarer still for the team to paint said car pink and carve it, like butchers, into cuts of meat outlined all over its bodywork.

This is the strange saga that is the Porsche 917/20, which first appeared in public in the spring of 1971. And it’s not over yet. On sale in Europe, from Porsche Design, is a money box in the shape of a Pink Pig. There is, if you prefer, something known as an ‘art ball chair’. It’s priced at a mere £2880, this being a piece of trendy pink furniture for the Porsche fanatic. Such is the legend of this racing car, only one of which was ever built.

Pink Porsche 917 doors

The car was the result of Porsche’s relentless quest for ever more slippery aerodynamics, and it was aero specialist Robert Choulet of SERA (Societe d’Etudes et de Realisations Automobiles) in Paris who took on the task of creating a new body shape. The French company had also previously worked on a new long-tail version of the 917, the Langheck, for the 1970 Le Mans 24 Hours.

Porsche’s target was to extract drag numbers similar to the 917L, and the downforce numbers of the 917K, without resorting to the long and weighty tail that had been introduced in search of ultimate speed on the Mulsanne Straight.

The result was the Pig, though the ‘pink’ part came later. Choulet eventually presented Porsche with what was generally agreed to be an ugly racing car. The 917/20 had an unusually wide body, with strange lateral overhangs which were designed to lessen the effects of air flowing over the wheel arches.

The short, stubby car was revealed to the world at the traditional Le Mans test in April, sponsored by Martini & Rossi and driven by Willi Kauhsen and Gijs van Lennep. But Count Rossi, dismayed by its ugliness, refused to let the car run in his famous colours. So, in a rare moment of not-very-German humour, it was decided to paint it pink and mark out the bodywork in cuts of meat as a butcher might have done with a real pig. Amusing, no?

“It was too wide for the race trucks so we used a military truck with a round hole in the roof for the machine guns”

The car is now in Porsche’s ‘rolling museum’ in Stuttgart and is, unsurprisingly, the subject of much attention and discussion among visitors from all over the world. Klaus Bischof, who joined Porsche in 1968 as a race mechanic and worked on the Pink Pig at Le Mans in ’71, is now director of the museum where the car is back in his care. “The car’s history is quite incredible, a really important part of Porsche racing heritage,” says Bischof. “I have so many memories as a junior mechanic with the car. In the beginning Ferdinand Piech decided to get the French to design this aerodynamic experiment, while the factory’s own design department continued with their 917s, which would be raced by John Wyer’s team as the works cars.

“In Germany the engineers were not very happy about the French being involved and when Anatole Lapine, who was doing his own 917 back in Zuffenhausen, first saw the car in its garage he said it looked like a pig in a barn, declaring that his car looked like a proper Porsche. Herr Piech was very disappointed by the criticism and I’m sure he had words with Lapine in private.

Porsche 917 pink on track

First presented in all white and ready for its Martini colours, the brand refused at the last moment due to its controversial looks, so out came the pink paint pot…

“There was some tension between the Germans and the French, jokes about frog-eaters, because the engineers at Zuffenhausen did not appreciate the French being involved in designing a Porsche. But Piech had been keen to do these experiments to find the best car to win at Le Mans, which is why he used the Martini team to run the car. He didn’t want to take any risks with the John Wyer cars, which were the ones most likely to win.”

The Pink Pig was much wider than a conventional 917 and this caused problems with transportation before they even got as far as the test weekend at La Sarthe. Bischof remembers well the trials and tribulations.

“It seems funny now, but it was too wide to fit in the race trucks, so we used an old military truck, which we adapted as best we could. It was really designed for tanks or aircraft and there was a big round hole in the roof where the machine guns would have gone,” he chuckles. “I drove this thing all the way to Le Mans – it took two days along country roads, there were no autobahns then, the gearbox had no synchro and it was limited to 75kph [46mph]. You can imagine. I did this twice, for the test and for the race…”

The car ran well at the April test and afterwards there was a three-hour race which it very nearly won. That’s another drama in the saga of the Pink Pig.

Rear-Naked porsche 917 pink

“It was fantastic,” enthuses Bischof. “There were just two of us as mechanics on the car and after practice Piech told us we had to save the engine for the race, and we had just two hours to get it changed. He said that if we got it done in time we could keep the prize money… so we did it and Willi Kauhsen and Gijs van Lennep took the car into a huge lead.

Then, on the last lap, van Lennep stopped a few metres from the finish. We’d been having problems with the mechanical rev limiter – it was like something from James Watt’s old steam machines, a cable with lots of little springs – so we put this near the driver so he could disconnect it and run without the limiter. But van Lennep didn’t do this – he just said the car would not run. So we went to the car, disconnected the cable, and I drove it over the finish line. But it was too late; we had missed the prize money. I was very upset and told van Lennep that a Dutchman would never win the World Championship…”

Come the race in June, van Lennep did in fact win for Porsche, sharing the short-tail 917K with Helmut Marko for the Martini team. This was another experimental car, the magnesium chassis so light that weights were added to keep it within the regulations. Meanwhile the Pink Pig again ran well. Now there were two Germans in the car, Kauhsen and Reinhold Joest, and a great deal of national pride was at stake for these two young works drivers.

“It had less drag, the balance was perfect with plenty of downforce… it was a special thing”

“People joked, you know, that the Pink Pig would be out hunting in the forest,” says Bischof. “But Kauhsen and Joest took it up to third place before half-distance despite a couple of stops for repairs. Then Joest crashed approaching Arnage corner. He said he’d had a brake problem and the car was trying to turn right, but I still don’t believe that. I just don’t believe there was a mechanical problem, the car was so strong, and if it was a brake problem then it would have happened to the other cars by this time. The master cylinders were damaged, yes, but we never found any reason why it had suddenly crashed.”

Many years later the car was shipped to America and restored by Porsche specialist Gerry Sutterfield who said that, when they took it apart, they saw the front brake pads were down to the metal and welded onto the disc. Sutterfield reported this to Porsche and speculated that it had miscalculated the brake wear, because Pink Pig had less drag than the other 917s in the race and should have come in for new pads. This was the first time the car had been comprehensively taken apart since the race at Le Mans.

Finally, it seemed, Joest had been vindicated from the accident.

Pink Porsche 917 side profile

“That’s impossible,” argues Bischof. “All the 917s had the same braking systems, very strong discs, and after 11 hours that could not have been the reason. It would’ve happened much sooner if it was the brakes. Reinhold always said the car turned right, there was nothing he could do, but I’ve spoken to him and he knows I never believed that’s what happened. He knows I still think this way, you can ask him.”

So I did. Now one of the most successful team owners in sports car history, first with Porsche and then Audi, Joest remembers clearly those Pink Pig days.

“It was like no other 917,” he says. “When I first saw it at the Le Mans test it was plain white, and in white it looked so much bigger than a 917 – shorter, stubbier, wider, and I thought, ‘My goodness, this is a race car?’ But when I drove it the car was so much easier than what I’d driven before, very different, and on the straight it was better than I had experienced before. It had less drag, the balance was perfect and there was plenty of downforce. I have absolutely no idea why they painted it pink – maybe some joke from the design studio in Weissach – but it was fine by me, it was a special thing, and the effect was fantastic. I mean, you’re still asking me about it after 40 years, and once I’m in the car I don’t care what colour it is on the outside. For me, the important thing was that it was fast, and so it looked just fine as far as I was concerned. It was not pink inside, you know…”

At Le Mans there were problems with the Pink Pig in the early part of the race. Again, Joest recalls every detail. “We stopped before midnight to change the bolts on the cooling fan for the engine. All the long-tail 917s had already had this problem, so the Porsche engineers called us in to change the bolts on the turbine for the fan to avoid any damage to the engine. Then, two laps later, the throttle cable broke. But I was so lucky because it was just before the pitlane. I changed down for the corner and suddenly there was no throttle, so I used my speed to get down the pitlane and they were a bit surprised because I had no time to reach for the microphone on the old radios we had in those days.

Pink Porsche 917 rear

“After that the car was fantastic again, just normal pitstops until 3.30am when I came to brake for Arnage. I touched the brakes and the car turned right into the wall. There was no warning, and it happened so fast there was nothing I could do. I was a factory driver, and if I’d made a mistake then of course I would have told the team. Back in the pits I told them about the brakes and there was a bit of… you know, smiling… but that’s what happened.” So Joest must have been relieved that the subsequent inspection in America supported his story?

“It was many years later, but yes, it was still good to get the confirmation,” he says. “But I would still have preferred to have got a good result in the race, especially as I was driving a factory car. You cannot ask me why we didn’t stop for new brakes, I don’t know that, and we trusted completely the engineers at Porsche. Maybe they should have checked the brakes, I don’t know, but I know what Klaus Bischof thinks – he has told me, and that’s his opinion. I was in the car and I tell only the truth.”

“All Porsches were reliable, but with the 917 you both feared and respected it”

So how does Joest look back on the unusual car after all these years? “It was a really good car and in my opinion it did have good potential. Each of the 917s had different strengths and weaknesses on different parts of the circuit. The Pink Pig was as good as the others on average and good enough to run at the front at Le Mans. The aerodynamics were very good indeed. On the Mulsanne, it was more stable than the 917K and it felt lighter, not so nervous. They were all good cars, the best of their time, and the engine was as reliable as a Volkswagen Beetle. All Porsches were like this, but with the 917 you both feared and respected it.

“I remember at Buenos Aires in 1971 it was my first race with my own 917, and Derek Bell told me, ‘Be careful my friend, first time with a 917, be careful.’ Then in practice he came up behind me, tried to pass and spun across me. I still laugh about that with him. Maybe he forgot his respect for the car on that lap… Anyway, I would have loved to race the Pink Pig more often but it’s history now.”

Back in Stuttgart-Zuffenhausen Bischof has ambitious plans for the Pink Pig’s resurrection so that it can run alongside the other 917s in his magnificent rolling museum.

“In the beginning it was my job to prepare the car in the best possible way for exhibition, not for running,” he explains. “But now I want to get the Pink Pig back into full running order. The car has no crankshaft but we have our own workshop and we have enough parts to get the job done. It is my personal ambition to get all the cars running, all the cars I worked on as a mechanic. I’m talking to my new boss at Porsche about this plan and I’ve asked him to fight for this. We still have the old military truck, and I want to put the Pink Pig back on it, take it to the workshop at Weissach and get it running on the track again. We have to do this; I will do this. I have fights with my colleagues about it but we must do it while all the old mechanics are still around to see the car run again.

“Steve McQueen made the 917 into a movie star with his film of Le Mans, but I tell you, to see Pink Pig on track again will be an even bigger story.”

Bischof hopes that the restoration can begin later this year. As far as the mighty and unforgettable 917s are concerned, the 917/20 may have been the runt of the litter, but it will always have a special – and unique – place in Porsche’s racing history.

Thanks to the Porsche Museum. porsche.com/uk/aboutporsche/porschemuseum

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Porsche’s Engine Evolution: From VW Flat-Fours to Flat-Six Powerhouses

Ferdinand Porsche may be famed for many things, but for most the name is more commonly associated with just one engine type, the flat-six. From the 911 to the 962 Group C cars, flat sixes are synonymous with Porsche. It would, however, be remiss to ignore the 4, 8, and 12-cylinder variants that secured much of the company’s early racing success. Of course, the boxer layout isn’t unique to Porsche; Ferrari, Chevrolet, Subaru and Tatra, to name a few, have all used the layout, and it is the last of these names that holds the key to the Porsche design’s murky beginnings.

Porshe 917 from above

When sketching out the KdF Wagen – AKA the Beetle – back in the early ’30s, Ferdinand Porsche could not help but notice the work being undertaken by Czech designer Hans Ledwinka on the Tatra V570, which featured a lightweight, rear-mounted, air-cooled flat four. Porsche had his then engine designer Joseph Kales draw up a similar motor, which would later be refined by Franz Xaver Reimspiess when the KdF-Wagen was adopted as Hitler’s favoured ‘Peoples’ Car’. Tatra took exception to this and started legal proceedings against Volkswagen in 1937. These were curtailed when Germany invaded Czechoslovakia and took over the factory; post-war VW would end up paying damages to Tatra.

Briton Attwood and Herrmann’s Salzburg-entered 917K Porsche’s in 1970

Briton Attwood and Herrmann’s Salzburg-entered 917K beat the elements to score Porsche’s first Le Mans win in 1970

Glossing over the legalities of its genesis, the humble VW flat-four laid the foundations for the engines that would power multiple Le Mans-winning sports cars. It merged simplicity with what for the time was an advanced design thanks to its lightweight, all-alloy construction and use of high-quality parts, such as a forged steel crank, where it mattered. The diminutive motor only displaced 995cc and made 25bhp but could run all-day at maximum rpm reliably. Post-war, it would form the starting point for Porsche’s engines once the company became a manufacturer in its own right.

Ferdinand Porsche died in 1951, having suffered ill health since his release from captivity after the war (he was arrested by the French) and it was left to son Ferry to develop the company’s fledgling model line-up. Porsche’s first production car, the 356, was released in 1952 and its engines shared much in common with the VW, using the same block but with revised internals and cylinder heads. It would be in 1953 that the first truly remarkable Porsche engine arrived, the jewel-like Type 547, better known today as the Carrera. The complexity of this diminutive motor is now legendary. At 1498cc, it utilised twin-overhead camshafts on each cylinder bank, driven by an astounding combination of nine shafts, 14 bevel gears and two spur gears. Assembling each engine took 120 hours, and the first ones made 112bhp at 6400rpm, though in later iterations capacity and power would rise to 2-litres and 180+bhp.

The four-cylinder would serve Porsche well through the 1950s and into the early ’60s, netting an array of class wins in sports car racing and seeing use in F2 competition. However, the 1960s would be the decade when things got interesting, by the end of which, the Stuttgart marque would be dominating the international sports car scene with its fearsome 917s, packing flat-12 power.

Porsche flat-four Boxer engine

The march to many cylinders began in 1960, when engine designers Hans Mezger and Hans Horich penned a flat-eight, 1500cc engine for Porsche to take grand prix racing. The engine entered competition in 1961, and helped Porsche secure third place in that year’s constructors’ championship, but it couldn’t topple Lotus and Ferrari. However, the eight-cylinder made an ideal basis for a sports car, and in 1962, the 718 W-RS Spyder, and hardtop 718 GTR entered the fray. As the decade progressed, Porsche’s efforts ramped up, culminating in the monstrous, 4.5-litre, flat-12 powered 917.

Porsche played a blinder with the 917. A rule change in sports car racing for 1968 capped prototype cars’ engine capacity at 3-litres. Meanwhile, production cars were permitted 5-litres, the logic being that no one would be mad enough to build the 50 cars required to qualify a prototype as a production machine. However, in late ’68, that figure was cut to 25 and, Ferdinand Piech, Ferry’s nephew and in charge of the company’s racing programme, decided Porsche would construct a 4.5-litre prototype and churn out enough of them to attain production status.

“The only way was up for the Boxer engine in sports car racing”

Mezger created an engine that was dripping with innovative engineering. Sandwiched within its magnesium alloy crankcase was an eight main bearing crank, with a centre feed oil supply and each pair of connecting rods sharing a common journal, allowing for the length to be kept relatively short. Despite this, vibrations due to the natural harmonics of the crank were still a concern. Mezger’s solution? Take drive from the centre of the crank where there were effectively no vibrations.

A 22mm shaft (later changed to a 24mm, titanium production) ran along the bottom of the engine to the clutch, driven via a pinion at the centre of the crank, while the cam and distributor drive used a shaft running along the top of the engine, which also drove the cooling fan, mounted flat atop the crankcase. In a paper he wrote on the engine’s development in the early ’70s, Mezger remarked that, “there is no doubt that the more complex central drive of the 917 was worthwhile. Almost no problems were encountered during the development of the different [ancillary] drives and this is mainly due to the central drive design concept.”

