It is an indisputable fact that winning the 24 Hours of Le
Mans overall is one of the most highly sought after prizes in all of racing.
Notwithstanding, it is very easy to concentrate on Fernando Alonso’s and Toyota’s
maiden victories at the Sarthe, and Alonso’s trek to the Triple Crown of
racing, and fail to see some interesting patterns.
Every since the driver trio became the norm at Le Mans, in
1985, a few winning crews were formed exclusively of drivers that had at one
point raced (or were active in F1) such as Alonso, Nakajima and Buemi. In fact,
this happened only four other times. In 2009, David Brabham, Marc Gene and
Alexander Wurz had some F1 experience behind them, none of them wildly
successful. Wurz had a couple of podiums and a fastest lap to his credit, and
Gene scored points. Ten years before, victors Pierluigi Martini, Yannick Dalmas
and Joachim Winkelhock also had F1 experience. Martini had led a GP, started
one race from the first row, but Joachim Winkelhock never even qualified for a
GP, while Dalmas was simply not successful. The 1992 winners, Derek Warwick,
Dalmas and Mark Blundell had all raced in F1 – Warwick had a long career, got a
couple of fastest laps, a few podiums and in fact, led 16 laps. Most of his F1
racing had taken place by then, but he still raced one more season, 1993.
Lastly, the 1991 winners, Volker Weidler, Johnny Herbert and Bertrand Gachot
had been in F1 by then, but Herbert’s wins were in the future.
The fact that Alonso is a current F1 driver, a multiple
Champion and winner of over 30 GPs, and widely reckoned as one of the top 5 by those in the know make this year’s
line up rather special. Sebastien Buemi has also led a single GP lap, and is
one of the most successful international drivers of the last few seasons,
winning in both endurance and short Formula E events. But there is more to the
story.
The fact is that no less than 22 drivers out of the 180 in
this year’s Le Mans had driven in F1, including another former world champion
(Jenson Button) and three other race winners (Fisichella, Montoya and Maldonado).
This is a pattern of sorts, if we consider the line up in 1973.
That was a peculiar 24 Hours, the last time Ferrari raced
works prototypes in the race it had dominated in the early 60’s. On that race
there were also 22 drivers who had F1 experience, but not a single World
Champion, and one three GP winners (Ickx, Cevert and Beltoise). All six Ferrari
drivers had F1 experience (Ickx, Redman, Pace, Merzario, Reutemann and
Schenken), and four Matra-Simca drivers had some GP history (Beltoise, Cevert,
Depailler and Pescarolo). Additionally, other drivers with past GP experience
were Van Lennep, Elford, Migault, Posey, Wisell, Bell, Ganley, Amon, Hailwood,
Craft, Ligier and Quester. So, in a very clear sense, this year’s 22 former drivers
with F1 experience at Le Mans had more of a pedigree, even though only Alonso
is a current driver. The other 19 besides the winning crew were Kobayashi,
Vergne, Button, Lotterer, Lammers, Magnussen, Fisichella, Montoya, Bourdais,
Nasr, Senna, Stevens, Maldonado, Van der Garde, Petrox, Giovinazzai, Beretta,
Di Resta and Lamy. One might argue that more weight should be given to the 22
that raced in 1973, for most cars were crewed by two drivers. While that is
true, it should be noted that nowadays a very small number of drivers ever
makes it to F1, considering the small number of available rides, stable driver
lineups during the course of a season or sometimes several seasons. So this
year’s 22 is very significant.
Alonso is obviously not the only former world champion to
seek glory in Le Mans. However, the last former F1 world champion to win at Le
Mans was a certain Graham Hill, who also won at Indy. Since then a considerable
number of former GP champions tried their luck in the famous French race,
including Keke Rosberg, Alan Jones, Nelson Piquet, Nigel Mansell, Jacques Villeneuve and Mario
Andretti. The latter came closest to winning in 1995, when his mount, a
Cougar-Porsche shared with Bob Wollek and former winner Eric Helary, was miles
ahead of the competition, and Andretti had an off course excursion that caused
some damage to the car. Andretti also attempted to win the race with son Michael,
once sharing a works Porsche (finished 3rd), and another time his
Mirage booted out of the race by scrutineering. He was still trying in a Panoz
as late as the year 2000, to no avail.
It remains to be seen whether Alonso would return to Le Mans
next year in a car other than a works
Toyota. The fact that both Jenson Button and Juan Pablo Montoya took part in
the race in cars with almost no realistic chance of winning, raises our hope
that Fernando would return, even if Toyota calls it a day. Let us see.
Another interesting thing about the 1973 race was the start
of Japanese participation at Le Mans, that culminated with this weekend’s Toyota
win. It came in the form of a Sigma-Mazda driven by Hiroshi Fushida, Tetsu
Ikusawa and Patrick Dal Bo. The car
retired, but since then, the Japanese have grown very fond of the 24 Hours. In
fact, in several editions since then there were a seemingly endless number of
Japanese drivers in the 24 Hours, sometimes driving Toyotas, Mazdas, Nissans,
and Domes, but also driving a variety of cars such as McLaren, Panoz, Ferraris,
Porsches. 27 long years have elapsed since the Mazda victory of 1991, and
although Toyota finally got its pay day this year, Japanese enthusiasm for Le Mans
seems to have vanished somewhat, for besides Nakajima and Kobayashi, who drove
for Toyota, only two other drivers from the country, Motoaki Ishikawa and Keita
Sawa, drove in the famous race this year. On the other hand, Russian and
Brazilian interest on the race remain great.
