How we won Le Mans
Nick Tandy, Richard Attwood and Derek Bell compare notes on how they conquered La Sarthe
What’s it like to conquer Le Mans? Which was the best era to go racing at La Sarthe? And is Porsche right to turn its back on LMP1 now? British Mulsanne mavericks Richard Attwood, Derek Bell and Nick Tandy speak frankly to Total 911
As present company goes, it doesn’t get much more illustrious than this: of the four gentlemen gathered around the table, three are among the most decorated racing car drivers of their generation, with no less than seven Le Mans victories between them. The fourth person is, of course, a humble journalist, yours truly, a mere mortal in the presence of these certified racing celestials. And yet, as should really be expected, it quickly becomes apparent the three gentlemen offering a firm handshake and piercing eye contact are just three very ordinary blokes albeit with very extraordinary aptitudes for peddling prized Porsche metal better than almost everybody else on the planet.
We happened to be at the Porsche Experience Centre, Silverstone, to celebrate the launch of a new ‘British Legends’ 991.2 GTS – the three variants of which are in honour of our talented trio. Yet frankly, we might as well be down the pub. Spirited camaraderie between these three great Brits is plainly evident, and all seem genuinely pleased to sit down and talk once more about a car manufacturer that has formed the bedrock of their professional lives.
Even as we sit down, Mr Richard Attwood – the man responsible for giving Porsche its first ever win at Le Mans – is teasing Derek Bell, the most successful Porsche works driver of all time, for his propensity to talk, Derek’s own quick-witted reposte leaving Weissach’s current Le Mans prodigy, Nick Tandy, in fits of laughter.
The atmosphere remains jovial, playful even, as I quietly switch on the voice recorder and place it in the middle of the table. That’s exactly how the mood stays, save for a short while when the subject of Porsche’s exit from LMP1 competition is broached, a decision made by Weissach that all three clearly don’t find favour with. That’s for later though, as first we begin by talking about the legacy these legends have created at the world’s most famous race…
You’re all Le Mans winners, so what are your key memories of those successes?
Richard Attwood: The thing about my race is it was very, very wet and we weren’t expecting to be competitive, as we had the small-engined car. We were slow in qualifying, 15th on the grid, and I thought before the race ‘we’ve no chance of winning’, but that’s exactly what happened. It was an amazing race; after only ten hours we were in the lead. I remember the conditions were very difficult. If it was held today we would have had
pace cars or even a red flag, it was that bad, but we maintained that lead over the rest of the 14 hours. It was incredible.
Derek Bell: I won Le Mans three times with the 956 and once with the 936 which preceded it. I remember chatting with Professor Bott at Weissach about my contract for the first year of the 956, in 1981. Bott said, “Herr Bell, we’d like you to drive for us next year in Group C,” and I really had no idea what Group C was. He said it’s a new form of motorsport racing and we want to participate in a big way. We’re going to build a monocoque chassis; we’d never built one before. It’s going to be ground effect too, and we’d not built one of those either. The car is also going to have a horizontally opposed engine in this ground effect car, and nobody’s ever done that before. I said I’m not sure about this at all, as everything was a completely new idea. But Bott said Porsche had never been wrong previously, so I thought I’d better sign the contract and I’m glad I did! It was just the most amazing era: we won Le Mans with it and the 24-hours of Daytona three times with Jackie Ickx and Jochen Mass.
Nick Tandy: Well the beauty of today, with such extensive media and social networks in place, is there’s so many resources in which to relive it all. I don’t know about you guys (looks at Richard and Derek) but after the race there is just so much going on, a lot of it gets forgotten in memory.
But it’s all on video these days, which brings back great memories that would otherwise be forgotten. It’s such a special event, drivers have dedicated their careers to winning it, and other manufacturers have spent years trying to succeed at Le Mans, so to win it is beyond brilliant.
How special has it been to be involved with the Porsche Le Mans legacy since?