Porsche 917s Can-Am 1973-(Laguna-Seca)

After being regulated out, 917s lived on in Can-Am, becoming dominant.

Impressively, Mezger also said that the 912 engine (as it was designated, not to be confused with the road car) was the most efficiently cooled of all Porsche’s racing engines to date. The 3-litre 8-cylinder in the 908 took 14bhp to cool with a power output of 360bhp, while the ultimate iteration of the 912 only needed an extra 3bhp, yet produced 630bhp. Every element of the engine was optimised, even down to the special steel used for the bolts securing the 12 individual cylinder heads, called Dilavar, which had the same coefficient of thermal expansion as the magnesium parts. These bolts were also wrapped in fibreglass insulation, to prevent cooling air chilling them more than the main engine structure.

Coupled with the ultra-lightweight, low-drag and frankly, terrifying 917 chassis, Porsche had a sure-fire winner on its hands. However, the car’s debut season in 1969 was a disappointment, and it played second fiddle to the nimbler 908. At the race that really mattered – Le Mans – tragedy struck as gentleman 917 driver John Wolfe was killed at Maison Blanche on the first lap, while an oil leak and transmission trouble would waylay the two works machines. Ford went on to take its final victory with the now long in the tooth GT40, Jacky Ickx winning by just 100m from Hans Herrmann’s 908.

Porsche-911-GT1-1998

The Le Mans-winning GT1-98, the last of the Boxer breed

Le Mans 1970 was a different story. After stiff competition from Ferrari’s 512 in practice, come the race torrential rain wrought havoc on the field (there would only be seven ranked finishers), Herrmann and Richard Attwood held their nerve and took a 4.5-litre-engined 917K – a more refined car than the ’69 iteration – to victory, after the more potent 4.9-litre cars developed for the new season expired by the 12-hour mark. 1971 would be a repeat performance with a win for the #22 Martini-entered 917K of Helmut Marko and Gijs van Lennep, setting a distance record that would not be beaten until Audi’s victory in 2010.

Rule changes killed off the 917 in the World Sportscar Championship for ’72, but it found a home Stateside with the no-holds-barred Can-Am series. Now turbocharged (which was chosen as the favoured power-adding route over development of the 16-cylinder version, only ever built as a prototype), the 917/10 run by Roger Penske finally ended McLaren’s decade-long winning streak in the series.

From then on, the only way was up for Porsche’s boxer layout in sports car racing. Six-cylinders and turbocharging would prove a winning combination in the 936, then 956 and 962 models, securing 11 more wins at Le Mans by the end of the 1980s. However, times moved on and though Porsche’s flat-six has secured countless class wins since, the last overall victory for a boxer would come in 1998 with the GT1. The marque’s most recent glories were secured by another technological marvel; the 919’s V4 and associated hybrid system. Might we see a flat-six return for its upcoming LMDh campaign in 2023, unlikely, but you never know?

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How the Porsche 917 Dominated Le Mans and Transformed Sports Car Racing

There are six significant versions of the Porsche 917. The original, featuring Porsche’s first flat 12-cylinder engine, appeared at the Geneva Motor Show in March 1969, and by the end of April another 25 had been built to satisfy homologation rules. The car wasn’t immediately successful, failing to win Le Mans. Drivers criticised its aerodynamic instability and preferred the older, more reliable 908, forcing Porsche to re-think the design of what later became a hugely successful car.

A new version, the 917K (Kurzheck) with a shorter tail, was the result of a development programme with John Wyer’s JWA Gulf Team and engineer John Horsman, whose design for a shorter tail gave the car added stability at speed.

At Le Mans in 1970, JWA brought three cars, two with the 4.9-litre engine and one with the 4.5-litre flat 12 unit. Another version, the 917LH (Langheck), featured a long tail and was developed by the Porsche factory in partnership with French designer Robert Choulet. In the end it was the 917K of Hans Herrmann and Richard Attwood, entered by Porsche Salzburg, that gave the company its first Le Mans victory with the model. A Martini-sponsored 917LH followed it home and a 908 came third to complete a Porsche podium.

In 1971 the 917s dominated. Future five-time Le Mans winner Derek Bell recorded 246mph on the Mulsanne Straight with the car. This was also the year of the Pink Pig, but a 917K won Le Mans, an experimental version using a magnesium frame and driven by the team of Helmut Marko and Gijs van Lennep.

In ’72 new rules restricting engines to three litres weren’t in the 917’s favour, so Porsche built the 917/10 and 917/30 for Can-Am. This was Porsche’s most powerful sports car, its 5.3-litre 12-cylinder unit delivering 1580bhp with its twin turbochargers turned up to full boost. The 917/30 dominated Can-Am in ’73.

The 917 made Porsche a sports car superpower, a domination that was later continued by the 936, 956 and 962. But it’s the spectacular 917 that remains the legendary car, feared and adored in almost equal measure by those who raced it.

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Why the Mezger Engine Is Revered Among Porsche Enthusiasts and Racing Experts

Taken from Motor Sport online, June 2020

Hans Mezger headshot

There are very few engines that have become so indivisible from their creator that it’s hard to mention them without their names too. I guess you could include the Cosworth DFV because it was named after Mike Costin and Keith Duckworth’s company and, of course Ferrari’s Colombo and Lampredi V12s, but after that I think most people might start to struggle.

Unless, of course, they counted themselves among the Porsche cognoscenti, or that strange breed of motoring journalist for whom Porsche’s rear-mounted flat-six engine has become something of an obsession. Because for them the ‘Mezger’ engine is every bit at vaunted as anything produced by Ferrari or Cosworth.

The great engineer Hans Mezger passed away at the age of 90. And for any unfamiliar with the man, I urge you to read up and learn about his achievements in the field of racing, which started in the early 1960s and which extended in one way or another deep into the 21st century.

What I want to do, however, is dive a little deeper into what is specifically known as the Mezger engine. Now, it should be said from the outset that almost all flat-six engines produced by Porsche from the debut of the 911 (née 901) in 1963 for the rest of the 20th century were, to some extent, Mezger engines. One of the reasons the original engine went on to transform the reputation of the company, become one of the most revered road car engines and, in competition, win everything from Le Mans to the Monte Carlo Rally is an early decision Mezger helped make.

When he arrived at Porsche the flat six was already well into development and would, like the flat four used in almost all 356s, be an engine whose valves were operated by lengthy pushrods from camshafts located deep within the block. But, as Mezger pointed out, “if we had to have two camshafts, why not put them where they’re meant to be?” Which is why the engine went into production instead with overhead camshafts which, in turn, is why it could be made to rev higher and produce more power for faster road going applications and, of course, racing.

Mezger with a 1980 Carrera

Mezger with a 1980 Carrera

But that’s not what is known today as ‘the Mezger engine’. The origins of this motor are complicated because Porsche never sat down and designed a new engine from scratch if it could possibly avoid it. When it did for the first time since 1963 and produced the flat six that would power the early Boxsters, Caymans and both 996 and 997 generations of 911, there were problems. You can read about oil seal, intermediate shaft and bore score issues on any relevant internet forum.

The most sensible place to trace the Mezger engine back to is the 959, because that was the engine which used water cooling for its single piece, four valves per cylinder heads. It was related, but more distantly than some suppose, to the motor used in the 956/962 Group C cars, which was an earlier development and had effectively individual heads per cylinder.

It was the 959 engine that was developed for the GT1 version of the 911 (a mid-engined race car that was barely a 911 at all) that in ultimate GT1-98 guise won Le Mans in 1998, some four years after Mezger had retired.

So when Porsche was looking for an engine to power a new breed of racing-inspired street-legal 911, to be called the GT3, the choice was between using the water-cooled engine already in the 996 generation of 911, or adapting the Mezger race engine. And given what we know now, perhaps it’s not too surprising that Porsche took the latter option.

Dakar rally, Porsche Mezger engine

Want to win the Dakar rally? Get yourself a near-unbreakable Mezger engine;

The Mezger engine would end up being used in every GT3, GT3 RS, GT2 and GT2 RS of both 996 and 997-era 911s (each of which had two specific generations), the last being the 500bhp 4-litre engine in the 997 GT3 RS 4.0 sold in 2011. And in the meantime it was also being used for racing versions of the 911 too, up to and including the RSR.

In addition to that, the Mezger engine was also used in Turbo versions of the 996 and first generation of 997, so if you want a guaranteed way of ensuring your 996 or 997 has none of the issues that afflict the others, buying a Turbo provides it.

What was so great about this engine? We loved its power, its torque delivery, its appetite for revs and fabulous sound. Porsche loved it for its strength. I once asked someone high up at Weissach why they were continuing with the Mezger engine when it meant Porsche had to build two entirely different flat-six motors of near identical capacities. ‘We know everything there is to know about that engine, it’s a racing engine, almost impossible to break. Why wouldn’t we use it? Which tells you all you need to know about it, and its genius creator.

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Inside Nelson Piquet’s Furious 1982 Hockenheim Clash with Eliseo Salazar

As driver punch-ups go, few are as notorious as the incident at Hockenheim in 1982, when Nelson Piquet set about Eliseo Salazar.

Piquet’s fury was understandable. Brabham’s development of the turbo BMW engine had been badly delayed and the team needed a good finish at the car company’s home race. With a narrow lead over Tambay’s Ferrari and half the race still to go, Piquet was taken off by Salazar, whose ATS was a lap behind. Once out of his car, Nelson laid into the Chilean with fists and feet, under the gaze of a TV camera (right).

The incident added nothing to the Piquet image. But an interesting justification for the outburst is offered by Gregg Siddle, former F3 team owner and a close friend of Piquet.

“In 1979 Nelson had gone to Thruxton for an F3 race, and as he was driving home he saw a guy walking down the road outside the circuit,” says Siddle. “It was a bleak day, so he picked the guy up. It was Salazar, who’d arrived in England a few days earlier with an ambition to go F3 racing and a briefcase full of money. Nelson asked me to help. Salazar was pleasant, but I’ve never let anyone race one of my cars because of the money he offered, and I didn’t want him on those terms. But I introduced him to someone who would do the job, and he was on his way.

“What infuriated Nelson at Hockenheim was that Salazar was to blame. Nelson said his first reaction had been to head-butt him in the chest. But he realised it might break his ribs. So then he vented his anger in the way the world saw. What the world didn’t see was what happened when a VW Kombi arrived to ferry the two back to the pits. They both climbed aboard, but somewhere along the way Salazar was firmly booted out.”

The most embarrassing consequence of the fight didn’t spring to light until 1993, when Paul Rosche spoke to Piquet at the annual BMW party. “Paul said that when they took the engine back to Munich, they found the skirt on one of the pistons had started to break up,” says Piquet. “If I hadn’t crashed out, the engine would have blown up. Imagine what the press would’ve said about that happening…”

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Nelson Piquet, Bernie Ecclestone, and BMW: Inside the Drama of the 1982 F1 Season

Taken from Motor Sport, November 2009

If you ask me, the blokes on the board at BMW lost their nerve. “We communicated our 2009 target four years ago,” said Mario Theissen in Valencia at the roll-out of this year’s car, barely seven months ago. “We set out a plan aiming at the first points in 2006, the first podium in 2007, to win in 2008, and we then stated that we want to fight for the championship from this year onwards. So far all targets have been met, so there is no reason to abandon the final and most important target. We want to fight for the title with the two big teams and whoever else is up there.”

BMW Motorsport boss Paul Rosche, Bernie Ecclestone and Gordon Murray Hockenheim pits

From left: BMW Motorsport boss Paul Rosche, Bernie Ecclestone and Gordon Murray in the Hockenheim pits

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Then, in July, the members of the BMW board were faced with having to sign up to the new Concorde Agreement. They looked at this year’s results (eight points from 10 races at that juncture), decided they had a good reason to abandon that cherished target, and shut off the money supply forthwith. Now we’ll never know if they made a timely decision or if they surrendered a golden opportunity to follow Renault as a mass-market car manufacturer capable of beating all those dedicated racing teams at their own game by designing, building and steering their own car to a world title.

To put things in perspective, it’s worth looking back at the similar potential disaster which Munich faced in 1982. It was an ugly scene. BMW’s racing boss was in open conflict with Bernie Ecclestone, owner of the company’s racing partner, Brabham, and Ecclestone’s sponsor was in dispute with the car company. In those days, however, drivers exerted more influence on team strategy than they would be allowed to do now, and it was only an open rebellion against Ecclestone by number one driver Nelson Piquet that resolved the rows. The reward for Piquet, BMW, Ecclestone and two groups of exceptionally talented technicians in Germany and England was the glorious drivers’ championship, which the Brazilian snatched out of the grasp of Alain Prost and Renault in the final race of the 1983 season.

Piquet European Grand Prix at Brands Hatch in 1983

Piquet in action at the European Grand Prix at Brands Hatch in 1983. This would be his third win aboard the BT52-BMW

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Although BMW had become a consistent winning force in both touring car racing and Formula 2 throughout the ’70s, the company’s first F1 campaign was amazingly short-lived. It wasn’t until April 1980 that Munich officially announced it would be entering grand prix races, and although the first turbocharged BMW four-cylinder engine made its GP debut in the first race of the 1981 season, the whole programme was almost immediately put on hold while Piquet concentrated on winning the ’81 title using Cosworth-Ford power. The first victory with BMW came in June 1982 when Piquet won in Canada, but a series of irritating breakdowns meant that the second had to wait until March ’83, in Brazil. Although the Brazilian only won two more races that year, much-improved reliability and some close battling between all four drivers in the Renault and McLaren-TAG teams kept Piquet at the top of the points table and ultimately allowed him to steal the championship title.

“In the pitlane, our racing partner screamed at me like I was a little boy”

Right from the first appearance of Renault’s ‘yellow teapot’ in July 1977, Ecclestone and the mainly British teams which formed part of the constructors’ association (FOCA) had demonstrated their strong philosophical opposition to the French company’s exploitation of the rules which permitted ‘supercharged’ 1.5-litre engines. By the end of 1980, though, even Ecclestone had to concede that the future lay with the new turbo technology. When BMW approached him, he agreed on a technical collaboration that the German company hoped would result in a BMW-engined Brabham being ready to race in 1981.

Piquet already had good contacts with several of BMW’s personnel. He had contested two 1000km races at the Nürburgring in works BMW M1s, each time with Hans Stuck co-driving, and they had won outright in 1981, the year the race was stopped following the fatal accident that claimed the life of Swiss driver Herbert Müller.

As soon as the first turbo-powered F1 Brabham ‘hack’ chassis was available, Piquet was there to test it. The car ran regularly throughout 1981, with Piquet – who could see the engine’s extraordinary potential – ready to go testing at every opportunity. As BMW’s popular racing boss Dieter Stappert told me 10 years later, the BMW board of directors was becoming just as anxious as Piquet to get it back into action again. Meanwhile, Brabham’s sponsor, the Italian giant Parmalat, insisted on seeing results and demanded that Ecclestone should run at least one car with the ancient but reliable Cosworth V8.

Brabham-BMW-engine

“Bernie said it would be too difficult and complicated to run two different types of car at the same time,” Stappert explained, “so we decided to postpone our race debut until the first GP of 1982 at Kyalami. I could understand Bernie’s attitude, because I had already been in racing for a long time. But it was difficult to explain all this to the board of BMW and to the German public. Anyway, we got over that…”

The practical difficulties of making the BMW engine reliable were not so easy to surmount. “The first engines used a mechanical fuel injection system and the first time we tried the new [digital] Bosch Motronic engine management was at the end of 1981, in the pouring rain at Donington Park,” Stappert recalled. “That was a great test for us, because the Motronic worked perfectly. I remember Nelson coming in to the pits when it was so late in the day that all you could see on the car was the turbo glowing red on the left-hand side. He just said, ‘perfect, perfect, perfect.’

