WR LM94
.jpg)
The WR LM94 was a sports car prototype that was used by Welter Racing in the 1994 and 1995 Le Mans 24-hour races .
Development history
The WR LM94 was the successor to the WR LM93 . Like its predecessor, the LM94 was developed and built according to the LMP2 regulations of the Le Mans prototypes . The car had a Spyder body and as drive the 2-liter V6 - turbo engine of Peugeot . The connection between Welter Racing and the French automobile manufacturer had existed since the 1970s. As a Peugeot designer, team boss Gérard Welter had excellent relationships with the company's executive board . The car was extremely flat for an LMP prototype. The rear wing was drawn across the entire width of the vehicle and mounted very low.
Races
In the 1994 Le Mans 24-hour race , an LM94 was used in parallel with the LM93. The car was driven by Hervé Regout , Jean-François Yvon and Jean-Paul Libert . In qualifying, the trio achieved the tenth fastest time and was almost 8 seconds slower than Alain Ferté , who put his Courage C32 on pole position . In the race, the team had problems with the turbocharger right from the start, which after 86 laps led to failure due to engine damage.
In 1995 , the Group C cars at Le Mans were finally history. In a starting field that consisted almost exclusively of GT cars, the LM94 were the fastest vehicles. Welter was known for building fast vehicles with little downforce for the fast passages of the Circuit des 24 Heures . However, these cars were always filigree and prone to defects; Target arrivals at the 24-hour race were the exception. In 1995 both LM94s were on the front row. William David , who shared the number 9 car with Bernard Bouvet and Richard Balandras , achieved the fastest lap time with a time of 3,46050 minutes. The car with the number 8 was driven by Patrick Gonin , Pierre Petit and Marc Rostan . Patrick Gonin took the lead right from the start and held it until the first refueling stop after 10 laps. Half a lap there was even a double lead for Welter shortly after the start was released, then William David was pushed into third place by Bob Wollek in the Courage C36 . Both cars had the same technical problem early on in the race and fell behind in the overall standings. Pierre Petit, who had taken over the number 8 from Gonin, had to pit after 1½ hours to have the power transmission changed. Although the Welter pit team acted very quickly, the car lost three laps. The drive of the prototype ended after a serious accident at nightfall. When it started to rain, he got under-air at the quick spot in front of the Mulsanne, overturned once and hit hard on all four edges on the right edge of the track. The accident was very similar to that of Peter Dumbreck in 1999 , but is nowhere near as well known, mainly because there are no television pictures of it. Patrick Gonin, who drove the car, suffered severe bruises and several broken ribs in the accident. He had to spend one night in the hospital.
David / Bouvet / Balandras' car, which came to the pits for the first time after just three laps, to have the windshield attached with adhesive tape, also had a problem with power transmission after an hour of driving. After that, the car ran without complaint until 8 a.m., then the fuel pump went on strike and the crew had to give up.
In 1996 the two chassis were sold to private teams. If you achieved pole position with the bolide in 1995, there was no longer any possibility of qualifying the vehicles for the 24-hour race without further development.
literature
- Christian Moity, Jean-Marc Teissedre: Les 24 heures du Mans 1995. Editions IHM, Brussels 1995, ISBN 2-930120-03-7 .
