www.porscheroadandrace.com Porsche 911 GT1/98 – winning Le Mans in 1998 Published: 13th October 2017 By: Glen Smale Online version: https://www.porscheroadandrace.com/porsche-911-gt198-winning-le-mans-in-1998/ Le Mans 24 Hour, 6/7 June 1998: Action stations! The #26 Porsche GT1/98 of Allan McNish/Stéphane Ortelli/Laurent Aiello calls into the pits during Saturday night/Sunday morning The Porsche 911 GT1/98 Le Mans winning car had its origins in a roadgoing version of the Group C 962, the Dauer 962 Le Mans GT. To trace the timeline of this successful race car, it is necessary to go back to 1993 when Norbert Singer attended the Frankfurt Motor Show (IAA). At the IAA, Singer saw the Dauer 962 Le Mans GT road car that racer/constructor Jochen Dauer had prepared, and Singer’s very active mind saw in this model, a potential www.porscheroadandrace.com new race car that would satisfy the 1994 Le Mans regulations. Background Jochen Dauer Racing was formed in 1987, and Dauer enjoyed several years of racing with the Porsche 962C in the German Supercup and European Interserie championships, with occasional entries in other international championships too. Dauer was himself a fairly successful driver, winning the 1988 Interserie Teams’ and Drivers’ Championships. Once he had ceased his racing activities, however, he turned his attention to creating a series of street legal supercars using the 962 chassis, the first of which was presented at the 1993 IAA. Magny Cours, 16/17 May 1994: The Porsche 962 Dauer Le Mans GT is put through its paces during a 24-hour test at the French circuit at Magny Cours, before receiving its racing livery www.porscheroadandrace.com and sponsorship. According to Norbert Singer, the carbon fibre bodied 962 Dauer LM GT was first subjected to endurance tests at the Mireval circuit (25-28 April) and Paul Ricard (29-30 April), these two circuits are located not far from each other in the south of France 1994 Dauer 962 GT LM Porsche did not have a race car with which they could win Le Mans outright at that time, the only race car the company had was the 911 Carrera RSR 3.8 which was of course a GT contender. Norbert Singer’s approach could not have been better timed as Dauer was finding it somewhat hard going financially in his efforts to create a series of 962 road cars. A plan was thus set in motion that allowed Dauer to complete the IAA show car and get it road registered, and the extra chassis and spares that he had were returned to Porsche in settlement. Porsche needed to have the one street legal model for Singer’s plan to succeed which would use the Dauer 962 Le Mans GT road car as the basis for his next (1994) Le Mans campaign. Norbert Singer, “It was clear with all the experience we had with the 911, that the rear-engine position is very good on traction and a little bit on braking, but that was it.” Driving the #36 3-litre Dauer 962 Le Mans, Yannick Dalmas/Hurley Haywood/Mauro Baldi, won the 1994 Le Mans 24 Hours for Porsche, confirming that Norbert Singer’s concept was a good one. GT1/96 and GT1/97 Following the demise of the Group C era, the organisers of the Le Mans 24 Hour race, the Automobile Club de l’Ouest (ACO), shifted their focus away from the prototype era of the ‘80s and early ‘90s, and more towards GT cars. “The Le Mans people didn’t really like the Dauer car, but it was to the letter of the regulations, and out of this we developed the GT1 car. The idea was to have it as close to the road car as possible, and so for the 1996 and 1997 seasons we took the steel body shell of the 911 and cut it just behind the driver seat. We then made up a frame which we attached to the back of this, and by turning the engine and gearbox around, we had a mid-engined car,” Norbert Singer revealed with a smile. www.porscheroadandrace.com Le Mans 24 Hours, 14/15 June 1997: The #25 Porsche GT1/97 of Hans-Joachim Stuck/Thierry Boutsen/Bob Wollek posted a DNF after 238 laps, about two-thirds distance. Here the car is seen during the Test weekend The records will show that the 911 GT1/96 finished second and third at the 1996 Le Mans, while the following year, the two factory GT1/97s posted a NRF and a DNF. While the ‘96 and ‘97 models showed potential, they were too heavy and not aerodynamically optimised. GT1/98 design brief The GT1/96 used a 993-production shell, cut behind the driver’s seat, where a firewall was installed before a frame was attached to carry the engine, gearbox and suspension. Many parts from the