“Paul Rosche squeezed more and more power from the little four-cylinder stock-block”

“The Bosch people were there, of course, so we told them to carry on their development programme but first to make three copies of the box we’d used at Donington, because we knew it was working well. That way we could carry on the chassis testing. But somehow Bosch screwed it up. Although we didn’t find out until much later, apparently in measuring the box someone put several hundred volts through it and it blew up in a little cloud of smoke. And they couldn’t get it back together.

“That was bad enough, but what made it worse was that they wouldn’t tell us what had happened. They insisted it was the same, even when Nelson complained. We then went testing at Paul Ricard, one of the most difficult times in my life, because in two weeks we blew something like 17 engines. Nelson was doing all the turbo testing whenever there was a car for him to run, while Riccardo [Patrese] had the Cosworth-engined car. That Brabham handled beautifully, and every day it seemed Riccardo broke the lap record. I was amazed how Nelson stuck to the turbo test. You must remember that in 1982 he was the current world champion, but not once did he go to [Brabham designer] Gordon Murray and ask to be given the Cosworth car so that he could do five laps and beat Riccardo’s time. He couldn’t care less about Patrese’s lap records.”

Piquet Renault’s Prost in 1983

Eyes on the prize: Piquet had trailed Renault’s Prost by as much as 14pts in 1983, but came back to steal the title

For the South African GP at Kyalami in January ’82, BMW played safe and took engines fitted with mechanical fuel injection pumps instead of the electronic system. The BMW board was demanding positive results from the big investment in F1, and the last thing they wanted to read about was the famous drivers’ strike which caused the cancellation of the first day of qualifying.

“A lot of people got upset with Nelson, because he was the driving force behind the strike with Niki Lauda,” said Stappert. “I didn’t know Nelson as well then as I would later, but I was sure there must have been a serious reason which at that moment I didn’t understand. I took all my courage in my hands and went up to Bernie and told him the same. Right there in the pitlane, our racing partner screamed at me as though I was a little boy. It made me feel so sick that I just turned around and left.”

After some more histrionics from Ecclestone, who at first refused to let Nelson practise on day two of qualifying, the new Brabham-BMW BT50 only just missed pole position. “The engine characteristics were still rudimentary,” confessed Stappert, “and although that car was very quick on the straight, you really needed someone brave to drive it. In the race, Nelson made a mess of the start. Trying to catch up, he missed the braking point at the end of the straight and slid straight on.”

Nelson and his German/Dutch girlfriend Sylvia Tamsma (in 1985 she gave birth to ‘young’ Nelson) spent a week with Stappert in Austria at the ski world championships on their return from Kyalami, and a lasting friendship was established. The genial but practical Stappert found a great ally in Piquet, who was as dedicated to making the BMW turbo a success as anyone in the engine shop. They both wanted to test and race the new car intensively, to speed up progress. But Ecclestone had a sponsor, Parmalat, to placate. He wanted BMW to withdraw the turbo in Argentina and Long Beach, the next two races, and cleverly he managed to outwit Stappert at a lunch he arranged with Hans-Erdmann Schönbeck, one of BMW’s board members, soon after the team returned from South Africa.

BMW’s Stappert , Piquet and Sylvia Tamsma

BMW’s Stappert was close to Piquet and then-girlfriend Sylvia Tamsma

Stappert: “Bernie issued a press release saying that the engine was too strong and Brabham needed to improve their brakes, etc. That was all bulls**t. We continued testing but we always had trouble with the electronic management. Then there was a test in April at Zolder. Bosch had four or five different boxes, and all five of them worked. Nelson would do five laps, everything was OK, then five more with another box.

“After the test in Zolder Nelson called Bernie from the little office in the pitlane. They were shouting at each other, apparently because Bernie wanted to discourage Nelson from running the turbo. But Nelson insisted that he wanted to use the turbo for racing, starting at the next GP, which would mean splitting the team by using different engines for each driver. He came out of the office and immediately told our engine chief Paul Rosche and me, ‘listen, I’m prepared to stick my neck out with Bernie, but I now rely on you to convince your BMW board to run only the one turbo car for me.’

“The funny sequel to this took place the day after I got back to Munich from the test, only a few minutes after I had persuaded Herr Schönbeck to agree to Nelson’s proposal. I was still in Schönbeck’s office when Bernie rang, and Schönbeck switched on the loudspeaker so I could hear what was being said. I couldn’t believe my ears as I listened to Bernie telling Schönbeck that he personally had managed to persuade Nelson to run just one engine.”

“Imagine, I nearly lost a championship because I lost my knob!”

With most of the leading teams in direct confrontation with the FIA president, garrulous Frenchman Jean-Marie Balestre, over car regulations (sound familiar?), off-track politics threatened to destroy the 1982 season. Piquet had won the Brazilian GP in March, driving a Cosworth-engined car, but was disqualified (in favour, yes, of a French Renault) when Murray’s ingenious but infamous water-cooled braking system was ruled illegal. Ten teams, predominantly British, then boycotted the first race of the European season. Although Piquet’s BMW-powered car made a low-key return (fifth place) at the Belgian GP, the patience of the BMW board was being stretched very thin.

At Detroit in June, the decision to run only one BMW-engined car seemed to have gone horribly wrong when Piquet failed to qualify. “That was partly our fault,” confessed Stappert, “because the engine stopped on the far side of the circuit, and by the time he got back to the pits qualifying was over. The next day it was pouring with rain… Gordon Murray was completely flattened. He couldn’t believe that one of his cars hadn’t qualified. He insisted that the only way to go was to stop racing the turbo and go back to intensive testing. I said, ‘No, Gordon, this is not possible. The board will not accept it. We have to race in Montréal in one week’s time.’”

After a series of threats and counter-bluffs, Murray agreed to Stappert’s pleadings. With the BMW sounding tremendous, Piquet went into the lead from René Arnoux’s Renault after eight laps. Stappert was on cloud nine. “For me, the world could have ended there and then: after the hard time we’d been given in Detroit, we had shown the people back home in Germany that we had a competitive combination.”

Piquet and Prost wheel-to-wheel at Zandvoort

Piquet and Prost wheel-to-wheel at Zandvoort. The Brazilian would pip the Frenchman to the title by two points

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Stappert got a big shock 10 laps from the end of the race when Ecclestone started to gather his things together in readiness to go to the airport for the evening flight home to London. Nelson was leading, but Patrese in the Ford car was not too far behind in second place. Stappert couldn’t believe that even Ecclestone would walk away from a race that his drivers were about to win in one-two order. “Feeling a bit helpless, I said, ‘but what do I do if Patrese catches Nelson and they start fighting for the lead?’ He just turned round and said, ‘Do what you like!’”

Inside the car, Piquet was in serious pain. “For that race the guys had done a lot of modifications, including an extra radiator in the nose of the car, which produced lots of heat which came straight back onto my feet. We should never have won – in fact it wasn’t BMW who won the race, it was me, because I did 72 laps with my feet completely burned.

“I didn’t stop because Patrese was behind me in the Ford car. I told myself there was no way I would stop, I’d done all the development on that car, no f***ing way was he going to win that one.”

Coming at a moment when BMW was ready to quit F1, the Canadian victory saved a situation which had seemed lost. The BMW board agreed to continue signing cheques and the Brabham crew breathed a sigh of relief. However, a string of mishaps and mechanical failures prevented Nelson from finishing six of the remaining eight races of the 1982 season. It wouldn’t be until ’83 that BMW could celebrate the world title.

Of his three titles, Nelson has always said that his 1983 success is the one which gave him the most satisfaction. “That was a fantastic period,” he remembers. “Wing cars with lots of downforce, turbo engines with 1500 horsepower, qualifying tyres good for maybe two laps… I loved it! If there are no escape areas, that makes perfection! We got paid a lot of money to drive those things in those conditions. It was the same for everybody. And good for me – that was my mentality about racing.”

There was also an incentive to beat Renault. With four races to go, and 36 points available, the manufacturer rashly plastered billboards across France with smug posters to congratulate Alain Prost, “our champion”. Granted, Alain had built up a 14-point advantage in the championship, but the adulation was to prove horribly premature…

Piquet was to win only three GPs that year (against Prost’s four), but he had four other podium finishes and two fourth places. Murray’s Brabham BT52 was a completely new design to meet the emergency ‘flat bottom’ regulations imposed at the end of ’82. With its small fuel tanks, the BT52 was also able to take full advantage of the mid-race refuelling ploy that Murray had introduced in mid-82. Fearing the legal consequences that would surely follow a fire in the pits, Renault hesitated to adopt making fuel stops. By the time this policy had been reversed mid-season, the French had probably sacrificed the two or three points which would have been enough to defeat Brabham, BMW and Piquet. As Nelson himself says: “It wasn’t Prost who lost the championship, it was Renault who threw it away.”

Renault’s overcautious strategy would again cause it to miss out on the F1 title that had eluded the company for more than five years. With that 14-point cushion built up before Zandvoort, Renault’s technicians were given instructions to “freeze” the specification of their engine. BMW’s Paul Rosche pounced on this weakness to press on with his development programme, squeezing more and more power from the little four-cylinder stock-block.

Aided splendidly by team-mate Patrese, Nelson led all but three laps at Monza, where Prost’s turbo failed. In the European Grand Prix at Brands Hatch, he beat Prost hands down despite a scare during the pitstop when an air gun failed. Suddenly, Prost’s advantage had been cut from 14 points to two. The title would be decided in the final race at Kyalami.

Prost never looked more than second-best in South Africa. Renault’s technical equality with Brabham-BMW was gone, and he was resigned to defeat, even if he finished. When a turbo failure forced him to stop in the early laps, it was just a matter of Piquet bringing the Brabham home safely. Expecting that it might be necessary to out-psyche Renault, Murray had started both drivers on soft tyres and (of course) with light fuel. Nelson built up a 30-second lead in 28 laps before his stop: he first waved Patrese through, then the Alfa Romeo of de Cesaris. One or two hearts fluttered in the Brabham pit when his BMW seemed to be misfiring. In fact, he had cut back the boost to almost nothing as he cruised to the third place which would give him the title.

“I dropped back because I wanted to be sure of the championship,” Piquet recalled when I visited him at home in Brasilia in 2000. “There was this boost control inside the cockpit, and I backed off until there was probably just one bar boost. The engine was fine, but it was making a strange noise, which worried me. Then suddenly I found myself in fourth. I needed to be third, and the guy behind me [Derek Warwick in a Toleman-Hart] was catching me. But when I tried to turn up the boost, the knob fell off. For five or six laps I was trying to find this thing, accelerating to make it come back, or braking to make it go forward, before I could put it back on the dash. Imagine, I nearly lost a championship because I lost my knob!”

The first man to congratulate Piquet after his slowing-down lap was Prost. Ecclestone, as usual, was an early departure, looking amazingly disgruntled for someone whose driver was about to win the title for the second time in three years. In fact, he left instructions for Nelson to be admonished for letting de Cesaris through.

The new champion got back at his boss later on in the press room though, where he was thumping his knee in delight as he chatted with the waiting journalists. “I wanted to win [the championship] this year even more than I wanted it the first time,” he said. “In 1981 I won it for Ecclestone, for my family and for the people who had shown their faith by taking me into F1 straight from Formula 3. This time I won it for myself.

“We were a long way behind on points, so we said ‘OK, we’ll win the last three or four races and get the championship.’ We planned it all, we did it – and it was just fantastic. Every time Brabham gave me a chance to win the championship, I never let them down. I never lost the championship by a few points. And that makes me feel very good.”

There was a nasty postscript to come when rumours began to circulate that BMW had used fuel with illegal additives to boost its power in those crucial last four races. A sample taken from Piquet’s car in Kyalami was sent for analysis, and the eventual FISA report indicated that it did in fact meet all the requirements. Rosche insisted ever after that there had been no cheating, and he was justifiably upset to discover that part of the scrutineers’ sample had found its way into the hands of Elf, Renault’s fuel supplier.

The defeated challenger was in no doubt about the propriety of the win, though. In one of the tough statements that (along with a more personal indiscretion) would ultimately cost him his job at Renault, Alain Prost gallantly observed that, “the best car won the championship – and Nelson was the best man to drive it”.

Our thanks to Bernie Ecclestone and Robert Dean for their help with this feature.
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Could the Mercedes T 80 Have Broken the Land Speed Record? New Analysis Revealed

Taken from Motor Sport Online, July 2020

It was meant to be the pinnacle of Germany’s racing dominance. A Silver Arrow that really was quicker than anything else on the planet.

With an engine from a Messerschmitt, Ferdinand Porsche-designed bodywork honed in a wind tunnel, and Hans Stuck behind its leather steering wheel, the Mercedes T 80 was poised to wrest the land speed record from Britain: the crowning jewel for the Third Reich’s propaganda strategy.

Its target was 375mph, but the record attempt — on a stretch of autobahn — was never made, as war broke out during the car’s final year of testing. The potential of this ultimate Stromliner would remain a mystery — until now.

New analysis, to be broadcast this by Channel 4, reveals that the T 80 would almost certainly have been capable of hitting the target, in a coup for Hitler over the traditional land speed record powerhouses in France, Belgium and Britain. However, it also reveals that the car carried a flaw, which could easily have proved fatal during the attempt to beat Surrey-born John Cobb’s mile record of 367.9mph.

Mercedes T 80 drawings

CFD modelling of the T 80 was commissioned by the production team behind Hitler’s Supercars, a documentary that charts Germany’s motorsport propaganda campaign in the 1930s.

Using images and designs of the car, and conservative assumptions of its power, Silverstone-based TotalSim found that it could well have reached 400mph, helped by the low rolling resistance of the autobahn surface — compared with the Bonneville Salt Flats used by Cobb.

But lift at the front combined with downforce at the back, behind the rear axle, would have risked the car flipping during the attempt — an outcome the modern Mercedes outfit knows all too well after bringing its CLR to Le Mans in 1999.

“The Mercedes T 80 is the absolute apex of where everything was before the war,” says Jim Wiseman, director of Hitler’s Supercars. “They were using windtunnels to get to these speeds. They had the manpower and the inventive engineers. It was also Hitler’s project, complete with his pet driver, his pet designer, who had developed the People’s Car, and his pet company.

“The fact that it didn’t run has given it a mythical status — would it have broken the record or not? From the figures we’ve seen, I think it would.”

Mercedes T 80 Engine

Wiseman says that the T 80’s instability came about because engineers had accidentally invented the rear diffuser, which increased downforce behind the rear axle, creating a significant imbalance.

The 8.2-metre machine accommodated a DB 603 V12 aircraft engine, developed for aircraft including the Messerschmitt Me 309 and Me 410. Mercedes says that the power output of the fuel-injected engine could have been as high as 3,550bhp when used with a special blend of fuel containing methanol and nitrobenzol.

Wrapped around it was a spaceframe chassis weighing just 124.5kg, with two axles and four 1.17m diameter wheels at the back, covered in steel bodywork, that had been shaped in a wind tunnel, with side fins for additional downforce.

Mercedes had hoped to run the car in the autumn of 1940 but, as the year rolled on and war intensified, the engine was returned to the Luftwaffe, as the Nazi regime became more focused on the skies above Britain than records set on the ground. The T 80’s bodywork is now displayed in the Mercedes-Benz museum in Stuttgart, its lines still other-worldly, more than 80 years after its creation.

