LE MANS 24 HOURS

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Successful marques and drivers

The most successful marque in the history of the 24 hour race is Porsche, with 16 overall victories (including seven in a row, from 1981 to 1987), followed by Ferrari with nine (including six in a row, from 1960 to 1965). The early years were dominated by Bentley and Alfa Romeo, with four consecutive wins from 1927 to 1930 and from 1931 to 1934 respectively. The 1950s were dominated by Jaguar with their C-type and D-type cars with wins in 1951, 1953, 1955, 1956, and in 1957 where D-type Jaguars finished 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, and 6th. The turn of the century saw a new power arrive in the Audi V8 powered R8 (wins in 2000, 2001, 2002, 2004 and 2005) and Bentley Speed 8 (2003).

In a personal spat between the two companies' owners, Ford won the race four times (1966 to 1969) with its GT40, built for the express purpose of defeating Ferrari, after founder Enzo Ferrari backed out of a deal to sell his company to Ford.

The only Japanese company to win the race so far has been Mazda, which won the 59th race in 1991 with its rotary-engined 787B prototype. Toyota almost took the overall win in 1999, but mechanical woes in the final hour relegated them to second.

In 2005, Tom Kristensen set an absolute record of seven victories including six in a row, pulling ahead of legend Jacky Ickx who has a total of six wins.

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The Mercedes-Benz CLR was a Le Mans Prototype GT racing car created for the 1999 race. It became infamous for spectacular crashes.

Racing History

Mercedes-Benz CLR #4 with Mark Webber in the warmup to the 1999 Le Mans 24h, above its sister cars, a BMW V12 and a Viper

In April 1999 Mercedes launched the new Mercedes CLR as successor to the FIA GT championship-winning Mercedes-Benz CLK-GTR which would take part in the upcoming Le Mans 24 Hours. With tens of thousands of miles of testing on smooth race tracks, Mercedes felt that the car was quick enough to win the race, despite the short time spent on wind tunnel testing.

Three cars were entered, numbered 4, 5, and 6, driven by a German, a French, and an English speaking pilot, to allow efficient international marketing. The major competition of Audi, BMW, Cadillac, and Toyota each entered two, three, or even four cars, making the 1999 LM one of the toughest ever. And there were smaller private teams like Panoz. Only Porsche, winner in the previous year, was missing.

However, Mark Webber's #4 car became airborne at the Indianapolis corner during the Thursday night qualifying session. The car was rebuilt from scratch on Friday, modified for more downforce at the front, and entered in the Saturday morning warm-up. This time, Mark Webber only made it to the Mulsanne kink when the car backflipped in a spectacular way, this time caught in mid-air in photos. Luckily, neither Webber nor anyone else was injured on either occasion.

Despite the second incident and the awareness of the 1955 Mercedes Le Mans disaster, Norbert Haug decided to go ahead and enter the other two cars in the afternoon, with additional modifications and instructions to the drivers not to follow others cars closely over humps.

Despite this, after over 4 hours, driven at the time by Peter Dumbreck, the #5 CLR chased a Toyota GT-One and became airborne at Indianapolis, somersaulting and landing over the barriers into the trees, all on world-wide live TV. The crowd in the Le Mans grandstands was mortified, seeing the pictures without hearing any comment for a long time. Luckly it turned out later that nobody was injured. At that time, the race was under yellow flags, and the remaining #6 car driven, by Bernd Schneider, had already been retired.

The flying Mercedes at Le Mans brought the almost immediate cancellation of the CLR project and its planned participation in the Norisring and the ALMS series. The surviving #6 car was never raced again nor shown at the Mercedes-Benz Museum, but sold to a private collector.

Mercedes blamed the humps at Le Mans, which had to be lowered later. At Road Atlanta in 1998, a Porsche 911 GT1-98 had also backflipped, and a BMW V12LMR did so again in 2000. Yet, these cars won a Le Mans without incidents.

Specifications
Mid-engine, rear-wheel drive, carbon fiber and aluminium honeycomb monocoque
Mercedes-Benz V8 (GT 108 C) engine, 5721 cc, electronically controlled ignition and injection system (Bosch Motronic)*
X-Trac, unsynchronised, six-speed gearbox with magnesium casing
Front & Rear suspension: Double wishbones with push rod activation of the spring and shock absorber suspension units, attached directly to monocoque with pick-ups
18" diameter undivided magnesium wheels
Bridgestone Potenza Tires
Length: 4893 mm
Width: 1999 mm
Height: 1012 mm
Wheelbase: 2670 mm
Weight: 921 kg