1989 Suzuka 480 km race

Sauber-Mercedes C9 with starting number 61; Winning car from Jean-Louis Schlesser and Mauro Baldi

The fourth-placed Nissan R88C driven by Kazuyoshi Hoshino and Toshio Suzuki

Toyota 89C-V

The 1989 Suzuka 480km race , also known as WSPC Suzuka , took place on April 9th ​​at the Suzuka International Racing Course . The race was the first round of the sports car world championship this year.

The race

The sports car world championship in 1989 began as the championship of the previous year ended: with a one-two victory for Sauber . For the team management of Mercedes-Motorsport, however , the success of Jean-Louis Schlesser and Mauro Baldi in the Sauber-Mercedes C9 was a special victory. Race director Jochen Neerpasch and technical director Hermann Hierath had tears in their eyes when the two Sauber-Mercedes drove across the finish line. For the first time since the 1955 Targa Florio and the overall victory of Stirling Moss and Peter Collins in the Mercedes-Benz 300 SLR , a Mercedes Silver Arrow won a sports car world championship.

The Sauber C9s have been the cars of the Swiss-German racing association Sauber-Mercedes since the sports car world championship in 1987 . The chassis were manufactured at Sauber in Hinwil , while Mercedes-Benz supplied the engines. The cars were painted in the design of the sponsor, the perfume brand Kouros from the Yves Saint Laurent group of companies . In 1988 the C9 was launched in the livery of the new sponsor AEG . At the beginning of the 1989 season, Mercedes-Benz took over the majority in PP Sauber AG and financed the operations without an external sponsor. As a result, the C9s received the classic silver of Mercedes racing cars again. The Sauber double victory was also impressive for the following reason. Sauber race director Max Welti had to accept the failure of a driver on the morning of the race day. Jochen Mass , who was supposed to share the cockpit of the C9 with the number 62 with Kenny Acheson , had contracted influenza and could not compete. Since Mauro Baldi had to struggle with the consequences of a broken ankle and could only drive the minimum time in the car with the number 61, Acheson had to contest the entire race alone. At the finish, after a driving time of 2: 49: 04.634 hours, he was only six seconds behind the victorious team-mates.

The fastest cars in qualifying were the Toyota 89C-V . Geoff Lees set the fastest lap in a time of 1: 50.635 minutes and was almost a second faster than his teammate Hitoshi Ogawa . In the race, both Toyota were in the lead for a time, but fell behind in the course of the race. Ogawa finished the race with partner Paolo Barilla in sixth place after having had to save a lot of fuel in the final phase. Lees and team-mate Johnny Dumfries had to be content with the 20th place after transmission problems.

The second Japanese team, Nissan Motorsports International, placed better . Kazuyoshi Hoshino and Toshio Suzuki finished fourth overall in their Nissan R88C , one lap behind the victorious Sauber C9. The two Jaguar XJR-9s had tire problems during practice and the team management worried about the excessive fuel consumption during the race. While John Nielsen and Andy Wallace finished fifth overall, Jan Lammers and Patrick Tambay's XJR-9 rolled out on the track with no fuel two laps before the end of the race.

The best Porsche at the finish was surprisingly the several years old Joest - 962 C , which Bob Wollek and Frank Jelinski drove in third place in the overall ranking.