It’s the final evolution of a project that began in 1933, when Hitler took power and began promoting Germany’s might through motor racing. The documentary charts the rise of the Nazi-funded Mercedes and Auto Union grand prix teams, and the rivalry that drove them on to greater dominance and higher speeds.

Mercedes T80 Skeleton

The battle would play out each January in ‘Reich Record Week’ as ever-faster cars from each factory looked to break public road records on newly-built autobahn.

In 1938 it would claim the life of Bernd Rosemeyer — killed in an Auto Union Type C as he attempted to beat a 268mph benchmark set by Rudolph Caracciola in his Mercedes W125.

It was the end of Auto Union’s speed runs, but Mercedes continued developing, with help from Stuck and Porsche, to create the T 80. Testing continued beyond the outbreak of war but this was a car that was both ahead of, and out of, time.

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The Nürburgring: Legends and Facts Behind the Green Hell of Motorsport

Motor sport lore is all about legends. But the painted truth is, the closer you get to the facts, the more those legends tend to evaporate. Except in the case of the Nürburgring where it’s all too difficult not to be overcome by an attack of the clichés describing a circuit that is a hundred times removed from today’s ‘me too’ Tilkedromes. The facts generally trump even the legends. Ever since that first meeting was held in 1927, this has been the playground of heroes, a track whose ghosts thunder through your imagination. Sir Jackie Stewart famously described it as ‘The Green Hell’ and the Eifel track does take on a decidedly Valkyrian aspect each time you conjure images of teetering pre-war titans or BMW CSL ‘Batmobiles’ flying the friendly skies. Even now this track, regardless of configuration, sorts the men from the boys and the boys from the rest of us.

Familiarity and predictability often breed the seeds of indifference but to drive the Nordschleife, even in a road car, requires a leap of faith – or a leap of madness. The sense of elation that accompanies each successful tour being of the never forgotten kind. Though not immune to changes over its 84-year history, the ’Ring hasn’t been eroded, silted and reconfigured to anything approaching the same degree as so many other classic tracks. Which is why we love it still.

While the 24 hours still takes place each year, there hasn’t been top-flight motor sport at the venue since 1983. What started as a general office discussion about the ’Ring, its legacy, and those who tamed it inevitably turned into a heated ‘best of’ debate; cue a mental stampede as 100 candidates sprang to mind. What follows is a rundown of some of the greatest drives of the Nürburgring.

1935 German Grand Prix

It was supposed to be a walkover for the Silver Arrows, a home win at the Nürburgring in front of 300,000 spectators and Nazi party brass. Except someone forgot to tell Tazio Nuvolari. His 1935 German Grand Prix win is widely touted as being the greatest upset in the sport’s history; an almost satanically brilliant drive where it’s all too difficult to separate myth from reality. While clearly outgunned aboard his Alfa Romeo P3, you couldn’t fault the Mantuan’s powers of persistence. After being swamped by the German cars and his Scuderia Ferrari team-mate Louis Chiron at the start, he was nonetheless lying second behind Mercedes’ Rudolf Caracciola by the ninth lap. His good work was then undone by a disastrous two-minute pitstop, which dropped him down to sixth place.

What happened next is beyond legendary. In one otherworldly lap he took Hans Stuck, Caracciola, Luigi Fagioli and Bernd Rosemeyer (whose Auto Union was pit-bound) to reclaim second place. By lap 12 Manfred von Brauchitsch held a lead of 1 minute 9 seconds. The German then proceeded to extend the gap, only for his tyres to wear faster than those of his pursuer. Nuvolari chased down his prey but von Brauchitsch, who had won the Eifel Grand Prix the previous season, clearly wasn’t going to give up without a fight: he managed to claw back three seconds on the penultimate tour, but the W25’s left-rear let go as he headed into Karussell
for the final time, and the supercharged Alfa swept past to claim an unlikely triumph. Nuvolari was followed home by Stuck, Caracciola and Rosemeyer.

Not expecting a red car to finish first, the organisers were caught on the hop – they only had a recording of Deutschland über Alles to hand. No matter, Nuvolari helpfully had a copy of the Marcia Reale on him.

1937 German Grand Prix

He had the intellectual capacity and the imagination to handle both the tactical and the strategic – that and a ruthlessness when it mattered. Rudolf Caracciola could deliver regardless of conditions – in the 1930s he was the accepted regenmeister (rain master). That and the embodiment of speed and consistency. All of which would explain his three European Drivers’ Championship titles.

Yet his strike rate at the Nürburgring was something else entirely. ‘Carratch’ won the inaugural race in June 1927 for Mercedes-Benz; it was the first of an incomparable nine victories from 18 starts at the Eifel circuit. Yet he had his challengers, not least arch-rival Bernd Rosemeyer whose four-wheeled career continued to rocket with three straight wins prior to the 1937 German Grand Prix. And it was the Auto Union pilot who scorched to pole for that race with Hermann Lang and von Brauchitsch alongside him on the front row. ‘Rudi’ lined up behind them.

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Predictably Rosemeyer put in a string of searing laps at the start but an off on the fourth tour meant he had to pit to repair the damage and replace a wheel. Caracciola assumed the lead from von Brauchitsch, Lang and Richard Seaman. Tragically, the latter was involved in an accident with Auto Union man Ernst von Delius who later succumbed to his injuries. And while battles raged down the order, not least with the recovering Rosemeyer and Tazio Nuvolari over third, Caracciola was never headed, with von Brauchitsch following him home. It wasn’t a flamboyant drive, but it was a masterclass in cool-headed precision. It was also Caracciola’s fifth German Grand Prix triumph (four with Mercedes, one with Alfa Romeo).

That he would go on to claim a sixth German GP at the ’Ring in 1939 was entirely appropriate; it merely bookended his remarkable 13-year spell as the original – and greatest – Ringmeister. Sadly, as Europe descended into hell, it would be his final win and the last German Grand Prix for 11 years.

1957 German Grand Prix

Juan Manual Fangio was a man capable of the seemingly impossible, but even reading about his otherworldly charge in the August 1957 German Grand Prix leaves you with a knot-in-the-stomach sensation. The passing of time has done nothing to lessen the myth behind his final – and greatest – grand prix triumph, Il Maestro having left the best until last. After repeatedly breaking the lap record prior to his first pitstop after 12 laps, he and his Maserati 250F seemed to be on the same page, working in celestial alignment. After all, he had a lead of 28 seconds over the Ferraris of Peter Collins and Mike Hawthorn. Then it began to go horribly wrong.

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A problematic stop meant he emerged trackside almost 50 seconds down on the Ferraris. It holds true in broad outline that what followed next was one of the greatest-ever comeback drives. Fangio dug deep and uncorked a string of epic laps of unprecedented focus and intensity. The leading Britons had slackened their pace, which proved to be a costly error. Keeping the 250F in a higher gear for some of the fastest turns, Fangio took 12 seconds out of the deficit inside one lap. The Old Man would go on to circulate in a belief-beggaring 9min 17.4sec and by lap 20 he was on the tail of the lead duo.

On the approach to the North Turn, the Argentinian sliced inside Collins only to run slightly wide and momentarily lose the place. With two wheels on the grass, he reclaimed the position and tore after Hawthorn who didn’t relinquish the lead without a fight, but Fangio wasn’t to be denied: he took the chequered flag by 3.6sec. You cannot deny destiny.

1959 Nürburgring 1000Kms

For many, his 1961 German Grand Prix win was his most important ’Ring drive, yet the legend surrounding Stirling Moss’s triumph in the 1000Kms sports car classic two years earlier is hard to ignore.

At his best – which was most of the time – Moss seemed to operate on fast-forward, but his performance in the 1959 1000Kms classic was a giddying spectacle. Having already won the race twice before (in 1956 and ’58), Moss arrived in Germany knowing the factory Ferraris were going to provide stiff opposition for his works Aston Martin DBR1. Yet his opening 17-lap stint saw him break the lap record – his lap record – 16 times. Then he handed the car over to team-mate Jack Fairman. As he did so the sky became a thick slate grey, the Aston’s lead being swiftly eaten away by the pursuing Ferraris once the rain fell. Six laps into his stint, ‘Jolly Jack’ slid into a ditch near Brünchen. The 46-year-old then summoned superhuman strength and somehow manhandled the ash green sports-racer back onto all four wheels before making his way to the pits.

Cue a comeback charge of nonpareil genius. On a drying track, Moss chased down Umberto Maglioli’s Porsche 718RSK before jumping the Testa Rossas that were then running 1-2. After 33 laps, Stirling handed the DBR1 over to Fairman once again, now with a lead of almost three minutes. Phil Hill, a man capable of brilliance at the ’Ring, demolished the deficit in his factory Ferrari and assumed the lead as Fairman stopped to let Moss take over for the final 10 laps. ‘The Boy’ wasn’t to be denied and he passed Hill at Flugplatz to win by 41 seconds.

Just to rub it in, Moss claimed a hat-trick – and win number four – with 1960 honours alongside Dan Gurney in ‘Lucky’ Casner’s Maserati Tipo 61.

1963 German Grand Prix

He already packed a hefty resume but everything John Surtees had done previously on four wheels paled by comparison. The Briton’s drive in the 1963 German GP helped confirm his greatness away from motorcycles. Having already conquered the ’Ring with MV Agusta, Il Grande John followed through with victory in the ’63 1000Kms race alongside Willie Mairesse in a Ferrari 250P. It was his first win for the Scuderia, the Briton having yet to become a GP winner despite threatening to do so from the get-go. Three months later, he broke his Formula 1 duck in the best way possible.

Jim Clark had qualified his Lotus 25 on pole for the grand prix but by the time the cars reached Breidscheid for the first time it was the BRM of Richie Ginther in the lead from Bruce McLaren’s Cooper. The sainted Scot now had Surtees glued to his tail, the scarlet Ferrari 156 moving up the order until it assumed the lead on the second tour. Clark (pictured, following Surtees) had annexed the four previous grands prix and it soon became a two-way battle as he bid to make it five consecutive wins.

By half-distance Surtees led by 5.3 seconds, Clark’s Lotus by now alternating between seven and eight cylinders. When running properly the green car was clearly quicker, Surtees’ Ferrari also losing a pot for a brief moment, but this served only to give Team Lotus false hope. With 11 of the 15 laps run, Surtees had 20sec in hand; by the flag he was some 1min 17.5sec ahead to claim his maiden F1 win and the first for the Scuderia since the 1961 Italian GP. He also became the first man to secure the Grand Prix and 1000Kms in the same year. Just to rub it in, he successfully defended his German GP prize in 1964 from pole.

1968 German Grand Prix

On Sunday August 4 1968, Jackie Stewart was a man apart from the world he inhabited. His galaxy-class drive to win that season’s German Grand Prix was all the more remarkable as he had every reason to sit it out. Still suffering the effects of a broken scaphoid in his right wrist which had caused him to miss the Spanish and Monaco grands prix, he’d finished fourth on his comeback drive at Spa. He then followed through with a brilliant wet-weather victory in the Dutch GP at Zandvoort, taking full advantage of Dunlop’s latest rain tyre to come home some 93 seconds ahead of Jean-Pierre Beltoise.

Yet by the time the Nürburgring rolled around again his wrist was still causing him major concern. And on top of that, Ferrari’s Jacky Ickx had been conspicuously faster than anyone else in Friday practice before the circuit was engulfed by rain and a thick blanket of fog. Come race day it was much the same, the start being repeatedly delayed until the grand prix finally got underway mid-afternoon. Ickx made a poor start from pole, with Graham Hill’s Lotus 49 sneaking through from the second row to lead from Chris Amon and Stewart. By Schwalbenschwanz the future knight was in the lead, plumes of spray fountaining upwards from the back of his Matra. It was the last most of his rivals saw of Stewart.

The irony of this safety advocate prevailing by more than four minutes in the worst possible conditions on such a demanding circuit – and nursing an injury – was perhaps lost on the great man at the time, but as even his staunchest critic Jenks admitted: ‘Caracciola may have been the Regenmeister, Rosemeyer the Nebelmeister and Fangio the Ringmeister, but Stewart surely topped the lot this day.’

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The Green Hell: A Personal Journey Through the Nürburgring’s Legendary Track

The Green Hell is what the Nordschleife of the Nürburgring is frequently called, but with one painful exception, for me it was always a little green piece of heaven. I first saw it in 1966 when on an obscure German rally a lap of the ’Ring counted as the last special stage.

My co-driver John Davenport was deposited in the magnificent old SportHotel to write and finesse our pace notes for the other stages while I set off in our rented VW Beetle to learn the track in the pouring rain. One thing I’d learned from my rally experience and which would prove even more useful at the Nürburgring was that I have an almost photographic memory for roads.

My 25 wet laps in the Beetle left me in love with the track and in awe of such names as Caracciola, Rosemeyer and Fangio and what they’d done there. I had the feeling the Nürburgring and I were going to get on very well together from the first moment I drove it. For me, it was always a wonderful place.

Vic Elford won the Nürburgring 1000Kms three times (1968, ’70, ’71). He died in 2022, aged 86

Hatzenbach

The Nordschleife is split into natural sections, making it comparatively easy to learn. Starting through Hatzenbach there’s a series of medium-fast left-right curves, originally with nasty, sharp little white kerbs where a puncture could mean the end of your race.

Quiddelbacher

There follows a swoop downhill over the Quiddelbacher bridge and up over a blind crest to Flugplatz. The front end gets light over the crest, but the car doesn’t take off (Flugplatz means ‘airport’, as there used to be one there). It’s then fast downhill to the right-hand hairpin at Aremburg before plunging down the Fuchsröhre (Foxhole). The descent is flat out but you must know where you’re going as the line is moving left and right and you’re changing direction before slight crests. In other words, you need to be aiming for the next apex before you can see it.

A massive compression pushes you down into the seat when you arrive at the bottom at what is the fastest point of the circuit, and then you shoot up the other side, being careful to anticipate the blind left-hander over a crest at the top. On public days and even some race/practice days one could almost guarantee some expensive rollovers here, performed by drivers with more enthusiasm than skill, to the point where the track once proposed to modify the corner.

This was met with fierce opposition by many, including a certain Herr Martini who owned a garage and body shop next door to the SportHotel, who argued that it would change the spirit of the Nürburgring! They won and the corner is still there. Next comes a fast, daunting, blind descent to Adenau Bridge. 40 years ago there was no run-off, no guard rail, just thick hedges beside the road, so close that at a couple of corners we’d have the nose of the car in the bushes!

Kesselchen

Then it’s very fast again, slightly uphill and through a long left bend over a crest at Kesselchen where we used to leave the ground. We would only jump about nine inches in the air, but the track then fell away at almost the same angle as the flying cars, so we’d spend 30 to 40 metres airborne before gently gliding down.

At least, that was what normally happened – until lack of aerodynamic understanding thrust its ugly head into the mix. In 1968 Jo Siffert and I won the Nürburgring 1000Kms in a Porsche 908 Coupé. The open 908/2 was the car of choice for Porsche in ’69, but Jo and I had a new version nicknamed the ‘Flounder’ with flat aerodynamic bodywork for the ’Ring, and on one practice lap I arrived at Kesselchen, gently took off and continued going up…and up… until I passed over the head of photographer Rainer Schlegelmilch who was lying in the grass beside the road taking pictures, and landed in the bushes beside him!

Caracciola-Karussel

Next is probably the most difficult and intense part of the Nürburgring – the Caracciola-Karussel, so named because although it was always there, Caracciola is believed to be the first man to have raced through the banking. Once again, you must know exactly where it is and how to enter it. If not, you’ll probably become part of the scenery. It feels as though you’ve jumped into a pit and then, if you do it right, you’re almost fired out the other side.