production car were used, such as the 5-dial dashboard, and the race car was even fitted with a 964 Speedster windscreen. Tony Hatter, the GT1’s designer commented, www.porscheroadandrace.com “It was recognised that the ‘96 car had some deficits in the aerodynamics department and that is what we had to address. The track was increased on the ‘96 car so we had to add wheel arch lips shortly before it went to race. That meant we didn’t really have very clean fenders at all, it wasn’t properly resolved from an aerodynamic standpoint, so we had to go back and rethink it. It had to be as aerodynamically efficient as possible because we knew we had to win Le Mans. Basically, the GT1/98 was the beginning of a modern LMP1 car.” Porsche 911 GT1/98 Coupé #26, chassis WP0ZZZ9RZXS100003, Le Mans 24H winner 1998 With the introduction of the new 996 model, the GT1/97 had to take on the look of the 996 in the same way that the GT1/96 had resembled the 993 model. Hatter again, “The nose got bigger air intakes and then, because we were now going into the next model of 911, we put 996 headlights on the front on a 993-based GT1 car. It was all a bit surreal.” Unfortunately, neither the ‘96 nor the ‘97 model produced the desired results at the 24 www.porscheroadandrace.com Hours of Le Mans, and so the racer had to undergo a significant rethink. Norbert Singer expands, “Moving on to 1998, because we wanted to have a lighter car, it was clear that we had to abandon the steel chassis, so we made a kind of 911 with a carbon chassis which was actually a prototype. The Board said it had to look like a 911, but it was not easy to get the face of the 911 on a prototype car.” Porsche 911 GT1/98 Coupé #26, chassis WP0ZZZ9RZXS100003, Le Mans 24H winner 1998 The GT1/98 was the product of state-of-the-art computer aided design software and a modern approach to modelling. Unlike its predecessor, Porsche did not build a full-size model of the GT1/98. Instead, a team of professional digital modellers was brought into the studio and the car was modelled entirely on the computer in parallel with a scale model for wind tunnel testing. www.porscheroadandrace.com “In a normal design process, we would have to reach various milestones at which point things would have to be feasible,” explained Tony Hatter. “We tried to have a very rigid design schedule, but this project had a different character because it was a very tight and intense process which was condensed into just a few months. So there just wasn’t time to do a proper styling freeze as we had to make decisions basically as we went along.” Porsche 911 GT1/98 Coupé #26, chassis WP0ZZZ9RZXS100003, Le Mans 24H winner 1998 Body & Aero “The greenhouse [of the ’98 car] was much narrower compared to the ‘96 and ‘97 cars,” Harm Lagaaij pointed out. As a result of the body width remaining the same, and the width of the greenhouse being narrower, this meant that the horizontal distance between the side window and the sides of the car that ran from the front to the rear wheel arches, became www.porscheroadandrace.com wider. Harm Lagaaij again, “The door section of the 1996 and 1997 car was very similar to the 911, whereas on the 1998 car it was a completely different story. The doors are hinged on the A-pillar, and they moved forwards and upwards in one movement.” Porsche 911 GT1/98 Coupé #26, chassis WP0ZZZ9RZXS100003, Le Mans 24H winner 1998 Where the ‘96 and ‘97 models were fitted with a 964 Speedster production windscreen, the GT1/98 car was fitted with a bespoke, almost wraparound windscreen. The sweeping body www.porscheroadandrace.com panels were fabricated by CTS, a subsidiary of Lola Cars in Huntingdon, England, and then shipped over to the motorsport department in Flacht. Norbert Singer, “The body panels were made by CTS in England, which was previously the composite shop at Lola Cars. They split this department from Lola in order to attract more customers.” This is the #25 Porsche GT1/98 that was driven to second place by Jörg Müller/Uwe Alzen/Bob Wollek in the 1998 Le Mans 24 Hours. This image is here to illustrate the horizontal section between the door handle and the lower vertical side of the car. The horizontal section on the ’98 car was much wider than on the ’96/97 car because the cabin was much narrower Just ahead of the windscreen, the small, centrally-positioned air scoop was to direct cool air into the cabin, while the finned section just behind the doors is for air extraction from the cockpit.