Results

Final ranking

Item	class	No.	team	driver	vehicle	Round
1	C1	61	Team Sauber Mercedes	Jean-Louis Schlesser Mauro Baldi	Sauber-Mercedes C9 / 88	82
2	C1	62	Team Sauber Mercedes	Kenny Acheson	Sauber-Mercedes C9 / 88	82
3	C1	7th	Joest Racing	Bob Wollek Frank Jelinski	Porsche 962C	82
4th	C1	23	Nissan Motorsports International	Kazuyoshi Hoshino Toshio Suzuki	Nissan R88C	81
5	C1	2	Silk Cut Jaguar	John Nielsen Andy Wallace	Jaguar XJR-9	81
6th	C1	36	Toyota Team Tom's	Hitoshi Ogawa Paolo Barilla	Toyota 89C-V	81
7th	C1	34	Porsche Alméras Montpellier	Kunimitsu Takahashi Stanley Dickens	Porsche 962C	81
8th	C1	16	Repsol Brun Motorsport	Oscar Larrauri Maurizio Sandro Sala	Porsche 962C	81
9	C1	11	Porsche Kremer Racing	Masanori Sekiya Hideki Okada	Porsche 962CK6	81
10	C1	72	Obermaier Primagaz	Akihiko Nakaya Harald Grohs	Porsche 962C	81
11	C1	24	Nissan Motorsports International	Masahiro Hasemi Anders Olofsson	Nissan R88C	81
12	C1	55	Team Davey	Vern Schuppan Eje Elgh	Porsche 962C	80
13	C1	100	Richard Lloyd Racing	George Fouché Steven Andskär	Porsche 962C GTi	79
14th	C1	13	Courage Compétition	Pascal Fabre Alessandro Santin	Cougar C22S	79
15th	C1	17th	Duration racing	Jochen duration Franz Konrad	Porsche 962C	78
16	C1	40	Swiss Team Salamin	Kazuo Mogi Kenji Takahashi	Porsche 962C	78
17th	GTP	201	Mazdaspeed	Takashi Yorino Tetsuya Ota	Mazda 767	77
18th	C1	6th	Repsol Brun Motorsport	Walter Brun Jesús Pareja	Porsche 962C	77
19th	C1	14th	Richard Lloyd Racing	Derek Bell Tiff Needell	Porsche 962C GTi	76
20th	C1	37	Toyota Team Tom's	Geoff Lee's Johnny Dumfries	Toyota 89C-V	75
21st	C1	85	Nissan Motorsports International	Takao Wada Akio Morimoto	Nissan R88V	74
22nd	C1	20th	Team Davey	Tim Lee-Davey Jürgen Barth	Porsche 926C	71
23	C2	101	Chamberlain Engineering	Fermín Vélez Nick Adams	Spice SE86C	63
24	C1	50	Toyota Team Tom's	Roland Ratzenberger Keiichi Suzuki	Toyota 89C-V	62
Disqualified
25th	C2	108	Roy Baker Racing	John Sheldon Leif Lindström	Tiga GC289	47
Failed
26th	C1	1	Silk Cut Jaguar	Jan Lammers Patrick Tambay	Jaguar XJR-9	80
27	C1	22nd	Spice engineering	Thorkild Thyrring Wayne Taylor	Spice SE89C	32
28	C1	5	Repsol Brun Motorsport	Harald Huysman Juha Varjosaari	Porsche 962C	23
29	C1	10	Porsche Kremer Racing	Bruno Giacomelli Giovanni Lavaggi	Porsche 962CK 6	16
30th	C1	8th	Joest Racing	Jean-Louis Ricci Claude Ballot-Léna	Porsche 962C	15th
31	C2	107	Tiga Race Team	Jari Nurminen Luigi Taverna	Tiga GC289	11
32	C1	21st	Spice engineering	Eliseo Salazar Ray Bellm	Spice SE89C	5
33	GTP	202	Mazdaspeed	Yoshimi Katayama Yōjirō Terada	Mazda 767B	4th
34	C2	103	France Prototeam	Almo Coppelli Bernard Thuner	Spice SE88C	3
Not started
35	C1	26th	France Prototeam	Henri Pescarolo Alain Ferté	Spice SE88C	1
36	C1	61T	Team Sauber Mercedes	Mauro Baldi Jean-Louis Schlesser Jochen Mass Kenny Acheson	Sauber-Mercedes C9 / 88	2
Not qualified
37	C1	29	Mussato Action Car	Franco Scapini Gianfranco Tacchino	Lancia LC2 / 89	3

¹ engine failure in warm-up ² training vehicle ³ electrical system failure

Only in the entry list

Here you will find teams, drivers and vehicles that were originally registered for the race but did not take part.

Item	class	No.	team	driver	chassis
38	C1	18th	Aston Martin	David Leslie Brian Redman	Aston Martin AMR1

Class winner

class	driver	driver	vehicle	Placement in the overall ranking
C1	Jean-Louis Schlesser	Mauro Baldi	Sauber-Mercedes C9 / 88	Overall victory
C2	Fermín Vélez	Nick Adams	Spice SE86C	Rank 23
GTP	Takashi Yorino	Tetsuya Ota	Mazda 767	Rank 17

Racing data

• Registered: 38
• Started: 34
• Valued: 24
• Race classes: 3
• Spectators: 31,000
• Race day weather: cold and windy
• Route length: 5.859 km
• Driving time of the winning team: 2: 48: 58.453 hours
• Overall laps of the winning team: 82
• Total distance of the winning team: 480.438 km
• Winner's average: 170.596 km / h
• Pole position: Geoff Lees - Toyota 89C-V (# 37) - 1: 50.635 = 190.649 km / h
• Fastest race lap: Jan Lammers - Jaguar XJR-9 (# 1) - 1: 57.549 = 179.435 km / h
• Racing series: 1st round of the 1989 World Sports Car Championship

literature

• Peter Higham: The Guinness Guide to International Motor Racing. A complete Reference from Formula 1 to Touring Car. Guinness Publishing Ltd., London 1995, ISBN 0-85112-642-1 .

Web links

• Race report
• Race results

Previous race 360 km at Sandown Park in 1988

Sports car world championship

Successor to the 480 km Dijon race in 1989