Wipperman

In the 1969 grand prix, driving a McLaren M7B, I made a lousy start and Mario Andretti and Jean-Pierre Beltoise passed me before the first corner. After Wipperman comes a long right-hand corner over a crest taken at about 100mph where Andretti slid off the road, took off two wheels on a fence, one of which I hit before somersaulting over a hedgerow and landing upside down in the trees. I had a broken nose and smashed shoulder, but it didn’t diminish my love for the ’Ring.

 

Pflanzgarten

There follows another of those special ’Ring stretches, Pflanzgarten – very fast, but only for those who know where they’re going. Top gear, flat out – in a 908 that meant about 180mph, more in a 917, and like the Fuchsröhre the next apex is always just over a crest so you must position the car before you see it.

Pflanzgarten also brings back memories. In 1970, although Porsche had never seriously thought of the 917 as a ‘Nürburgring’ car, Siffert and I did back-to-back tests with a 917 and 908/3. Jo was in the 908, me the 917. We did a couple of slow noisy laps to frighten away the wildlife and then on my first fast lap, coming over a flat-out crest at Pflanzgarten at about 180mph, sitting in the middle of the road was an eagle. He flapped his wings a couple times and was about two feet off the ground when I hit him, destroying the front of the car and the windshield. Back in the pits Helmut Bott and the other engineers and mechanics wanted to know where I’d gone off and only after driving them round and finding the poor bird did they believe it could do so much damage.

Brünchen

Two corners later used to be another photographers’ dream – Brünchen. It means ‘Little Bridge’, although it was in fact a humpback bridge where we’d normally do a hop in the air, come back to earth and drive on – until 1969 when Jo and I arrived in our ‘Flounders’ which took off until they were almost vertical. We hit the ground with the rear jacking points before falling forward onto the wheels. Needless to say we reverted to the older, rounder car for the race.

Schwalbenschwanz

After that comes a dive down into Schwalbenschwanz, the little Karussel, up the hill and through two fast right-handers on to what was 40 years ago a long roller-coaster straight, but which has also been de-fanged so it’s now fairly flat, bringing us to the end of a lap.

From all the exciting experiences I had at the Nürburgring one race stands out in my mind – the 1970 500Kms where, in an underpowered Chevron B16, from sixth on the grid I forced my way past a horde of Abarths and pulled away in the last couple of laps to win by over a minute from Arturo Merzario.

As Crocodile Dundee would say, “That’s a race track”!

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“Nowhere was as rewarding as the Nürburgring” Stirling Moss

Taken from Motor Sport, October 2011

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And always keep a-hold of Nurse, for fear of finding something worse’…

It was somewhat after his time, but Hilaire Belloc might have been writing of the neue Nürburgring. When first we went there, in 1985, it’s fair to say we were appalled, for the place seemed without distinguishing feature of any kind. A fortnight later I saw Bernie Ecclestone in the paddock at the Österreichring, and he spoke for all of us: “Good to be back at a proper circuit, isn’t it?” It was indeed.

Perhaps, though, we should have kept a-hold of Nurse, for Hermann Tilke was no more than a twinkle in Bernie’s eye back then, and we had no clue as to what was coming down the pike over the next 25 years.

Perspectives have inevitably changed, so that now I find the circuit still bland, yes, but only one of many – and better than some. And perhaps, if I’m honest, what always most offended me was that, instead of christening it the ‘Eifelring’ or some such, they had dared to call it the Nürburgring, merely because it was adjacent to perhaps the greatest race circuit ever built. Flugplatz, Aremburg, Pflanzgarten, Schwalbenschwanz… the very corner names make you shiver.

It was known in 1983 that the 1000Kms sports car race would be the last major event ever to be run at the Nordschleife, and thus Keke Rosberg, the reigning world champion, turned up to drive a privately-entered Porsche 956. “Compared with the works cars, we were in a different game,” Keke said after finishing third, “but it would have been nice to win the last proper race at my favourite circuit.”

Over the generations plenty of drivers said that, and doubtless many meant it, but it’s undeniable that the Nürburgring – the Nürburgring – instilled in a driver respect and fear in equal measure. “Whenever I raced there,” Karl Kling, the ’50s Mercedes driver told me, “I always used to wonder, when I left my hotel room in the morning, if I would see it again…”

Tony Brooks tackles the track devoid of any barriers aboard his Vanwall

Tony Brooks tackles the track devoid of any barriers aboard his Vanwall

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There was good reason to feel that way, particularly in the era before the ’Ring was – for want of a better word – ‘modernised’ in 1970. Away you went on more than 14 miles of blind brows and apexes, and if you made a mistake you hit a bank or trees or you went down a drop. Over time a great many drivers didn’t see their hotel room again.

“Had I not won a grand prix there,” said Jackie Stewart, “there would’ve been something sadly missing from my career – but, really, wasn’t it a ridiculous place? Leaping from one bump to another, 187 corners or whatever it was! The number of times I thanked God when I finished a lap – I can’t remember doing one more balls-out lap at the ’Ring than I needed to.

“Me, I like that place best when I’m sitting by a log fire on a winter’s night! Clear in my mind are all the braking distances and gearchanges, and that’s surely the only way I’ve ever lapped it without a mistake. The ’Ring gave you amazing satisfaction, but anyone who says he loved it is either a liar or he wasn’t going fast enough…”

Not strictly true. Down the years many a driver claimed it to be their favourite circuit – and went fast enough around it, too. Juan Manuel Fangio, for one. By common consent Fangio’s victory at the Nürburgring in 1957 belongs in the grand prix pantheon, and it is unlikely that any man ever got more out of an F1 car than did he as he hunted down the Ferraris of Mike Hawthorn and Peter Collins, making up over a minute on them after a lengthy pitstop. A year earlier Juan Manuel had left the lap record at 9min 41.6sec; now he went round in 9min 17.4sec. I remember the intensity in his eyes as he described that day to me: “The Maserati 250F – I loved that car, and I loved the Nürburgring. It was always my favourite circuit, and I think that day I conquered it, but on another it might have conquered me? I took myself and my car to the limit, and perhaps a little bit more – I had never driven like that before, and even now, all these years later, when I think of that race I can feel fear…”

“The first time I ever went to the ’Ring,” the late Phil Hill told me, “[Alfonso de] Portago says he’ll take me round in a road car. He had a certain reputation, and I wasn’t keen, but eventually I said, ‘Well… OK’. We get in this Mercedes sedan, set off – and he spins the thing at the Foxhole! ‘OK, stop the car right here,’ I said. ‘I’m getting out.’ How did I get back to the pits? I walked… Hell of an introduction to the Nürburgring, right? Then I went round with Fangio, also in a Mercedes, and that was just total perfection. Nothing flashy, nothing dangerous – and much faster than Portago.”

Twelve months after Fangio’s greatest victory, the German Grand Prix was uncannily similar to the one before, save that this time it was Hawthorn and Collins against the Vanwall of Tony Brooks, another devotee of the circuit: “I suppose I loved Spa most of all, and then the ’Ring. To me they were the essence of true grand prix circuits, calling for great precision – and with no margin for error at all.

“That day my car was diabolical on full tanks, and by the time it began to handle properly the Ferraris were more than half a minute ahead. Eventually I caught them, but they had me on top speed and could get by again on the long straight at the end of the lap. My only hope was to get ahead early in the lap, and pull out enough that they couldn’t slipstream past me again. Eventually that worked out, and the tragedy was that Peter, trying to stay with me, overdid it at Pflanzgarten… Obviously I felt pretty bad about it at the time, although I didn’t feel responsible or anything like that. I think Peter went into the corner a bit too quickly, perhaps a little off-line – and if you went off at the ’Ring, you were in the lap of the gods, because it was all ditches and trees.”

Collins died in hospital that night, just a fortnight after winning the British Grand Prix at Silverstone, the greatest victory of his tragically short life.

The Nürburgring was exacting like no other circuit, which was why Stirling Moss adored it. “I believe the art of driving a car is learning the language the car is speaking. It’s that friendship you have with the vehicle that builds up your confidence – and some cars give you that more than others.

“There are also days like that, too. I can remember times going round the Nürburgring, with my adrenalin up, and a car doing what I asked of it, and being able to do things I wouldn’t have been able to do the next day. An ordinary sort of circuit would never do that for me – I mean, Silverstone was good, but you’d never get into that state of mind there. The track was so important in that respect – I didn’t find anywhere as rewarding as the Nürburgring…”

If the 1961 Monaco Grand Prix is generally regarded, not least by the man himself, as Moss’s day of days, his victory at the Nürburgring later that year runs it close. Again it was Stirling’s underpowered Lotus-Climax against the Ferraris, and again it was driving virtuosity that won the day.

Interestingly, though, it is the 1000Kms sports car race in 1959 that tops Moss’s personal list of days at the ’Ring. Paired with journeyman Jack Fairman in the Aston Martin team, he not only had – twice – to make up well over a minute on the Hill/Gendebien and Behra/Brooks Ferraris, but also drove 41 of the 44 laps – a little over 600 miles, and more than twice the length of a German GP.

“After 41 laps I was absolutely shot… worse than the Mille Miglia”

“Before that race I couldn’t have said, ‘I can do 41 laps’, but when adrenalin gets hold of you it’s like a drug. You don’t know how strong you are, you have no idea. I was absolutely shot, more tired than at the end of any other race in my life – and certainly more than at the end of the Mille Miglia.”

Moss, with concentration etched on his face, driving the Lotus-Climax in 1961. This would be one of his great drives

Moss, with concentration etched on his face, driving the Lotus-Climax in 1961. This would be one of his great drives

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The Nordschleife was all about feats and legends, and not all of them ended in triumph. As night follows day, Jimmy Clark was inevitably brilliant there, although he won the German Grand Prix only once, in 1965, putting a seal on the world championship by early August. When I think of Clark and the ’Ring, though, the first image in my mind is not of F1 but of the 1962 1000Kms, when he drove the new, tiny Lotus 23 powered by the 1.5-litre twin-cam engine that would be seen in the Elan.

On race day it was damp and slippery, conditions made for the genius of the driver and the nimbleness of the car. At the end of the first lap Jimmy swept by the pits alone: 27 seconds later the factory Ferraris and Porsches began to arrive. On lap two the Lotus pulled out another 20sec, and by lap eight it led by two full minutes.

Sadly, the day didn’t end well, for Clark’s exhaust pipe broke, and fumes blowing into the cockpit made him groggy. Eventually the little 23 went off the road, but Jimmy’s drive that day belongs in the legends of the ’Ring.

Over time there were so many. In 1935 the ageing Alfa Romeo P3 was wholly uncompetitive with Mercedes and Auto Union, but at a circuit like the Nürburgring ability was all, and if Tazio Nuvolari was lucky in anything in his life it was that he competed at a time when a great driver could win in an inferior car.

As René Dreyfus, a team-mate to Nuvolari in the Scuderia Ferrari squad of Alfas put it, “You have to remember that the cars of those times had almost no brakes, and almost no grip. Therefore cornering speeds were set much more by the driver than by the car – Tazio would pass me travelling at a different sort of speed…”

Having won the German GP in 1935, crossing the line to near silence from the stands and leaving an expectant Nazi reception committee stunned, Nuvolari might well have won again the following year at the Eifelrennen (the ’Ring’s ‘second’ race each season, a grand prix in all but name), had it not been for Bernd Rosemeyer.

Conditions that day were as atrocious as ever racing has known – torrential rain, impenetrable fog – yet Rosemeyer, the Gilles Villeneuve of his time, simply drove away from the rest, and in a 6-litre Auto Union on skinny tyres. Visibility was in places as little as 20 yards, and in the last half of the race Rosemeyer – Nebelmeister as they called him – pulled away from Nuvolari by 30 seconds a lap. A couple of months later he also won the German GP. It was at the Nürburgring, too, that Dick Seaman scored his only grand prix victory in 1938. Mercedes driver he might have been, but he was not the winner desired by Korpsführer Adolf Hühnlein – Hitler’s resident thug at the races – who was angered by Seaman’s understandably half-hearted attempt at the requisite Nazi salute.

More than 30 years on I stood with Denis Jenkinson near the old podium in the pitlane at the Nordschleife, and if he loved the circuit it was all too easy to understand when he murmured something about the faint echo of the jackboot.

Of all the German drivers, none was more anti-Nazi than the immortal Rudolf Caracciola. By 1939, as war approached, Caracciola – considered by Alfred Neubauer to be the greatest driver of all time – was 38 and past his best, but it was no more than fitting that he should win the last German GP of the era.

In more recent times the race that lingers most in the mind is the 1968 grand prix, run in conditions perhaps not quite as dire as those confronted by Rosemeyer, but not far removed. It was won – by four minutes – by Jackie Stewart’s Tyrrell-run Matra MS10.

Jacky Ickx was a master of the ’Ring. Here he leads the 1972 grand prix in his Ferrari 312B2

Jacky Ickx was a master of the ’Ring. Here he leads the 1972 grand prix in his Ferrari 312B2

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“We had a problem with the car in the only dry session, and I qualified sixth. I made an awful good start, though – I can remember going down the pitlane (no barrier in front of it, of course) which was concrete and gave a hell of a lot of grip! That got me up to third, and on the first lap I passed Chris Amon and Graham Hill, and built quite a lead.

“The rain was one thing, but the fog was ridiculous. Along the main straight visibility was less than 100 yards – and you were doing over 180mph. I was driving with a wrist brace, after my injury at Jarama, and I don’t think I’d have won if the race had been dry – I wouldn’t have had the strength, because I was mostly steering with my left hand. I remember being very tired…”

The previous year Stewart, struggling with the cumbersome BRM H16, set the third-fastest time – of the F1 cars – in qualifying, but was more than a second slower than Tyrrell’s F2 Matra, driven by one Jacky Ickx. The young man was more than 20 seconds faster than the next F2 driver – Jackie Oliver – and so concerned was JYS for his safety that he suggested that Ken slow him down. The advice was apparently declined.

The ’Ring was always Ickx’s chosen circuit, even above his beloved Spa, and he became one of its consummate masters, winning conclusively for Brabham in 1969, for Ferrari in ’72.

By now, though, the Nordschleife was entering its twilight years as a GP circuit. In the summer of 1970, when they were all in London to attend – on consecutive days – the memorial service for Bruce McLaren and the funeral of Piers Courage, the drivers met to discuss safety in general, the Nürburgring in particular. Not surprisingly, in light of recent events, feelings were running high, but it was the least likely man in the room – Jack Brabham – who settled the issue of the ’Ring by quietly saying that, in his opinion, there should be no race there unless or until long-requested circuit changes were made.

For years the Nürburgring authorities had believed themselves above this sort of thing, confident that their race would remain on the calendar because… well, because it was the Nürburgring, and sacrosanct. At short notice the grand prix was transferred to Hockenheim – and in the Eifel mountains they began felling trees and installing guard rails. Safer though the place became some of its inherent challenge was inevitably lost, for now it was ‘opened up’, in the sense that removing trees greatly improved visibility, and corners once blind were no longer so. “When we went back there, I’ll admit I had mixed feelings,” said Chris Amon. “Thank God it was safer than before – but at the same time it wasn’t as satisfying as it had been…”

“I’d never really thought about it before, but I guess it’s impossible to marshal 14 miles properly”

When the 1976 race was stopped after Niki Lauda’s fiery accident at Bergwerk on the second lap, Amon declined to take the restart. Appalled by the length of time it took for medical help to reach Lauda, and driving a car – the Ensign – which had already broken on him twice that season, Chris decided he had seen enough: “I’d never really thought about it before, but I guess it’s impossible to marshal 14 miles properly. [Hans] Stuck and I had to find a field telephone, to let Race Control know what had happened to Niki.”

