The Race
The race got off to a fast start, the competition was hot. For the first couple of hours the #6 Mercedes driven by Bernd Schneider, and #1 & 2 Toyotas driven by Martin Brundle & Thierry Boutsen fought it out at the front, the #17 BMW was never far behind and used its superior fuel economy to take the lead. The no 5 Mercedes was fighting with the #2 Toyota for second and third place at approximately 8pm when the incident described above took place. This led to the immediate withdrawal of the remaining Mercedes.
Martin Brundle in the #1 Toyota suffered a puncture at high speed on the Mulsanne straight, the cars rear suspension was badly damaged and he was unable (despite his best efforts) to get back to the pits. The #2 Toyota being driven by Thiery Boutsen was next to go when he suffered a high speed crash under the Dunlop bridge. The car was destroyed and Boutsen suffered injury to his lower back.
By dawn the #17 BMW was 4 laps in front of its sister 15 BMW, it looked like nothing could stop the BMW's. At approximately 10am JJ Lehto driving #17 BMW suffered a stuck throttle and crashed in the Porsche curves. The front of the car was badly damaged and could not continue. This left the sister #15 BMW almost a lap ahead of the #3 Toyota which had been quietly cruising around at a steady pace. With this sniff of a win Ukyo Katayama put the foot down in the Toyota and set the fastest lap of the race. He narrowed the gap to less than a minute till again a tyre blowout befell the Toyota team. Ukyo was however able to return to the pits for new tyres and continued. By then bar any problems for the BMW the race was out of reach. Audi came in a respectable 3rd at their first attempt at Le Mans setting them up nicely for the domination that was to come.
The 1999 race was the last for several of the "big" manufacturers. Only Audi returned for 2000. Mercedes pulled out of sports car racing altogether following the CLR incidents, BMW concentrated their efforts on their supply of engines to the Williams team in F1 (who had incidentally built the BMW LMRs). Toyota also pulled out as despite their terrific pace over 98 & 99 disappointingly only one of their cars finished the race over both of those years. (Toyota would eventually return to Le Mans in 2012, as well as the 2012 FIA World Endurance Championship.)
Read more about this topic: 1999 24 Hours Of Le Mans
Famous quotes containing the word race:
“I cannot but conclude the bulk of your natives to be the most pernicious race of little, odious vermin that Nature ever suffered to crawl upon the surface of the earth.”
—Jonathan Swift (1667–1745)
“As a thinker and planner, the ant is the equal of any savage race of men; as a self-educated specialist in several arts, she is the superior of any savage race of men; and in one or two high mental qualities she is above the reach of any man, savage or civilized.”
—Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (1835–1910)