There are not too many marques that have won the Le Mans 24-Hours just the once and it is now 25 years since the last of them, BMW, was victorious in the event. That year, 1999, stands out in a number of ways. It was the beginning of a string of wins for the so-called ‘Le Mans prototypes’ and the last for many years when the field was wide open with more than just one or two manufacturers in with a chance of winning.
It was also the only year that I went to the race on a coach. I will not name the travel company but I can only compare the experience to what I assume it was like for third-class emigrants crossing the Atlantic. The trip had been a 21st birthday present for our eldest son, Tim and a friend. However, not long before the event, it was decided that I should accompany him instead. Now, I know that it is not the done thing to leave the circuit during the race, so I should not complain. However, I have been to Le Mans staying in hotels, a chateau, farmhouses, tents and a motor home and all are more civilised than a coach.
The majority of our fellow travellers actually slept in the coach. Thankfully, I was able to seek the sanctuary of the media centre where I put my head down on the desk. Tim, well Tim’s adrenalin was up and running – it was, after all, his first Le Mans – and he was somewhere around the track taking it all in. That meant he was at the Dunlop chicane when Thierry Boutsen’s Toyota GT-One slammed into the wall during the night. For proof, he points to a photo in that year’s official Le Mans Yearbook and claims to be one of the shadowy figures in the background.
That crash obliterated one of the three Toyotas that had been considered favourites to win. One of them would still be in with a chance with less than an hour to run, but more of that later.
There had been attempts to make Le Mans into a GT race throughout the 1990s but these had resulted in various, and sometimes outlandish, interpretations of the rules that meant only the McLaren F1 win in 1995 could be said to have been achieved by a true GT designed to be driven on the road.
The Toyotas were in the LM GTP class but what that really meant was that they were closed coupes. So to were the two Mercedes-Benz CLRs but at least they had a vague semblance of road cars, the Toyotas could have been nothing but racing machines.
There was a variety of out-and-out LMP prototypes, open-top cars that might once have been referred to as sports racers. BMW was back after a setback the previous year with a pair of totally revised cars, the V12 LMRs, now being run by Charlie Lamm’s Team Schnitzer. The cars were not particularly Teutonic having been designed by Graham Humphreys, with Peter Stevens assisting on the styling cues and built at Williams in Oxfordshire.
Backing them up were two of last year’s, more complex V12 LMs now in the hands of private owners. Other entries by major car manufacturers came from ‘new boys’, Audi and from Nissan. The former was hedging its bets, entering cars in both closed and roadster format. The single Ferrari was hardly a reminder of the great Italian cars of the 1950s and 1960s – it was not even all red – while there was the usual smattering of specialist racing car manufacturers.
There were also two classes of genuine GTs made up of Chrysler Vipers and Porsches.
Being at the mercy of the tour company, we did not arrive in time for practice and so missed the drama of the first flying Mercedes but this was a story that still had more to come. On the warm up lap, Mark Webber flew through the air for a second time, meaning that, as we wandered amongst the cars lined up alongside the pits, the field was already down to just two CLRs.
To nobody’s surprise, the Toyotas led at first. Back down the field in sixth place at the end of the first lap was the eventual hero of this story, the BMW of Yannick Dalmas, Joachim Winkelhock and Pierluigi Martini. Fate did not look kindly on the Japanese cars and the BMW teams were also finding that they could turn their cars around in the pits in far less time. The result was that, after the second round of stops, a battle had got underway between one of the Toyotas and the fastest of the more fuel-efficient BMWs, which was being crewed by JJ Lehto, Tom Kristensen and Jorg Muller. It was a tussle that continued until the early hours of the morning.
It was just after 3:00 am that the leading Toyota tagged a Porsche it was lapping and ended up against the wall. Having seen the incident, Tim eventually returned to the press office somewhat frustrated that it had resulted in the field having to follow the pace car for about an hour. I was having a restful ‘kip’ with my arms on the desk when he enthusiastically woke me with the gladsome tidings to tell me that a Viper had just set the fastest GT lap of the race so far…
Boutsen’s crash was far from the first drama of the race. Some seven hours earlier, an unforgettable image had appeared in the monitors in the media centre. A Mercedes-Benz appeared to rear up into the sky and disappear towards the right of the screen. For the third time that week, one of the CLRs, this time with Peter Dumbreck (no longer) at the controls, had taken off like an aeroplane.
A few years later, I interviewed a now phlegmatic Peter about this in the comfort of his home. ‘The sequence must have made Eurosport a lot of money,’ said the Scot. It certainly made him world-famous for a few days.
His memory about the event was understandably hazy and he could not recall getting out of the car after it had somersaulted several times and ended up on its wheels the other side of the guardrail. Luckily, trees had been cleared from the very spot where he landed the week before. Not surprisingly, Mercedes-Benz withdrew its remaining car and, perhaps with the spectre before it of the horrific accident at Le Mans in 1955 when one of its cars ploughed into the spectators, has not been back since.
The demise of the leading Toyota left the BMWs in first and second place, the faster of the two being three laps ahead and proceeding in what appeared to be a serene fashion. Then, with five and a half hours left, a roll-bar link came loose, wedging the throttle open, the resulting crash causing too much damage for the car to return to the pits.
Suddenly the race became exciting again for the other BMW had a lead of just a minute and a half over the surviving Toyota…and the Japanese car was gaining. Ukyo Katayama in the red GT-One set a new lap record as he closed down on Martini in the German entry. Tim and I had been wandering around the circuit during the day but were back in the media centre for the closing laps. Thanks to the Toyotas having been the favourites there were many Japanese journalists at Le Mans that year and they were eagerly anticipating their man sweeping into the lead even if the Schnitzer team was convinced that it had everything control. I dreamt of a repeat of 1959….
Then the media monitors showed their second dramatic image of the race. The Toyota was slowing with a puncture. The media centre resounded with a Japanese wail of anguish and I feared for an outbreak of seppuku. It would be many years before Toyota eventually won at Le Mans, and that after an even more heartbreaking end to the race in 2017, but BMW had now won its first, and to date, only Le Mans 24-hours.
The following year, BMW, Toyota and Mercedes-Benz had left Le Mans and were on their way to the Formula 1 playground, the former continuing its association with Williams. (BMW continued to race the V12 LMRs for a second season in the American Le Mans Series, adding two more victories to a score of four in 1999.)
Of the OEMs among the 1999 entries only Audi returned. Tim and I were also back, this time enjoying the comforts of a motor home. However, and with apologies to my friends in the R8 teams, the race did not quite have the drama of 1999 and would not do so for some years.
For the record, the other marques that have but a single Le Mans win to their names are: Chenard & Walker, Lagonda, Delahaye, Talbot Lago, Mirage, Rondeau, Mazda and McLaren.
The question now is, will WRT find a way to conjure the spirit of 1999 this week and move BMW out of that group and into the company of Lorraine-Dietrich and Bugatti, who have two overall wins?
