1981 24 Hours of Le Mans
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1981 24 Hours of Le Mans |
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The 1981 24 Hours of Le Mans was the 49th Grand Prix of Endurance, and took place on 13 and 14 June 1981. It was also the eighth round of the World Endurance Championship of Drivers, and the fifth round of the World Championship for Makes. Defending champions Rondeau entered a strong 5-car team. The Porsche works team challenged them with the final development of their 936, now fitted with the 2.65-litre turbo engine from the abandoned Indianapolis project. The prospect was sufficient to entice Jacky Ickx out of retirement again, teamed up with Derek Bell with whom he had already won the race in 1975. From the start, Ickx took the lead which he held until the first pit-stops. Soon after, the race was interrupted by two serious accidents on the Mulsanne Straight killing French driver Jean-Louis Lafosse and a track marshal. These events saw the first deployment at Le Mans of the pace-car system to slow the race, as repairs and medical attention were carried out. When racing resumed Reinhold Joest's own 936 replica was now leading, but soon pitted with a cracked turbo-fan giving the lead to the 935 of the Kremer team. However, Bell soon overhauled it to re-take the lead that they would not relinquish for the rest of the race, as the car never missed a beat. The gap continued to grow through the night, eventually becoming 14 laps by the end – the largest winning margin in over a decade. The race had a surprising number of car problems in the first few hours for the leading teams, which strung out the field. The second Porsche had sparkplug issues as early as the first lap, but the pair ran 1-2 through the night, until its clutch failed at 7am. It fell to the two GTP-class Rondeaux to mount the pursuit, finishing second and third. Fourth was the Charles Ivey team 935, winning the Group 5 class after the more fancied teams fell away, while the Charles Pozzi Ferrari 512 BB, finishing fifth, won the IMSA-GTX class and gave that marque its best result for eight years. The significant change to the rules this year was in the qualifying system, which had proven so problematic for the previous year's race. The Automobile Club de l'Ouest (ACO) therefore reverted to its two days of qualifying, with four hours each on the Wednesday and Thursday. Engine changes were allowed again between qualifying and the race. The class-by-class quota was also discarded so it would be the 55 fastest cars that would be on the grid and, finally, it would be each car's single fastest lap that would decide its grid position. Every car had to qualify within 110% of the average of the times of the three fastest cars in their class. Each car, and every driver, also had to qualify within 130% of the average of the three fastest cars overall. The circuit had been widened at the approach to the Esses, adding a grass runoff after the Dunlop Curve. With an eye on improving safety measures further, this year saw the introduction of Mercedes "safety cars". Following the process used in American racing, they would be introduced to gather the field to slow it down in the event of a serious event on the circuit. Owing to the length of the circuit, three would be used to keep the field spread more evenly. Where we have not had a model of the car through the business as raced I've added another example of the car as an illustration (where I have one)
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| Last Edit: 12/06/2024 | Page Created 07/052022 |