RA: At the end of 1968 I actually had the chance to go with John Wyer and his GT40S or race with Porsche. I thought Porsche was the future: they were going about their business very seriously and it turned out to be a good decision. For Le Mans it’s an achievement to even finish the race, and with Porsche it became almost guaranteed to do so. It was great to be a part of something like that. Le Mans has just got bigger for Porsche since.
DB: I’ve always thought Le Mans is a great accolade for a manufacturer, and as a driver you’re part of a team. That’s what I like about it compared to other events: the success is shared. Also, we always like to tell stories when things went well, but there were also times when it didn’t go so well, and they’re important to tell too. One was with PDK: we were having real trouble with it. We’d just got used to Motronic with the manual, then not long after we had to deal with PDK, and the bloody system just kept breaking! Every time we went over 500 kilometres we’d just break the driveshafts. I’d get frustrated and upset, so I decided I needed to tell Peter Falk without telling the journalists – until now! Porsche got used to changing the driveshafts, it would take four minutes and then we’d be off again, but it was hard work, and at the end of the day we’re racing drivers – we’re there to race, not go out and develop something. So it got to the stage where we had one race to go of the season and we could win both the drivers and manufacturers championship, but we had to contend with this PDK. [Hans] Stucky and I knew the car wouldn’t last the 6-hour race, so I said to Peter ‘I’m not happy with this: we need to win, so we should race with a manual gearbox’. Falk said we couldn’t do it; I think because he saw my expression he contacted Professor Bott in Germany. The next morning, Bott delivered me a message to remind me that every race we do has to develop the car so that on Monday morning he can tell the board that we won the race on Sunday because we had new fuel injection, new this, new that. Without that he couldn’t justify our racing budget. So we had to race with PDK! It all worked out at the time, and now most new Porsches come fitted with this wonderful gearbox. Anyway, I told this at the press conference pre-le Mans this year in front of the Porsche drivers, and as I was telling this I could see them giggling as they could all relate to it.
NT: I do remember that fondly! For me personally it’s great to win at Le Mans, of course, but it was also to return Porsche to the top, as it had been far too long. It was important we won for the modern-day motorsports fan, particularly from my point of view as a British driver, as so many UK Porsche fans travel over to Le Mans every year. It was amazing to give those guys something to celebrate, as some of the younger generation may not recall when Richard or Derek won their races.
You’ve each now got a special edition 991.2 C4 GTS for the UK market dedicated to your achievements, which you guys personally had a hand in creating. why did you choose an allwheel-drive car as your base?
NT: Well for me the 919 hybrid is all-wheel drive, so that’s easy!
DB: I’d never been keen on AWD, but on the road it’s a safety feature, and even with PSM off it’s still brilliant, it has to be said.
RA: With the power these cars have these days, it’s so much better to have all-wheel drive. On the road you can’t tell the difference between the drive of a two or four either, so if a customer asks me what to get, I always say get an all-wheel-drive 911 now, because we want them to come back and buy another car after all!
T911: Though the spec of the three cars is broadly similar, we can’t help but notice yours is slightly
cheaper, Richard [by £800], because it doesn’t have metallic paint like the other two…
RA: Is it really?!
DB: That’s not fair! They’ll never sell mine or Nick’s cars now!
So we take it you’ll be given a car each then?
RA: For free? Absolutely not!
DB: I’ll buy one because I feel I should, though I can’t really afford it but! To have your name on a car is pretty damned special.
NT: I’m going to have to ask my wife! I bought a white 911 a couple of years ago which she thinks is enough. Though if ten years ago you’d have told me a car would be leaving the production line with my signature on it, I wouldn’t have believed you.
As former winners of the race, what are your thoughts on Porsche pulling out of top-level Le Mans racing?
NT: We’re hugely pissed off!
DB: I can imagine you are. I was quite lucky in that I had a period of about 15 years in which to have a crack at it.
RA: Well we’ve pulled out of it before of course. DB: I don’t look at these things personally, I look at them from the view of Porsche’s presence in the world. When Porsche pulled out of Group C it was like there was a bloody great void in the world, which really lasted right up until Nick’s era a few years ago when there was just GT racing.