Lauda takes to the air at the aptly-named Flugplatz (translated to airport or ‘flying place’) during practice for the 1976 German GP. The race would end in disaster

Lauda takes to the air at the aptly-named Flugplatz (translated to airport or ‘flying place’) during practice for the 1976 German GP. The race would end in disaster

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Much later, after the race – won by James Hunt – had been run, a group of us gathered at one of the team caravans, drinking wine and quietly mulling over the events of the day. Lauda, we knew, had been alive when he reached hospital, but the word was that he was unlikely to survive. “Let’s raise a glass to him,” said Jenks, ever understated on such occasions. “He was the best of this lot…”

Mercifully, though, Niki did survive – indeed miraculously somehow raced at Monza six weeks later. The Nürburgring, though, was done in terms of F1, and I think, as we stood around on that evening of August 1, that was something unspoken in the air.

The more time passes, the more your perceptions change. Back in 1974, the year after he retired, Jackie Stewart drove me round the Nordschleife in a Cologne Capri, and it need hardly be said that I was impressed. At the time, though, the circuit had a place in the world championship; as well as that, I had driven many laps of it myself, and it was… familiar, a part of my racing year.

Twenty-five or so years later I was driven round again, this time by Bernd Schneider in a hot Mercedes, and the experience was utterly different, for now the place had nothing to do with today, and it seemed faintly surreal that grand prix cars could ever have raced here. I’ll always rejoice that I saw them when they did.

The record book never tells the whole story, of course, but study a list of those who won at the Nürburgring Nordschleife: Caracciola, Rosemeyer, Nuvolari, Ascari, Fangio, Brooks, Moss, Surtees, Clark, Stewart, Ickx…

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When Legends Collide: Ferrari, Mercedes, and Jaguars Gear Up for Racing Supremacy!

The key players came from all points of the compass. From the south the Ferraris; seven of them, including four monster 340 Americas with their 4.1-litre V12 motors. Soon-to-be F1 world champion Alberto Ascari was there too, in the same 250 S in which Giovanni Bracco had heroically taken on the might of the works Mercedes-Benz team in the Mille Miglia just weeks earlier and, subsisting on a diet of brandy and cigarettes, prevailed. Of the Mercs, more in a moment…

Jowett Jupiter R1 driven by Marcel Becquart

This Jowett Jupiter R1 driven by Marcel Becquart and Gordon Wilkins was one of just 17 cars still running by the end of the event.

From the west came the Americans or, to be precise, an American. Briggs Cunningham and his fleet of three C4-R racers, two open, one closed, with over 300bhp from their race-prepped hemi-headed Chrysler V8 motors. Cunningham was not there to make up the numbers, but to provide the biggest cross-pond challenge to the European racing aristocracy since Brisson and Bloch’s Stutz Blackhawk came achingly close to upsetting the Bentley applecart in 1928.

“All eyes were on the Jaguars, which had won the year before”

The north? Well, that would be the Brits. Three works Aston Martin DB3s arrived, a year late perhaps but keen to show what they could do. But really all eyes were on the Jaguars. They’d won the year before with the brand new C-type and now there were three of them, sporting new low-drag bodywork that made up in purpose and presence whatever they had lost in pulchritude.

Mercedes-Benz racing manager Alfred Neubauer

Mercedes-Benz racing manager Alfred Neubauer times his mechanics in the pit

And then there were the Germans from the east. Three gleaming W194 ‘300 SL’ coupés, their gullwing doors being the most elegant way imaginable of meeting door aperture regulations with the high, wide sills required to bequeath sufficient structural strength to its spidery tubular frame. It was these cars that were the reason for the Jaguars so dramatically changing their appearance. More on that later. But not before looking at those from France itself. It seemed there wasn’t much: there was the Gordini of course, with Jean Behra driving, but its 2.3-litre engine was surely too small and stressed to last 24 hours of the kind of punishment only Behra could dish out. And there was a smattering of Talbot-Lago T26GSs, good cars in their day, good enough indeed to win this race outright back in 1950, but elderly now and driven by privateer entrants seemingly unequipped to deal with the works teams with more modern metal that were expected to dominate.

Racing journalism Le mans 1952

Paper and pens – racing journalism the old-fashioned way

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But who would it be? If firepower were the sole determinant, it would probably be one of the Ferraris, but having won the race in 1949 they’d since proven fragile: a total of 14 had entered in the intervening two years, of which just four made it to the end. So perhaps the thundering Cunninghams might pick up the pieces? Not so fast over a lap, they had staying power, at least in theory.

Driver Theo Helfrich at Le Mans 1952

The Germans arrived at Le Mans meaning business with five competition cars (two spares) and around 40 mechanics, one of whom is stepping around driver Theo Helfrich

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There was more hope than genuine optimism for the French contenders and understandably so, and the heavy Astons with their 2.6-litre Lagonda engines just didn’t seem quite up to the job. So it looked like being a fight between the Mercedes and the Jaguars, and it was one the defending champion had no intention of losing.

Tree-climbing spectating Le Mans 1952

Tree-climbing spectating from an era that largely eschewed health and safety

But Jaguar had feared it might. With its total domination of pre-war grand prix racing, no one doubted that Mercedes-Benz still had the will to win as well as the talent. Alfred Neubauer and his gifted chief engineer Rudi Uhlenhaut were itching to go racing again while its star driver when hostilities had stopped racing, Hermann Lang, was still hardly over the hill at the age of just 43. What it appeared to lack was the way. Mercedes-Benz was a very different company after being on the losing side of a six-year global conflict. It didn’t have the money to go racing the way it always had in the past, or would choose to now. It couldn’t countenance a return to grand prix racing and even a sports car programme would have to use a lot of proprietary parts, including the entire powertrain.

No6 Talbot-Lago T26GS of André Chambas and André Morel

No6 is the Talbot-Lago T26GS of André Chambas and André Morel – the same model as Pierre Levegh’s, who led in the race. Nos 1 and 2 are the 5.4-litre V8 Cunningham C-4Rs – the open-top one would end up fourth

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And that was an enormous problem. All that existed was the 3-litre straight six from the 300 saloon with its four-speed gearbox, neither of which had been designed with the slightest thought for competition. And try as Uhlenhaut’s team might, no more than 180bhp could be extracted from it, at least 100bhp less than that under the right foot of a Ferrari 340 America driver. And it would need to be detuned slightly to survive 24 hours of racing.

“The heavy Astons with their 2.6-litre engines just didn’t seem quite up to the job”

Mercedes-Benz couldn’t outpower the opposition, so it decided to outsmart them, making a car that in terms of its lightness, aero efficiency and standard of preparation would be second to none. The 300 SL was the result.

The 300 SL made its debut at the aforementioned 1952 Mille Miglia. There were no works Aston DB3s there, and just one factory C-type, the hard-worked third prototype that had won Le Mans the year before. And it was only there with the grudging agreement of Lofty England to allow Stirling Moss and Norman Dewis to prove the concept of the disc brake in Europe’s toughest road race. In time, England would come to wish he had never said yes.

Aston-Martin-DB3-works-team

It was a poor showing by the Aston Martin works team, which raced with the DB3. None lasted the distance.

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For while the C-type’s ‘plate brakes’ would perform flawlessly and sow the seeds for Jaguar’s dominant victory at Le Mans the following year, in the more immediate term it was that car’s participation in the Mille Miglia that just as surely doomed the team’s effort at Le Mans six weeks later.

For it was the sheer speed of the W194s that scared Stirling into action. “There was this section near Ravenna,” he once told me. “I was going as fast as I could, probably 150mph, and one of these things just came flying past. I didn’t think anyone could be going faster than me.” In print its driver is usually said to be Karl Kling though Stirling told me it was Rudi Caracciola, but in any event it wasn’t the pilot’s identity but the speed of his car that was at issue. Fatefully, it led Stirling to send an unambiguous telegram to William Lyons. It simply read “must have more speed at Le Mans”.

It was too late to fit disc brakes and besides Lofty was worried about boiling brake fluid. Nor was there time to find more power. So the already commendably aerodynamically efficient car would have to be made more slippery still. The job was, of course, entrusted to Malcolm Sayer who had no choice but to rush it and came up with a strange droop-snoot nose with a smaller air intake and elongated tail. Crucially the new bonnet line meant the radiator could not be mounted upright, so was slanted and fed by a header tank mounted on the bulkhead. In charge of this engineering redesign was, given what was later to transpire, the unfortunately named Roy Kettle.

American Cunninghams made a solid start but No8, Levegh, would surge into a huge lead

the American Cunninghams made a solid start but No8, Levegh, would surge into a huge lead

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Given the worrying time constraints involved, the test programme for the modifications was somewhere between derisory and non-existent. They were driven to Le Mans as usual and seemed fine on the way down, but compared to the heat of battle, flat out at average lap speeds well in excess of 100mph, that was no comfort at all. In fact it was meaningless.

The team knew it was in trouble from the first practice session. The new bodywork produced some instability when driven flat out, but that was containable. It also deprived the drum brakes of cooling air, but that could be managed. What could not was the fact that all the cars overheated the moment they were driven at race pace.

“With seven hours to run, Levegh had a four- lap lead over the chasing Mercedes pair”

Salvation seemed to come from the presence in the paddock of both the Mille Miglia C-type and the first privateer car, owned by Duncan Hamilton. They were both relieved of their old-style radiators with their integral header tanks and two of the three C-types were duly attacked with hammers to modify the bonnets to accommodate them. For the third, the early bath awaited.

It would not take long. The race started at 4pm on Saturday afternoon, Ascari bolting away from the running start in Ferrari’s Mille Miglia winner, completing a 4min 40.5sec lap in his first stint – an average of over 108mph – which would stand until he smashed it again the following year. Fast though the three Mercedes were, they weren’t that fast. Indeed, in those early hours, they languished in ninth, 10th and 11th places. But three hours in Ascari’s clutch failed, starting a domino topple among the Ferraris. Of the seven entered, just one would see the flag, the 340 America entered by double Le Mans winner Luigi Chinetti and driven by André Simon and Lucien Vincent. Having led early on it fell back and finally recovered to finish fifth.

Levegh driving 23 hours without a break

Incredibly, Levegh attempted to go all the way, driving 23 hours without a break.

Mind you, that was one more than Jaguar managed. The first C-type to go barely made it past the first hour, the unmodified car of Ian Stewart and previous winner Peter Whitehead succumbing to quite inevitable head gasket failure little more than an hour into the race. Stirling’s engine blew after three hours while the last surviving car of Hamilton and Tony Rolt made it to early evening before it too overheated and died. With barely one sixth of the race run, Jaguar had managed to turn the triumph of the year before into ignominious failure.

The Astons fared better, but not by much. Official records show the three DB3s turned up to race the works Ferraris, Mercedes-Benz and Jaguar teams with engines developing just 138bhp. Underpowered and overweight, they started being felled by rear axle failure early in the race, though the last survivor, driven by the super talent that was Peter Collins and Lance Macklin made it to the 22nd hour and in third place too, thanks to the extraordinary rate of attrition.

Jaguar of Tony Rolt and Duncan Hamilton breaks down

Trouble for the Jaguar of Tony Rolt and Duncan Hamilton.

Of the 57 cars that lined up in front of 400,000 spectators on Saturday afternoon, just 17 would still be running a day later. A Mercedes-Benz walkover then? That’s certainly what appears to have happened. Look at the records and they will show that Lang and his co-driver Fritz Riess won, with the sister car of Theo Helfrich and Helmut Niedermayr a lap down in second place. Third went to the Anglo-American Nash-Healey of Leslie Johnson and Tommy Wisdom, but they were 15 laps – some 125 miles on the circuit in that year’s format – off the lead. And the Cunninghams? Two out of three went out with engine failure, leaving the car of Briggs Cunningham and Bill Spear to trail home 10 laps behind even the Nash-Healey. Not so reliable after all.

The truth is nothing like that. Indeed a Mercedes only led the race for the first time after nearly 23 of its 24 hours had elapsed.

For it turned out the gullwing 300 SLs weren’t that fast after all, as their modest power output always suggested. It left Lofty England kicking himself: “Although they won, the allegedly fast Mercedes had proven to be slow, to the extent that if Jaguar had run its 1951 cars with only larger carburettors and self-adjusting rear brakes, they might well have finished first, second and third!”

So why had one gone belting past the Boy Wonder on the Mille Miglia?

There are two plausible explanations, with the truth probably lying in a combination of both. Firstly, the weather was filthy and the Mercedes drivers had the benefit of being able to sit bone dry behind big screens with wipers. More telling was that the Mercedes team had been in Italy for weeks, with all of its drivers having completed multiple laps of the course before the race. Simply put, they not only could see where they were going, they knew where they were going, too.

Back at Le Mans, the challenge to the might of the Mercedes-Benz team came from two sources, each as unlikely as the other and for entirely different reasons.

The first came from that Gordini. Everyone respected Amédée Gordini’s engineering skills, sufficient for him famously to be nicknamed ‘The Sorcerer’, but few expected his little T15S either to be that fast or to last. Underneath this was a 1951 chassis derived from a 1947 grand prix car over which the requisite enveloping bodywork had been draped, and its 2.3-litre engine was a stretched and highly strung Formula 2 unit.

Nash-Healey – Britain’s best performer in 1952

A check of the Nash-Healey – Britain’s best performer in 1952, earning third spot

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But fast it was, thanks in no small part to the tigerish Behra and his team-mate and also current grand prix driver, the rather underrated Robert Manzon. So when the Jaguars and Ferraris started to fail, it was not a sleek silver German coupé that swept into the lead as day turned to night, but a little blue French roadster. And it held it.

But at this still relatively early stage, Neubauer would not have been too troubled. He would have remembered how Bentley had won this race in 1929 driving as slowly as possible, and how concealing that pace had allowed the British team to run his Caracciola-helmed SSK Mercedes into the ground to win again the following year. Besides, he had already lost one of his cars, with Kling’s going out with alternator failure.

“Was it a lucky win or one achieved with masterly tactics? The answer is both”

With Manzon now at the wheel, the Gordini hurtled at what this magazine reported as “terrifying speed”. Could it possibly last? It could not. At 3.30am it came in, with trouble not in its engine but its front brakes. Its intrepid drivers were all for carrying on with rear brakes alone, but The Sorcerer said no, and that was that.

Yet long after any threat from Ferrari, Aston Martin, Jaguar, Cunningham and Gordini had been neutralised or removed, still the Mercedes did not lead.

So it is finally time to meet the true hero of our story, a man called Pierre Bouillin whom you may not think you’ve heard of. But you have. In need of a name with which to go racing, he had re-arranged the letters in his uncle Alfred’s surname, turning ‘Velghe’ into ‘Levegh’. Pierre Levegh: the man who was driving a Mercedes-Benz 300 SLR at Le Mans three years later when it launched off the back of Lance Macklin’s Austin Healey 100S and into the crowd, triggering the worst accident in motor racing history.

For now, however, he was a man on a mission. In his privately owned, self-prepared Talbot-Lago L26GS, and at the age of 47, Pierre Levegh now led Le Mans. And he had got there on his own, as he had so far not allowed his perfectly capable team-mate René Marchand to take the wheel. His car was an ageing design, but strong, gutsy and made more powerful by his own modifications to its 4.5-litre straight six engine. And he was driving flawlessly.

Riess, Mercedes team boss Neubauer and Riess’s co-driver Lang

Winning driver Riess, Mercedes team boss Neubauer and Riess’s co-driver Lang

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By 9am and with just seven hours to run, Levegh had a four-lap lead over the chasing Mercedes pair, the thick end of 20 minutes, and still he drove alone. He could have stopped, had the car thoroughly serviced and allowed his team-mate to do just one stint while he got some rest and things might have turned out very differently. I don’t think Levegh started the race intending to go it alone, but as the hours counted down, my guess is that the chance to write an indelible line of history for himself became irresistible. So onward he charged.

