The 1993 24 Hours of Le Mans was the 61st Grand Prix of Endurance, taking place at the Circuit de la Sarthe on the 19 and 20 June 1993. The race was won by Peugeot Talbot Sport, with drivers Geoff Brabham, and Le Mans rookies Éric Hélary and Christophe Bouchut completing 375 laps in their Peugeot 905 Evo 1B. At the end of 1992, FISA had cancelled the Sportscar World Championship. This allowed the ACO to create their own regulations. As well as continuing the Group C classes, they opened the race to Grand Touring (GT) style cars for the first time since the 1986 race. It was expected, again, to be a Peugeot vs Toyota contest, each with a trio of cars entered. Philippe Alliot took his third consecutive pole position for Peugeot and from the start of the race, it was Alliot and Eddie Irvine who set the pace. However, both cars lost several laps with engine issues so, going into the evening, it was Thierry Boutsen and Geoff Lees contesting the lead. This ended at 11pm when Juan Manuel Fangio II's Toyota was punted from behind by a GT car missing its braking point.
When Fabi's Peugeot pitted from first at 3.30am with electrical problems, it was the hitherto conservatively-run third Peugeot that inherited the lead they would not relinquish. The other Category 1 cars struggled to make up time, particularly the Toyotas who, for the second year in succession, suffered from transmission issues. When Irvine's Toyota pitted from third at Sunday lunchtime, and lost 10 laps with a gearbox rebuild, the race was won for Peugeot who came home with a 1-2-3 finish. A consolation prize for Toyota was that their privateer teams claimed the Category 2 class-win, beating the Porsches and Courages, finishing 5th and 6th with Irvine's car making it back up to 4th. In the GT class, it was a contest between Porsche (a single works car and a number of customer teams) and Jaguar (three cars run by Tom Walkinshaw Racing). After the works Porsche was delayed, the Jaguars headed the class, with the car of John Nielsen, David Brabham and David Coulthard finishing 15th overall. However, they had been running under appeal for the race for not having catalytic converters as the production car had. A month after the race, they were disqualified, and the class win went to the Monaco Média team Porsche Carrera.
Regulations Outside of Le Mans, the Sportscar World Championship in 1992 had very poor fields and in October the FISA (Fédération Internationale du Sport Automobile) Commission had officially cancelled the series that had been running, in various guises, continuously since 1953.Spurring 2012, pp.118-9 The idea to run the premier class on F1-derived engines had proven to be a spectacular failure with negligible interest from the major car manufacturers, and the costs too high for customer teams. Several manufacturers did take engines into Formula 1, but as mentioned, the costs were too high to do both series. Indeed, many commentators felt that this had been Bernie Ecclestone's plan all along.Williams 2023, p.334 Without the support, both the American and Japanese sports series collapsed as well. For Le Mans, the 1992 race had seen the lowest number of entries since 1932. Soon after the series cancellation, and with no alternative international series proposed, the Automobile Club de l'Ouest (ACO) took matters into its own hands, drafting up regulations for a new "Le Mans Prototype" category: open-cockpit, flat-bottomed cars powered by regular production or restricted race engines. Early in 1993 the American IMSA federation also announced a new "World Sports Car" category along very similar (but, crucially, not identical) lines.
The ACO took the step of drafting their own class-list similar to the previous year, but also augment it with the new crop of supercars coming onto the market:Williams 2023, p.335 Category 1 - for the 1991-92 FIA Sportscars (in effect, the Peugeot and Toyota works cars) Category 2 - Group C cars from IMSA or the pre-1991 regulations Category 3 - cars in the new IMSA WSC, using 3.0L production or F3000 engines Category 4 – for GT cars The Category 2 cars could now be allowed to run without the FIA fuel or weight restrictions. Instead, air-inlet restrictors on the engines would be used to balance performance. It was also the cars' age that counted against them now, with modern ground effects having developed a lot in the past few years. Category 3 looked to accommodate the new IMSA regulations, and were also balanced by engine restrictors, as was the new Category 4. This was a significant return of GT cars to Le Mans, where the last such car to race was a solitary Group B BMW M1 in 1986. The class rules were the ACO's version of the forthcoming GT regulations still being drafted by FISA. They would accept modified production GTs and cars from equivalent national championships, with a power output limited to a maximum of 500 bhp.Clarke 2000, pp.28-9 Autocar Jun 16 1993Henry 1992, p.35 Autocar Jun 30 1993
This year, the ACO required that teams had to qualify the cars they intended to race. This closed the Test-Car loophole where teams would rotate their drivers through a T-car with its engine wound up for qualification. Reserve cars were allowed, in case the main car was damaged in practice but they would have to start at the back of the grid.Clarke 2000, p.40 Autosport Jun 24 1993Williams 2023, p.336 The other change was the return of the Test Day in mid-May for the teams, which had last been held in 1987. Another notable change related to safety at the pit-stops, where teams were no longer allowed to do any other work on the car while it was being refuelled. This meant tyre-changes were less likely, to minimise time spent stationery, and so teams would tend to double- or triple-stint their tyres.Clarke 2000, p.42 Autosport Jun 24 1993 Max Mosley, President of FISA, was dismissive and very disparaging of the regulations and the ACO, yet it was his format that had virtually killed endurance racing.