But the fact was you have to be in the outright class to get people interested.
RA: Whether it has anything to do with the rest of the [Volkswagen] Group and the diesel fiasco I don’t know, but Porsche couldn’t have gone on. Audi had pulled out, so how can you continue with just two teams? It’s now very sad for Toyota.
NT: Well they can’t race themselves, can they… RA: The danger for them is they might get beat by an LMP2, which is a high quandary for Le Mans. As a major, major race, what are they going to do to make it interesting again?
DB: The other question is, how are other competitors going to try and compete with Toyota’s budgets? After all, you enter a race to win it, not to come fourth.
RA: But what are they going to do then?
DB: Who?
RA: Le Mans?
DB: I think they need to forget about LMP1 and make LMP2 the premier category. It’ll be an even field, all using the same engine, and then it comes down to the drivers.
NT: The thing is there’s the money side of things, and LMP2 won’t ever be able to compete with the
“Le Mans is a great accolade for a manufacturer, and as a driver you’re part of a team. That’s what I like about it compared to other events. The success is shared”
money that the GT teams have, which is why all the top drivers find places in those GT cars over LMP2, even though the LMP2 cars are faster.
RA: Well I’ve always thought Le Mans should be based around the road cars, so lets just all go GT racing, I say. The class is so competitive at the moment, too.
Richard, Derek, what would you have wanted from Nick’s era in your own?
DB: Richard was a different era to me again, though we’ve both driven the 917LH at 240mph down the bloody Mulsanne!
RA: Well by the time you drove the 917 it was a totally sorted car!
DB: It was, it was lovely. It was an absolutely stunning car. It wasn’t dangerous at all – but that’s because I didn’t hit anything! But seriously, people talk about us guys being ballsy in going out there to race at the time with safety standards not what they are today, but there were hundreds of drivers – every F1 driver would have yanked our arm off to have the chance to drive the 917, because of its speed.
RA: And it’s a winning car, and who wouldn’t get in a winning car?
DB: People talk now about where our feet were in the car, for example, and how dangerous that was, but we didn’t know any different: at the time all these cars were built the same.
How do you think the 919 compares to the 917 and 956?
DB: Well they have said I can have a go in a 919, perhaps that will be for Rennsport Reunion next year. I’m looking forward to the opportunity when it comes.
NT: You should do it if you get the chance, absolutely. It’s a phenomenal car.
DB: I know there’s a lot of controls on the cars these days, but that’s for the crew to worry about; as a driver all you want to do is jump in and race. Besides, in our day we also had plenty to worry about other than driving the car: we had to work out how much fuel we had left, for example. We had to control our fuel consumption, reading a tiny equation in the middle of the steering wheel telling us how much fuel we use each lap, with a little digital reader down below telling us how many litres we’d used. You’d be hammering down the Mulsanne hoping you’d still have ‘x’ amount of fuel before you reached a certain house, or you may not have enough to complete the lap!
NT: At the end of the day the cars still have pedals and a steering wheel, and your four contact patches tell you everything. All the buttons and tech on the cars is done in the pits and in the practice sessions. The rest of the time we’re driving, which is exactly what you guys were doing in the 917 and 956.
There’s currently plenty of talk suggesting Porsche could enter Formula one. what do you think of that?
DB: Well Porsche could quite feasibly build an engine for Formula One, and it’d be a fantastic engine, but then this is Porsche so they couldn’t do things like halves. They’d have to do the whole car, but then Porsche isn’t about F1. All it’s ever done is sell sports cars.
RA: Well with the hybrid era of F1, I don’t think people relate that to road cars, but it is exactly that. But if it is a proper ‘sports car’, so to speak, and people can see that, then it makes sense to race them.
NT: As someone involved in the programme currently, I’d be keen to race in the biggest races. Whether that’s Formula E or GT racing at Le Mans, that’s difficult to answer, but as a Porsche works driver you race where you’re told to, and that’s that. However, it’d be nice if 20 years from now we had another special edition car join ours to celebrate another outright Porsche success at Le Mans.