And while the gullwings did speed up towards the end of the race, I have read nothing that suggests there was any chance of catching the Talbot unless it hit trouble. This title wrote that with two hours to go “Mercedes-Benz was obviously content with second and third places”.

Behind the wheel of the Talbot, Levegh appeared to be on autopilot, yet clearly well within the realm of clinical exhaustion. He had been sick in the cockpit, too. Yet so well did he know this place, he still lapped faster than the winning C-type had at the same stage the year before, and still held a comfortable two-lap advantage over the chasing Mercedes.

The dream turned to dust just before the start of the final hour. Some say the crankshaft snapped, others that a big end broke up. Some said it was Levegh’s fault as, near comatose, he missed a gear, others that Levegh was the only reason it had survived so long, he having detected a vibration in the motor before the race and concluded that only he would have the mechanical sympathy to manage it, hence his heroic but ultimately futile solo effort.

Only now and for the first time since the start of the race did the two surviving Mercedes ease into the lead they would maintain to the flag. Was it a lucky win or one achieved through masterly tactics?

Levegh’s Talbot-Lago Mercedes Le Mans 1952

When Levegh’s Talbot-Lago croaked, the following Mercedes took 20 minutes to get ahead on distance.

The answer is both. Two-thirds of Neubauer’s team survived, which is more than can be said for any of the other alleged front-running factory squads and clearly its standard of preparation was of a different order to any of its rivals. But the cars were never that quick and it is simply not the case that they just held back, ready to pounce whenever the time was right, because had that been true they’d have been on poor old Levegh in a heartbeat. In fact they never got near him, and when his Talbot broke didn’t so much take the lead as inherit it.

Still, no one wins Le Mans without a bit of luck and you go a long way to making your own luck by being around to capitalise on the misfortune of others, should it occur. And at Le Mans in 1952 bad luck stalked the length of the pitlane.

Almost. For there is an unsung hero, the last of an impressively long cast of characters to have popped up in this story. If you think Mercedes did a good job in a race of such attrition that over two-thirds of the field retired, consider the achievement of Scuderia Lancia. It entered two B20 Aurelias, lightly modified road cars powered by 2-litre four-cylinder engines. Both produced near flawless races, coming home in sixth and eighth overall, even the slower of the two some 21 laps ahead of the next-best car in the class. With all the drama up front it may not have hit the headlines, but after Levegh’s doomed bid for glory, it was probably the most impressive achievement that weekend.

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Why Germany Hasn't Hosted a Grand Prix Since 2019: The Impact of Schumacher's Retirement

 Taken from Motor sport online, August 2023

August means one thing in Formula 1, and that is the circus being packed up and going off on holiday: the summer shutdown. But for the sport’s old boys such as I, early August will always be German Grand Prix time.

Yet there will be no German GP this year, nor has there been one since 2019, although there was an Eifel Grand Prix in Germany in 2020. Why not?

It is in many ways a peculiar absence. Mercedes-Benz runs one of the biggest and most successful F1 teams, and it also supplies power units to three others (Aston Martin, McLaren and Williams).

Grand Prix Start, Stadium, Crowd, 2012 German Grand Prix

Hockenheim during its last properly busy German GP in 2012, Schuey’s last one

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Another German automotive giant, Audi, is soon to take over the team that most of us still call Sauber but is currently branded Alfa Romeo, and the result will be a works Audi F1 team from 2026 onwards. There are more petrolheads in Germany than there are in many countries that host grands prix – they famously enjoy their unrestricted Autobahnen – and, in addition to Mercedes-Benz and Audi, BMW and Porsche also manufacture sensationally fast road cars. Yet still there is no German Grand Prix!

The truth is that it is drivers, not cars, who put bums on grandstand seats – and indeed on sofas in front of TV screens – but only very special drivers. In Germany, in recent years, only one has truly inspired racing fans: Michael Schumacher. There is a German driver in F1 still – Nico Hülkenberg – but, good though he is, he does not stir the spirits of his country’s racing fans in anything like the same way as Schumacher did. Until this year there was another German F1 driver, too: Sebastian Vettel. Yet, despite his four world championships and 53 grand prix wins, he was also unable to generate even a fraction of the patriotic fervour that the man they called ‘Schumi’ could inspire.

“Even Vettel, with four world titles, failed to draw German crowds”

When Schumacher was in his pomp, in the ’90s and ’00s, German GP race days used to draw crowds of more than 100,000 impassioned spectators, and a combined total of upwards of a quarter of a million would turn up on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays. He retired at the end of the 2012 F1 season. The next year, 2013, only 44,000 fans turned up at the Nürburgring on race day, even though a German (Vettel) was in the process of running away with the drivers’ world championship.

The year after that, 2014, at Hockenheim, despite the fact that the drivers’ world championship was being thrillingly fought for by a German adonis (Nico Rosberg) and a British megastar (Lewis Hamilton), both of them in Mercedes-Benz cars decked out in Germany’s famous Silver Arrows livery, the race day attendance was barely better, and on Friday in particular the grandstands were ignominiously empty. Toto Wolff was moved to say: “It’s just not satisfying. If you compare Hockenheim Friday to Friday at Silverstone or Friday in Austria, it’s a different world, and we have to understand why that is.” Well, Toto, I can tell you why that was: it was because Michael had retired.

Jochen Rindt, Lotus-Ford 72C, Grand Prix of Germany

Jochen Rindt monstering his Lotus 72C around the old Hockenheimring in 1970

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When Stefano Domenicali was asked about the German GP problem last year, he said: “If anyone wants a German Grand Prix, it’s me. But I just don’t see any representatives in Germany who want to sit down with us and make a constructive suggestion.”

They will not, Stefano. If Michael’s son Mick had turned out to be as gifted as his father, things would have been different. But, sadly, the apple fell just a little too far from the tree on this occasion.

Moreover, the available circuits lack lustre. German GP have been run at only three venues – Avus, Nürburgring and Hockenheim. Avus held only two, in 1926 and 1959. All the rest have been at either Nürburgring or Hockenheim. But, in F1 terms, both those circuits are now pale shadows of the glorious racetracks that used to host German grands prix in the past.

The old Nürburgring Nordschleife, the infamous ‘green hell’, still exists, is extremely busy, and will for ever remain most people’s idea of the greatest circuit of all time, even though it last staged a German Grand Prix 47 years ago. By contrast the sanitised Nürburgring nearby is just that: sanitised. As for Hockenheim, when it supplanted the ’Ring, it was vilified by F1 purists – for what it was not rather than for what it was. What it was, until its 2002 redesign, was unique. Yes, Monza was as quick in terms of average lap time, but the venerable autodromo was rapid because it was made up of average-length straights and fast corners. The old Hockenheim was made up of super-long straights and slow corners.

As such, to be competitive at Monza in recent-ish years, you needed and still need a medium-ish amount of downforce to be quick enough in the fast corners – whereas to be competitive at the old Hockenheim you needed to optimise your car’s top speed on those super-long straights and ask your drivers to muscle their way through the slow turns, aided by minimal downforce. It therefore favoured drivers who were prepared to monster their cars. It is no coincidence that Jochen Rindt, Niki Lauda, Mario Andretti, Alan Jones, René Arnoux, Ayrton Senna, Nigel Mansell, Gerhard Berger and, yes, Michael Schumacher all won there.

“German tracks are now pale shadows of their former selves”

Thirty-odd years ago I track-tested a Porsche 911 SuperCup car at the old Hockenheim. I was shown the lines and braking points by Walter Röhrl, and, although I tried to pay attention as I sat awe-struck next to a master at work, when I then tried to emulate him alone I was both untidy and slow, even embarrassing myself with a half-spin at the Sachs Kurve.

I have never driven the Nordschleife, but Mercedes-Benz used to provide ‘taxi rides’ there, in fast AMG road cars, for journalists and others. One year the offer was extended to a few McLaren staffers, for, then as now, the Woking team was using Mercedes-Benz engines. Paddy Lowe, Sam Michael and I were assigned a four-seat AMG C-Class. Sam and I belted ourselves into the back seats, and greeted our superstar chauffeur warmly – by name. Paddy then climbed into the front seat, and said, “Hi.”

michael schumacher sprays crowd

Something about the McLaren technical director’s manner indicated to me that he had not recognised the legendary ’Ringmeister sitting on his left. Soon I was sure of it. “Have you driven around here before?” Paddy asked, breezily. Sam and I looked at each other, and winced.

There was a pause. “Many, many times,” Klaus Ludwig replied, deadpan, and floored the throttle. What followed was a brilliant, scintillating, coruscating lap, driven by a man who had probably won as many races at the ’Ring as anyone in history and knew every inch of its daunting asphalt rather better than the back of his own hand. As you can imagine, Sam and I ripped the piss out of Paddy remorselessly afterwards.

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Acheson's Sauber-Mercedes C9 Test Sparked by Goodwood Encounter

Kenny Acheson’s return to the cockpit of a Sauber-Mercedes came about entirely by chance. Invited to a corporate event at the Goodwood Festival of Speed last summer in his capacity as a businessman working in the cosmetics industry rather than as an ex-racing driver, he happened to sit opposite the owner of this particular C9, historic racer Rupert Clevely.

“Kenny asked me what I did and I ended up telling him that I raced a bit,” explains Clevely, who has also owned Lancia LC2 and Peugeot 905 Group C cars. “He asked me what car I drove, I said it was a Sauber. When I told him it was a C9, he said, ‘Wow, I finished second at Le Mans in one of those’. I had no idea who he was when we started talking.”

One thing led to another, and suddenly Acheson was digging out his old overalls for a short test in Clevely’s C9.

The car was purchased from the defunct Donington Collection by Clevely. An unraced spare car in period, chassis #89 C9 A1 became a display vehicle at the end of the design’s competitive life early in 1990. The car came with an engine and gearbox, but with no bellhousing between them, while other missing parts included the injection plenum and the rear suspension rockers.

What the car did come with, however, was a set of bodywork that had been used at Le Mans. It is believed that the majority of the panels came off the Le Mans winner, while the 04B chalked inside the nose suggests that this particular section was used on Acheson’s second-placed car, chassis #04.

BBM Sport, formerly Chamberlain-Synergy, readied it for Peter Auto’s Group C Racing series. That meant reverse engineering components, something it was well qualified to do having previously run another C9, as well as the Sauber-built Mercedes C11. The car was ready in time to run up the hill at Goodwood last summer and the plan is for Clevely to race the C9 a couple of times in the coming season. “I’m a massive Group C fan,” he says, “and in my opinion this is the coolest looking of them all.”

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Kenny Acheson Reunites with Sauber-Mercedes C9: A Nostalgic Comeback

The overalls still fit and so, by definition, does the cockpit. Thirty years on from the most successful season of his racing career, Kenny Acheson is easing back behind the wheel of a Sauber-Mercedes C9 in the same grey Nomex in which he won two rounds of the 1989 World Sports Car Championship and endured a heart-breaking near-miss at the Le Mans 24 Hours.

Acheson Le Mans in 1989

Acheson took the car to second at Le Mans in 1989

Alamy

Sauber C9 wing mirror

Acheson, now 62, feels immediately at home in the Silver Arrow that put Mercedes back on the international motor sport map in only year two of its official comeback. He’s not driving the car on a circuit – he hasn’t had a competition licence since he walked away from the sport nearly a quarter of a century ago – but on the Turweston aerodrome runway just down the road from Silverstone. But it’s enough to rekindle some fond memories.

“The strangest thing is that it doesn’t feel strange at all, if that doesn’t sound a bit odd,” says Acheson, who has driven a racing car just the once, and only for a short demo, since retiring in 1996. “It all felt so natural – the noise of that V8 engine brings it all back. It really is a lovely racing car.”

Porsche 962C engine

“A Porsche 962C was scary, but the C9 was an entirely different proposition”

But then the Northern Irishman knew the C9 was something special from the moment he first took to the track for what should have been his race debut with the renamed Team Sauber Mercedes squad at Le Mans in 1988.

He had reservations about going back after a fraught maiden appearance at the Circuit de la Sarthe in 1985, which ended before qualifying was over with one of his team-mates in hospital with a broken leg.

Sauber dashboard

He describes the Porsche 962C in which he completed just three laps as “awful and a bit scary – for some reason I couldn’t go flat in a straight line.” Three years later, the C9 was “an entirely different proposition — you could tell immediately that it was a good racing car”.

Accepting the offer of a Le Mans drive with the Swiss Sauber team turned out to be a pivotal moment in Acheson’s career. He might not have got to make his Le Mans debut, but his introduction to the factory Merc squad resulted in a full-season campaign in the following year’s WSCC, or World Sports-Prototype Championship to use the name it adopted in 1986. Top drives followed as he racked up an impressive Le Mans CV that encompassed a trio of podiums in his first four starts.

Rear Sauber Acheson

A run in the Sauber brought back plenty of memories for Acheson

Acheson was given a second outing aboard a C9 at the back end of the ’88 season at Fuji, a home from home for him after four seasons racing in Japan. He finished fifth with Jean-Louis Schlesser and Jochen Mass, doing more than enough to be invited back for ’89.

“I went there as a fifth driver, but every time I got in the car it was wet and I was quick,” he recalls. “I remember the team telling me I was going to start the race. I said to them, ‘hang on a minute, I’m not one of your regular drivers, I’ve only done a handful of laps’.”

“A Porsche 962C was scary, but the C9 was an entirely different proposition”

Acheson would be part of an historic year for Mercedes as both the manufacturer and its Swiss partner upped the ante. Sauber outgunned its rivals, including reigning champion Jaguar, which meant the big rivalry was within the Swiss team.

Schlesser and Mauro Baldi had started the 1988 season as co-drivers, winning first time out at Jerez and finishing on the podium at the next two races before the team expanded to run a pair of cars. Now they would be in separate entries from the outset, Baldi teamed with Acheson in car #61 and Schlesser lining up with Mass in #62.

Sauber C9 Wheel and breaks

It is believed body panels came from the Le Mans-winning car

“They were the two bulls in the field,” recalls Acheson. “Jochen was really relaxed as always and I was just happy to be there. I was always aware of the rivalry, but I don’t think it ever got in the way of things.”

Schlesser wasn’t happy from the get-go that Dave Price had been assigned to engineer the sister car, even less so when Baldi, recovering from breaking his right foot at the Daytona 24 Hours in February, ended up driving – and winning – with him at the season-opening Suzuka round. The team was forced to shuffle its line-up on race morning when Mass fell unwell. With the team down a driver, that meant Acheson had to race #62 alone over a 480km or 300-mile event lasting nearly three hours.

Mercedes Sauber C9 on test track

He ended up second, six seconds in arrears of the sister Sauber, but the newcomer was the moral winner after ceding his position to the car shared by the two bulls late in the race.

“I started 30th because I had to use Jochen’s qualifying time,” he remembers. “I thought there was no way I was going to be able to do the whole race on my own, because these are physical cars and Suzuka is a tough circuit. But suddenly I found myself running second and I was able to overtake Schless in the last stint.

“He claimed he believed I was unlapping myself. He didn’t! I caught him and pulled away by a couple of seconds before the call came. When I pulled over, I made sure I did it in front of the pits to let everyone know what was going on.

Acheson 1989 season, Brands Hatchwith Mauro Baldi

Acheson had plenty of success during the 1989 season, here celebrating winning the 1000km of Brands Hatch alongside Mauro Baldi (left)

“I sat on his tail to the end of the race, and it was only on the last lap when he nipped in front of someone in the S-Curves that he was able to pull a gap.”

