“For me, Le Mans 1990 will always be the one that got away”
The Nissan R90CK gave Mark Blundell a wild ride to pole position at Le Mans in 1990. Blundell is convinced that, had the car been properly set up to handle the 1100bhp that the engine was generating - due to a failed wastegate - the lap could have been five seconds faster yet.
a lot of work on the underside of the car, the area between the splitter and the front of the chassis, lower downforce tunnels for Le Mans and high-downforce tunnels for other tracks, tunnel interaction with the tail and wing, duct exit size and location.’ A feature of the R89s original
aero spec was ‘doors’, which covered the rear wheels and cut drag, helping with downforce. ‘They made the tunnels work slightly better because there was less air moving inside the wheelarches,’ says Scriven. ‘They were held on by sliding Dzus fasteners so they could be taken
off to change the wheels. And of course, they were another thing that could fall off.’ The first complete car was
ready to run by the end of January 1989 and was shaken down at the Millbrook test track – minus bodywork – by Julian Bailey. Further testing followed at Snetterton, UK, then in the USA at Nissan’s Casa Grande, Arizona proving ground, and there was a three-day test in France at Paul Ricard, prior to the R89C’s first race. NISMO in Japan had
represented Nissan in the opening round of the 1989 WSPC
at Suzuka with its old March racecars. Nissan Motorsports Europe (NME) entered a single R89C for its debut at the second round in Dijon, France, where it qualified sixth and finished 15th after the windscreen blew out due to a build up of pressure in the cockpit. Following the Dijon race,
larger roof vents were added and the metal clips that retained the screen were strengthened and three weeks later three R89Cs were entered at Le Mans – one car each for NME, NISMO and the American NPTI team. Julian Bailey’s accident
early in the race, in which he ran into the back of a Jaguar while challenging for the lead, brought the R89s brake system under scrutiny. ‘They were another feature of the design that had been finalised before I joined Lola, and they weren’t the best,’ comments Scriven. ‘Because the master cylinders were mounted quite high up, there was an intermediate rocker between pushrods from the pedal and the master cylinders, and the drivers complained that sometimes the pedal felt ‘dead’. ‘The brake pedal issue may have been a factor in Julian’s
Le Mans •
www.racecar-engineering.com
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