The first C11, number C11-89-00, had its maiden run at Paul Ricard in October ’89. This chassis, built by a Swiss supplier rather than DPS, is what Ress calls a “test piece” that remained in service throughout 1990, even though it was unable to race because of some minor rule changes.
The new design didn’t race until round two of the WSPC at Monza in May. Sauber hedged its bets for the season opener at Suzuka, taking one C11 and one C9/88, only for Schlesser to crash the new car in qualifying. He and new team-mate Baldi had to revert to the spare C9/88.
If the C9/88 was good enough to beat rivals from Jaguar, Nissan, Toyota and Porsche, the C11 pummelled them into submission. Baldi and Jochen Mass qualified one-two at Monza, the pole man ending up the better part of two seconds ahead of the ‘best of the rest’, the Jaguar XJR-11 driven by Martin Brundle.
That set the tone for the rest of the season. The only time the Merc would be beaten was at Silverstone. Baldi and Schlesser were on course for victory when an engine failure brought an end to their race when they had a lead of 50 seconds after just 40 laps. There was no back-up car in the race, because the car Schumacher shared with Mass had been thrown out of the event for receiving outside assistance after stopping on track in practice.
Baldi rates the C11 as “probably the best prototype I ever drove” and the “only one of the cars from my career that I ever wanted to own”.
“The C11 was the first car after I left Formula 1 that was really enjoyable to drive,” he explains. “It gave you the same feeling as an F1 car. You could really drive that car, even though it was a heavy sports car.
“It was such an honest car: you could feel what was going to happen next, if you were going to lose the front or if you were going to lose the rear.”
So good was the C11 that Baldi took Eau Rouge flat on the way to pole position for the Spa race in early June. Not bad for a 900kg car with perhaps 1000bhp in qualifying trim.
Team Sauber Mercedes may have switched to Goodyear tyres for 1990, but a development programme embarked upon with Michelin in ’89 paid dividends.
“Michelin was able to put telemetry on the car, which meant we were probably the only team able to measure suspension loads and tyre temperatures and pressures,” recalls Ress. “We learnt a lot about how downforce changes and how to put it on the road. The centre of pressure didn’t shift in braking or acceleration. That made the C11 very easy to drive.”
There were any number of reasons why Team Sauber Mercedes was nigh-on unbeatable in 1990.
“It was a state-of-the-art chassis, with a very good engine that had excellent fuel consumption,” reckons Ress. “And, of course, we had very good drivers.”
Sauber had paired its two superstars for 1990. Baldi and Schlesser had gone head-to-head for the title in ’89, the Frenchman coming out on top. Meanwhile, veteran Mass would act as tutor to the youngsters: Schumacher, Heinz-Harald Frentzen and Karl Wendlinger.
Silk Cut Jaguar team leader Brundle has few memories from the 1990 WSPC bar “desperately trying to hang on to the Mercs” aboard the latest turbocharged XJR-11.
“We could just about stay with them on a banzai lap, but we could race with them. That Mercedes was driveable: it had more downforce than us and less turbo lag. We couldn’t match them for fuel consumption, and, of course, they had some tidy pedallers.”
Price, who left Sauber over the winter to join Nissan’s British-based assault on the WSPC, reckons it was barely a fair contest. The low-stressed V8, with a four-valve head since the start of 1989, was the key. This, remember, was the last year of the Group C fuel-formula: each C1 car was restricted to an allocation equal to 51 litres per 100km.
“They got much better fuel numbers than anyone else,” he says. “A big-capacity single-cam lightly turbocharged was perfect for Group C, and ‘Schless’ was exceptional on the fuel and Mauro pretty good, too. That was probably why they were unbeatable.”
The successes of the C11 in 1990 played a part in the decision to go F1. Neerpasch told Motor Sport in 2005 that F1 was on the agenda from the moment Mercedes returned to racing. Welti and Ress aren’t convinced; they don’t remember any talk of F1 until 1990.
“The C11 was so much better than everything else,” says Welti, “and I’m sure that was a key element in the decision to go F1.”