Wednesday 2nd June 2010

Lola at Le Mans: 10 days to go...

A tale of Le Mans derring-do, with Mark Blundell and the Lola-built Nissan R90C

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Mark Blundell 20 years ago

With just ten days to go until the 78th running of the world's toughest and greatest motor race, racing car constructor Lola is promising to count down the days with a series of Le Mans stories in which it has played a starring role.

You can follow the updates via Lola's own twitter feed, but we thought we'd share the first one to get you in the mood. It's Mark Blundell talking exclusively about his stunning qualifying lap in the Lola-built Nissan R90C of twenty years ago, when he claimed pole position at Le Mans with an astonishing lap of 3m27.020s, some six seconds faster than the next car - it's the sort of stuff that Le Mans legends are made of!

The Lola-built Nissan R90C

"It was one of those situation where everyone wanted to qualify the car," says Blundell. "I ended up doing a flip of the coin with my team mate Julian Bailey and it was based upon whoever won the toss of the coin would qualify the car!

"It was dusk and it was a situation where I hadn't completed one flying lap with that car and went out on the circuit and didn't understand what the tyres were going to do. I went out on race tyres as well which was better than quali's as they got chewed with all the power we had.

"I got half way round the lap and had a little call over the radio from one of the Japanese engineers saying 'abort the lap because the engine is overboosting badly'. So, I pulled the radio plug out, I thought, 'screw this, I'm going for it'. I've waited all week, the thing can blow up, I don't really care, I just want to get a lap together and that's what I did basically.

The engine hung-on in there...

"The first time I hit the throttle pedal was the first time I actually got to feel 1128 horsepower, it was a tremendous amount of power. I remember going up to the first chicane and still spinning the rear wheels in fourth gear.

"It was just a great car and linked with that engine it was a rocket and I think we did 237 miles an hour on the Mulsanne straight and that was the first year they put the chicanes in!

"Halfway round the lap I plugged the radio back in after fumbling for the lead and got the message that we got pole by 6 seconds. I think it stands to this day to be the biggest margin ever, and I think I'm down as the youngest guy ever to have pole position at Le Mans. It was also the first time a Japanese manufacturer was on the pole for Le Mans.

...and Pole Position was the result

"There were a lot of faces smiling in the pits but a couple of Japanese guys were not that happy with me as they were so scared that the engine would let go. From my point of view, I was out to make a name for myself and luckily that's what I did."

Pictures: Lola Archives

[ktm301p]

Sounds like the mentality of a true racing driver. Race.

[chevronb37]

Amazing car. Remember standing down at the end of the Hangar Straight at the Classic a couple of years ago. Even in its now-detuned state, Peter Sowerby was audibly accelerating quickly heading towards Stowe. Shame we won't see its ilk again.

[soad]

What a write-up!

[Ralf Rockefeller]

"So, I pulled the radio plug out, I thought, 'screw this, I'm going for it'. I've waited all week, the thing can blow up, I don't really care,"

Lol!

[carsnapper]

"So, I pulled the radio plug out, I thought, 'screw this, I'm going for it'. I've waited all week, the thing can blow up, I don't really care,"

Never met a racing driver who wouldn't do the same. I'm sure if you replace the words 'so I pulled the radio plug out...' with 'I stuck it up the inside' - we probably get somewhere near to Vettel's thought process last Sunday.

Good article

[Housey]

I was there for that race and in 89 too, proper sports car racing. I mean, 237mph with chicanes, god I miss Group C!!

[ellroy]

Housey said:

I was there for that race and in 89 too, proper sports car racing. I mean, 237mph with chicanes, god I miss Group C!!

Support race this year...

[Housey]

ellroy said:

Support race this year...

Meh, nothing like they were in their prime.

[forzaminardi]

Someone at another forum I'm on posted this video of "what Mark Blundell did next":

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7HOpjSkwiXA

Highly recommended - absurdly funny!

[HereBeMonsters]

How do the current diesels compare to these beasts in terms of lap times then? I'm guessing slower out of the corners and on the straights, but the downforce would more than make up for the deficit in power to make the newer cars faster?

[chevronb37]

Housey said:

ellroy said:

Support race this year...

Meh, nothing like they were in their prime.

From a chat with Justin Law a few years ago, he was saying they were actually faster. In the revival series, they don't have fuel efficiency to consider, they started sprouting little winglets and they were sprint races. This has been clamped down on now but the likes of Chris Buncombe have not run away with the races, despite being an Aston LMP1 factory driver. From studying previous laptimes, the Group C cars out there now are about at LMP2 pace. Modern brakes and huge diesel torque will count for a lot. In terms of peak downforce, I doubt there's a lot in it - Group C ran full ground effect. I'd imagine a 905 in sprint set-up would give a 908 something to think about on a smaller circuit though - those atmo cars were crazy.