“Acheson had to race alone for a 300-mile, nearly three-hour, event”

Neither Baldi nor Schlesser took the big prize at Le Mans that year. Instead it went to Mass, who was teamed with Stanley Dickens and Manuel Reuter in the additional #63 car entered for the French enduro. It might have been different, however.

Baldi, Acheson and third driver Gianfranco Brancatelli held the lead on Sunday morning when its number one driver went off at the Dunlop Chicane. This incident and subsequent repairs to a damaged nose turned a narrow lead over the sister car into a one-lap deficit.

Sauber Mercedes on test track

The second-placed Sauber made it back on to the lead lap, only for the gearbox to jam in fifth on Acheson’s first lap back in the car for the run to the flag. When attempts to repair the transmission proved fruitless, the car’s driver had the big task of getting out of the pits in top gear.

“All I did was keep hitting the starter and dropping the clutch, so the car would keep rolling,” he explains. “Start, drop the clutch and stall; start, drop the clutch and stall. By the end of the pitlane, the clutch seemed to be burnt out and I couldn’t really accelerate. I remember getting onto the Mulsanne and two thirds of the way down the clutch started to come back as it cooled down a bit.”

cockpit of the C9 Acheson

Despite a 30-year gap since he raced it, the cockpit of the C9 was familiar to Acheson

Another WSPC win for Baldi and Acheson at Spa in September, coupled with a retirement for Schlesser and Mass, meant the Italian went to the series finale in Mexico City with a narrow advantage at the head of the championship table. But on the assumption of a Sauber one-two, he still had to win the race to claim the crown.

Baldi took the pole, but it was Schlesser who led throughout the opening stint on the Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez. Acheson, though, quickly closed down Mass after the pitstops and outdragged the sister car on the start-finish straight after getting a better run out of the fast 180-degree Peraltada.

“You were in trouble if you got it sideways when the tyres were old”

Just a couple of laps later, the Sauber driver attempted the same move on the lapped Richard Lloyd Racing Porsche driven by Tiff Needell. This time, the C9 ended up in the barriers. “I had Jochen just behind me and I knew I had to get a good run onto the straight,” recalls Acheson. “I didn’t want to get too close to Tiff in the corner, but I came up right behind him and lost downforce in his slipstream just at the point where there was a bump in the road.

Mercdes Sauber in the pitlane

“The Michelins were very difficult to drive: you were in trouble if you got the car sideways once the tyres were five or six laps old. The car went ever so slowly, but there was no chance to get it back on those tyres. I was just too close to the car in front at the wrong moment. My fault. Maybe it wasn’t meant to be.”

Acheson already knew that his services weren’t required for 1990 by the time he headed for Mexico. His seat would be filled by a trio of youngsters – Michael Schumacher, Heinz-Harald Frentzen and Karl Wendlinger – as Mercedes motor sport boss Jochen Neerpasch sought to replicate the successes he’d enjoyed with his junior programme at BMW in the 1970s. The young tyros would alternate in the second car alongside Mass, while Schlesser and Baldi were reunited in the lead entry.

Sauber Mercedes C9 Interior

Acheson wouldn’t drive a Sauber again after climbing from his damaged car in Mexico. Not, that is, until the offer last year to reacquaint himself, however briefly, with the C9. The run, however short, enables him to look back on his time with Team Sauber Mercedes with fondness.

“I feel lucky that I got that chance with Sauber and Mercedes,” he says. “If I hadn’t have got that opportunity, I’d probably have done a couple more years in Japan, and that would have been it. My life wouldn’t have been so rich.”

His exploits in 1989 won him the British Racing Drivers’ Club Gold Star for the most successful Commonwealth driver of the season. He calls himself the “least famous and least-deserving name” on an honours board that includes Richard Seaman, Stirling Moss and every British Formula 1 world champion. That’s a typically self-deprecating comment from a driver who was always one of the nice guys of the paddock.

Kenny Acheson behind the wheel

“I couldn’t speak highly enough of the group of people I raced with in 1989,” continues Acheson. “It was the nicest atmosphere I ever encountered in a team. Everyone worked well together, the Germans, the Swiss and the Brits.”

The chance to once again slip into the cockpit of a C9 results in “a great day” for Acheson. “The only thing is,” he says, “it’s the wrong number on the car. If there was no #63, I would have won Le Mans.”

 Special thanks to BBM Sport for its help with this feature

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The long shadow of Le Mans 1955

On October 16, 1955, Stirling Moss and Peter Collins led a Mercedes-Benz 1-2-4 at the Targa Florio to clinch the manufacturers’ world championship and complete a dominant season in the wheel tracks of Juan Manuel Fangio’s F1 title. Little did anyone know it would be 34 years before a Silver Arrow would again grace the track, when a Sauber-Mercedes C9 carried the famous colours to victory at a World Sports-Prototype Championship round at Suzuka on April 9 1989.

The silencing of racing engines for more than three decades has always been blamed on the Le Mans disaster of that tragic 1955 season, when Pierre Levegh’s 300 SLR was launched off the back of Lance Macklin’s Austin Healey and into the crowd opposite the pits, killing more than 80 and injuring almost 100 more. But Mercedes has always claimed its decision to withdraw was down to more practical reasons. Fritz Nallinger, board member responsible for engineering, said at a ceremony honouring its racing drivers on October 22, 1955: “The development of our product makes it appear advisable to put these highly skilled people to work now, without overtaxing them, solely in an area which is the most interesting to our customers, namely production car engineering.” It’s even claimed the decision pre-dated Le Mans.

Whatever the backstory, consider the context of the disaster: it was just 10 years after the second war of the century in which Germany had wrought devastation on France. It also sparked a backlash against motor sport that led to the cancellation of four grands prix and a long-lasting ban on racing in Switzerland. A withdrawal was entirely reasonable.

Le Mans 1955 cast a long, dark shadow, even though poor Levegh was blameless for an accident that was triggered by Mike Hawthorn – in a Jaguar. Undeserved ‘shame’ kept Mercedes away and explains why clandestine measures were taken as 1980s engineers went racing on the quiet.

In truth, the Silver Arrows’ return was long overdue.

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Sauber-Mercedes C9: Blending Heritage and Innovation in Racing

Taken from Motor Sport, March 2020

It was a momentous decision. The Team Sauber Mercedes entries in the 1989 World Sports Car Championship would run as Silver Arrows, just like the W125 grand prix cars before World War II and the W196 Formula 1 racers afterwards. The ‘new’ livery for the Sauber-Mercedes C9 Group C design tipped its hat to the glorious past of a manufacturer returning to motor sport after a long hiatus. And it also paved the way for an equally bright future that comes right up to the present day with the line of championship-winning F1 hybrids.

Yet the call to adopt the famous livery of the marque wasn’t made as the result of intense boardroom debate, extensive market research and never-ending focus groups. Rather it was the personal diktat of one of the highest authorities within Mercedes at the time – unsurprisingly after he’d had a few drinks inside him.

Sauber C8

Mercedes oversaw a considerable test programme with the C8 and its own V8 (below) during 1985, running here at Hockenheim

Sauber V8 Engine

Mercedes had ended its official absence from motor sport in 1988, breaking a sabbatical that dated back to 1955 and the aftermath of the Le Mans 24 Hours disaster. It launched twin programmes: one with Sauber in the WSCC, then known as the World Sports-Prototype Championship, and also with the 190E 2.3-16 in the DTM touring car series in Germany. Only after some early successes – five wins in the WSPC, and six in the DTM – did the marque have the confidence to adopt the iconic racing livery that graced the C9’s famous forebears.

That confidence was buoyed by alcohol at the Mercedes end-of-season motor sport party in 1988. The late Werner Niefer, deputy chairman of the board of parent company Daimler-Benz, was sitting around a table with the Sauber hierarchy when he decreed that the Silver Arrows would make a return after a year of the team’s cars running in the colours of Daimler-Benz subsidiary AEG.

“Niefer banged his huge fist on the table and said we would race silver cars”

Max Welti, Sauber’s long-time team manager, takes up the story: “We were all drunk, pretty drunk actually. Niefer had these big hands and he banged his big fist down on the table and said that we were going to race silver cars! The beer glasses literally sprang up in the air. It was all done by him, Mr Niefer. It was all his decision and his decision alone.”

The backstory to the return of the Silver Arrows had begun much nearer the start of the decade than its end. The Swiss Sauber team had forged a tentative link with Mercedes ahead of the 1982 season when it was developing its first car, the C6, for the new Group C fuel formula. Team boss Peter Sauber had approached the University of Stuttgart about using its wind tunnel. That wasn’t possible courtesy of the institution’s work with Porsche, but he was pointed in the direction of Mercedes by a helpful professor.

John Nielsen and Henri Pescarolo in 1986

The Sauber C8 was the first with Mercedes power and paved the way for the C9. This is John Nielsen and Henri Pescarolo in 1986

Sauber’s team might have been a minnow of the sports car world at that time, but he had a receptive response from Mercedes, where a group of motor sport-minded road car engineers had already taken a close look at the Group C regs. This group, working on an unofficial basis, included Leo Ress. He would go on to design the monocoque of Sauber’s next Group C machine, the C7 of 1983, (while on gardening leave after his recruitment by BMW) and all of its subsequent prototype sports cars (as technical director of the team from 1985).

“We were just a group of dreamers,” says Ress, who also did the calculations for the suspension geometry of the C6 using the manufacturer’s computer power. “We always believed that a low-revving, big-volume turbo engine would be the most fuel-efficient. But it took three years from Peter Sauber’s first contact for Mercedes to be convinced.”

The Sauber team photo, 63 at La Sarthe

The official team photo, with number 63 going on to win at La Sarthe

The first Sauber powered by a Mercedes engine, the C8, broke cover in 1985. The turbocharged M117 powerplant had, officially at least, been developed by renowned Swiss tuner Heini Mader. The truth was slightly different, however: the new race engine was designed and built in-house at Mercedes.

Welti describes the Mader story as a “smokescreen” to hide the true origins of the V8s, put about by a manufacturer who still wasn’t officially involved in motor sport. “Maybe Mader built up one or two engines, but no more,” he says. Ress suggests that the original plan was for Mader to undertake the project, but recalls everything being quickly taken in-house because Mercedes wanted to be in control of an engine that bore its badges.

Le Mans in 1989

Kenny Acheson, Mauro Baldi, Gianfranco Brancatelli lead early on at Le Mans in 1989.

Le Mans 1989, Stanley Dickens, Jochen Mass and Manuel Reuter

Winners of Le Mans 1989, Stanley Dickens, Jochen Mass and Manuel Reuter.

The Mercedes engine wouldn’t make its maiden race start until 1986, however. The C8 non-started on its one appearance of the previous year at Le Mans when John Nielsen, who would win the race with Jaguar in 1990, crashed on the Mulsanne Straight. It didn’t reappear that season.

Sauber undertook a partial world championship season, which included a fortuitous victory in a two-part wet race at the Nürburgring in ’86 with backing from the Yves St Laurent aftershave brand Kouros. A deal that stretched through the 1987 season had been brokered by former BMW Motorsport boss Jochen Neerpasch, then working for Mark McCormack’s IMG management group. The German would be brought in by Mercedes to head up its return to racing, a decision which was taken in early January 1988.

Michael Schumacher Sauber C9 brakes glow

While he won with the C11, Michael Schumacher did test the C9, here making the brakes glow

The Swiss operation now became Team Sauber Mercedes, and with the AEG sponsorship undertook a first full-season campaign in the Group C ranks. It did win the WSPC opener at Jerez with a lone C9 shared by Jean-Louis Schlesser, Mauro Baldi and Jochen Mass, but the truth was that the team wasn’t ready to take on reigning champion Jaguar.

“Le Mans in 1988 was a disaster, with a high-speed tyre blowout”

The Mercedes decision to put its full weight behind Sauber hadn’t been taken until January 12, yet the Jerez WSPC opener was on March 6. The programme remained a one-car effort until Silverstone in early May, the final race before Le Mans. The first factory assault by Mercedes at the Circuit de la Sarthe since ’55 turned out to be disaster: Klaus Niedzwiedz suffered a high-speed blowout on the Mulsanne Straight during qualifying; tyre supplier Michelin couldn’t guarantee it wouldn’t happen again, and Mercedes took the inevitable decision to withdraw from the race.

By Le Mans, Sauber had a new engineer running the race operations of the team. Dave Price joined from the Richard Lloyd Racing Porsche squad after being approached by Welti in the pitlane during the Silverstone 1000Km meeting in early May. He recalls arriving at an outfit that had yet to organise itself in a way befitting of a full factory team.

Mercedes Sauber C wheel

“It was very small when I first went there,” remembers Price. “Leo was doing everything; he was the designer and was engineering both cars. And as we know, designers don’t tend to make very good race engineers! They probably had no more than 12 people in total, including Peter and Max themselves.”

Price helped knock the team into shape, while Ress was freed up to devote more time to car development. After a major suspension test with shocks supplier Bilstein after the Le Mans debacle, Sauber’s season came alive. Team Sauber Mercedes ran a pair of cars in each of the six races post-Le Mans and ended up winning four of them. Schlesser and Baldi took second and third in the points respectively behind Jaguar’s Martin Brundle.

That momentum carried into 1989 with a further upgrade of the C9, which was now powered by a four-valve version of the Mercedes engine known as the M119. Only once would one of the Silver Arrows fail to win over the course of the eight championship rounds in ’89, when hot temperatures at Dijon killed its Michelin tyres and the Joest Porsche team took a surprise victory. Sauber also claimed the big prize at Le Mans, finishing one-two in a race that wasn’t part of the WSPC that season.

The arrival of the new engine was an important factor in the domination of Team Sauber Mercedes, but perhaps not the defining one that some history books relate.

Mercedes Sauber at Le Mans

“The engine was definitely more efficient and more power always helps, but at the first test it was actually slower,” explains Ress. “We were a bit surprised and then we saw that we were slower in the corners. That was because the centre of gravity had gone up with the extra weight at the top of the engine. Mercedes undertook a big development programme to come back to the original centre of gravity.”

The reorganisation of the team that took place through ’88 and into ’89 was just as important, he reckons. “Everything was less rushed and we were properly organised,” continues Ress. “We had more time to focus on car development, the aerodynamics and car set-up. In 1988, we had been struggling just to get to the races.”

Price has a similar viewpoint: “I went there at just the right time; you make some small improvements and you’re a f**king hero. It was a piece of cake, really. We used to go to the races expecting to win. It’s great to have that mentality in the team.”

Jochen Mass with Mercedes Sauber

Team Sauber Mercedes ended up taking just about all the silverware in 1989. Schlesser claimed the WSPC title ahead of team-mates Mass and Baldi. Le Mans victory went to Mass, Manuel Reuter and Stanley Dickens in a third C9 entered for the big one in France, with the car shared by Baldi, Kenny Acheson and Gianfranco Brancatelli in second.

It wasn’t the first time that the Silver Arrows had dominated at or near the pinnacle of world motor sport. Nor would it be the last. They would maintain their superiority in 1990 on the arrival of a new Group C car — the Mercedes, not Sauber, C11 — that together with its predecessor won seven of the eight WSPC rounds that year.

Today’s Mercedes F1 team has carried on the run nicely, with six drivers’ and constructors’ doubles since 2014. But it undoubtedly owes something to a drunken conversation more than 30 years ago.

SAUBER-MERCEDES C9

Chassis: aluminium honeycomb
Suspension: Double wishbones all round
Engine: Five-litre Mercedes M119 90-degree V8, twin turbos, four valves per cylinder
Power: 700bhp-plus
Torque: 600ft lb
Gearbox: Five-speed Hewland VGC
Weight: 900kg