1994 24 Hours of Le Mans
| 1994 24 Hours of Le Mans | |
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The 1994 24 Hours of Le Mans was the 62nd Grand Prix of Endurance, and took place on 18 and 19 June 1994.
The 1994 race was won by a car that had its roots in a 10-year-old design. Porsche exploited an unusual quirk in the GT regulations at the time, using German fashion magnate Jochen Dauer in a plan to have a street-legal version of the outdated Porsche 962 built. Using this road car design, Porsche entered two racing modified Dauer 962s in the GT category. With factory support, the Dauer 962 was able to take the win, the other 962 coming in a close third. Toyota, having themselves dusted off a pair of Group C chassis after its 3.5-litre engined TS010 was no longer eligible, suffered transmission problems with 90 minutes to go, leaving Eddie Irvine to finish 2nd in his 94C-V.
After the death of global Sports Car racing (aside from the IMSA series in North America), GT racing came to the fore. Knowing that teams would always want to race prototype sports cars at Le Mans, the Automobile Club de l'Ouest (ACO) came up with a pioneering equivalency formula to allow the production-based GT cars to compete for the outright win against its own LMP class and the IMSA WSC cars. These involved engine air-inlet restrictors, smaller fuel tanks and minimum weights to limit the prototypes' performance. The ACO also allowed the old 1990 Group C cars but they now had to be open-topped, with flat underfloors.
FISA's new GT rules had developed through 1993, aligning with the ACO, IMSA and Japanese JAF, defining a GT as a road-going car on sale to the public and registered for road-use in two of the following countries: France, Great Britain, Germany, USA or Japan. To allow time for entrants to prepare, the ACO was forced to issue its own GT regulations in September 1993, before FISA had completed their work. A summary of the restrictions:
Minimum annual production levels were 25 for GT1, and 200 for GT2, however a crucial loophole in the rules allowed a manufacturer to apply for GT1 homologation even when still planning the car design and before any cars had been made, meaning a single prototype for a proposed model could be raced. Several manufacturers spotted this exemption and exploited it, including Porsche (just like they had with the 917 25 years earlier) who built and registered a road-going 962C as a GT car.
Overall, interest was very high with the ACO receiving 83 applications, accepting 50 +reserves, to vie for the 48 starting places. From the aging Group C population there were only 8 LMP1 cars and 4 LMP2 entries. Toyota was backing two Japanese teams driving their new Toyota 94C-V. Roland Ratzenberger was originally scheduled to drive in the SARD Toyota but was tragically killed in qualifying for the San Marino Grand Prix. Eddie Irvine took his place on the team, and Ratzenberger's name was left on the car in tribute.
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