This year, 70 years after the inaugural race, saw the presentation of a grand new set of trophies. Inspired by the Borg-Warner Trophy for the Indianapolis 500, the main trophy for the outright winners was 1.2 metres (47") high. It was hefty enough that all three drivers had to lift it – symbolic of the teamwork required. The centrepiece was a representation of the Winged Victory of Samothrace within four solid columns.Bernard et al 2023, p.31 Finally, 1993 saw the first appearance of Bruno Vandestick as the official race announcer, which he has held now for over 30 years – a role that starts at 7am on Saturday until after the presentations on Sunday afternoon with only a 4-hour rest overnight.Bernard et al 2023, p.184
Entries With no official ties to FISA anymore, the ACO was free to open the entry list as they saw fit. The problem was that most manufacturers had moved onto new projects or got out of motor-racing all together. Peugeot, Mercedes, Jaguar and Toyota were all developing engines to go into F1 in the near future. There were also a reduced number of suitable cars, and it would take time for the new Le Mans Prototypes to come into fruition. The proposed four classes proved attractive to the major customer racing teams and soon a number of Group C and GT teams lined up. When entries closed in April, it had a full field of 58, including the first Ferrari (a GT) to appear since 1984.
Class Quantity Turbo /Superchargedengines Category 1SWC prototypes 7 / 6 0 / 0 Category 2Group C 16 / 15 12 / 12 Category 3Invitational 3 / 3 1 / 1 Category 4GT 32 / 23 15 / 13 Total Entries 58 / 47 28 / 26 Note: The first number is the number accepted, the second the number who started.
Category 1 Peugeot Talbot Sport had convincingly won the 1992 Sportscar World Championship, taking victory in five of the six rounds. Before the cancellation of the championship, Peugeot was already well advanced in developing its ultimate version of the Peugeot 905, the Evo 2.2, but it never raced. Instead, when it was realised that Le Mans would be the only race in the calendar and a 'last hurrah', team director Jean Todt and his engineers adapted the existing gull-wing chassis to a C-variant. This was fitted with the rear end of the Evo 2.2 with a new transverse, sequential gearbox.Spurring 2014, p.120 The driver squad had changed a bit from 1992. Philippe Alliot, Mauro Baldi and Jean-Pierre Jabouille were together again. Last year's winner Yannick Dalmas raced with Teo Fabi (latterly at Toyota) and F1 veteran Thierry Boutsen, while the third car was driven by young French debutantes Éric Hélary and Christophe Bouchut with Australian 4-time IMSA champion Geoff Brabham.
Toyota returned with their TS010. In England, chief designer Tony Southgate refined the aerodynamics and front suspension. Meanwhile, in Japan, after the previous year's issues, the V10 engine and gearbox were strengthened and three new chassis built. In March, the Toyota team joined Peugeot in running their tests at the Circuit Paul Ricard.Spurring 2012, pp.123-4Clarke 2000, p.31 Autocar Jun 23 1993 Regular team driver Geoff Lees raced with Jan Lammers and Juan Manuel Fangio II. Fangio was current IMSA-champion, having won with the dominating Eagle-Toyota Mk III with All-American Racers. The second had Eddie Irvine/Masanori Sekiya/Toshio Suzuki while the third had Fangio's IMSA teammates Andy Wallace and Kenny Acheson, with Pierre-Henri Raphanel.
Coming very late to the Group C party was a sports prototype from Allard. The Allard Motor Company had been a regular attendee to Le Mans in the 1950s, before going bankrupt at the end of that decade. A group of engineers and racers, including Chris Humberstone (ex-Brun), Costas Los and Jean-Louis Ricci, bought the rights to the Allard name and the remaining assets of Spice Engineering with a view to develop of car for the 3.5-litre formula using the Cosworth DFR engine. Former Brun aerodynamicist John Iley designed the J2X with an eye-catching high-downforce styling that earned it the nickname "Batmobile". Testing was done on US racetracks, but an engine contract with Honda was thwarted by the latter's full commitment to the IndyCar series. The project was then purchased by Robert Lamplough. At the May Test-Day, the downforce proved too strong for the high-speed circuit and Lamplough could not get faster than 275 km/h (170 mph) – around 100 km/h slower than the competition.Spurring 2014, p.141
Category 2 This year, the ACO once again pitted the former Group C cars against each other, in one class for honours. Toyota had taken the win last year when the regulations were skewed. Despite the cancelation of the All-Japan championship, Toyota had fine-tuned the aerodynamics on their car, as the 93C-V, for their two customer teams.Spurring 2014, p.125 Shin Kato's SARD team had team regular Roland Ratzenberger along with Mauro Martini and Naoki Nagasaka. Their compatriots, the Trust Racing Team, had their two drivers from last year, George Fouché and Steven Andskär, with ex-SARD driver Eje Elgh.
With no fuel restrictions on the Group C cars now, the big teams were convinced to enter. The advent of the air-inlet restrictors did have a similar dampening effect as the power output was brought down to under 600 bhp. But at least, in this final year of Group C, the cars could be driven flat-out, without having to keep one eye on the fuel-consumption.Clarke 2000, p.36 Motor Sport Aug 1993 Coupled with also being around 150 kg heavier than the Category 1 cars, the Porsches could not be competitive for outright victory with what was, effectively, a 9-year-old design.Spurring 2014, p.131