Motor Racing Roundup : Jaguar Breaks Up Porsche’s Lock on Le Mans
For the first time since 1957, a Jaguar won the 24 Hours of Le Mans Sunday, ending Porsche’s domination of the endurance race at Le Mans, France.
Driven by the trio of Jan Lammers of the Netherlands and Britain’s Andy Wallace and Johnny Dumfries, the Jaguar XJR-9 of Scotsman Tom Walkinshaw won a furious battle with a Porsche 962 driven by West Germans Hans Stuck and Klaus Ludwig and Briton Derek Bell.
“I’m very pleased. The drivers did an amazing job,” said Walkinshaw, who engineered Jaguar’s return to the victory podium in his third try at Le Mans. “Everything went like clockwork.”
In an unusually close race, the Jaguar covered 394 laps on the 8.41-mile circuit, averaging 137.77 m.p.h., while finishing less than a lap ahead of the Porsche.
The Jaguar covered a total of 3,314.35 miles. It was the second-best distance ever in the race. Only a 1971 mark of 3,315.92 miles, set by West German Helmut Marko and Dutchman Gijs Van Lennep in a Porsche 907, was better.
Lammers, 32, was entrusted with the final minutes of the victorious ride.
The Jaguar and the Porsche were within a lap of each other for the last 12 hours of the race after the Porsche came back from losing two laps early because of a fuel miscalculation.
Stuck’s Porsche had the pole position and was looking to break away after 40 laps. But with Ludwig behind the wheel, the car ran low on fuel midway through a lap.
Ludwig was able to coax the car back to the pits. But by that time, he was two laps behind and in eighth place.
The Porsche returned to contention with some quick laps, including one in a record 3 minutes 22.50 seconds, which broke the mark of 3:25.4 set by Dumfries last year.
But the Jaguar was more than equal to the task.
The other top Jaguar, driven by Daytona 24 Hours winners John Nielsen of Denmark and Martin Brundle of Britain, went out of the race with a blown headgasket with five hours left.
The remaining factory Porsche, driven by the Andretti family, was in and out of the pits with fuel and cooling troubles that cost it enough time to put it 19 laps behind in sixth place.
Mario Andretti was trying to become the only driver besides Britain’s Graham Hill to win the Indianapolis 500, the world Formula One driving championship and the Le Mans 24 Hours Race.
He was driving with his son, Michael, and nephew, John.
In third place was a Porsche 962 driven by West Germany’s John Winter, Denmark’s Franck Jelinski and Sweden’s Stanley Dickens. It was nine laps behind.
A Jaguar, with American Kevin Cogan, Briton Derek Daly and Australian Larry Perkins taking turns at the wheel, was fourth, 11 laps back. Another Porsche, with Didier Theys of Belgium, David Hobbs of Britain and Franz Konrad of West Germany driving, finished fifth.
Ayrton Senna and Alain Prost turned the Canadian Grand Prix into a runaway, and it could have been by an even bigger margin.
“It was a fuel-consumption race and the fuel was determining the pace of the race,” the Brazilian Senna said after he earned his eighth career victory and second of the season.
“We could have gone faster, but we were just pacing ourselves all the time.”
Prost, who added to his season point lead over his McLaren-Honda teammate with his second-place finish, said: “I thought the race would be decided at the end, but we had fuel-consumption problems, and the team ordered me to turn the (turbocharger) boost down.”
There were only two passes for the lead in the race before an estimated 75,000 fans at the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve on the Isle du Notre Dame near downtown Montreal.
Senna, who started from the pole for the fifth straight race, lost the top spot at the start to Prost, who started from the second spot for the fourth straight time.
Then, on Lap 19, Senna, 28, slipped past his 33-year-old teammate.
He led the rest of the way, averaging 113.187 m.p.h. for the 69-lap, 189.07-mile event .
The England-based team has won all five races this season, with Prost taking the other three. It was also the team’s third 1-2 sweep.
Both Ferraris were out by the halfway point, Austrian Gerhard Berger stopping with an electrical problem on Lap 23 and Italian Michele Alboreto dropping out with an engine failure on Lap 34. Both were in fourth place when forced to stop.
Senna’s victory moved him past Berger into second behind Prost in the season standings. Senna trails Prost, 39 points to 24. Berger has 18.
Road racer John Petrick of Tampa, Fla., won the 24-hour Firestone Endurance Championship in a Camaro that covered a record 1,867.481 miles over the 3.37-mile Watkins Glen International Road Course at Watkins Glen, N.Y. Petrick shared the driving with Joe Varde and Don Wallace.
The winning Camaro finished four seconds ahead of another Camaro, driven by Mark Hutchins, of Front Royal, Va., and 41 more seconds ahead of the third-place Porsche, driven by Canadian Kees Nierop.
