Will Hypercars ever match Group C era when they’re held back by BoP?

Sports Car News

The Classic's Group C demonstration had many looking forward to next year's LMH/LMDhs – but will BOP harm the new category's chances?

Rothmans Porsche 962 at Classic at Silverstone

The Classic at Silverstone Group C demonstration brought on waves of nostalgia – can LMH/LMDH live up to similar expectations?

Jakob Ebrey

Author

Damien Smith

This year marks the 40th anniversary of both the Porsche 956 and the birth of Group C. You might have noticed. It’s been a popular bandwagon, from the Goodwood Members’ Meeting into-sunset demo in the spring to the front covers of certain illustrious magazines… The latest celebration, played out last weekend to much public pleasure at The Classic at Silverstone, was further proof we can’t get enough of these wonderful 1980s sports cars.

But what is it about Group C that keeps drawing us back? I asked as much of Serge Vanbockryck, a former journalist who covered sports car racing in the period and was at Silverstone to launch his latest heavyweight tome published by Porter Press: a three-volume set called Ultimate Works Porsche 962: The Definitive History (full review coming in the next issue of the magazine, even if it almost gave me a hernia carrying it back to the car).

Serge and I agreed on a number of points. Age is a factor, 40 years being a perfect number to trigger the full glow of nostalgia in all its radiance – a decent stretch of time ago, but still well within living memory for plenty. Beyond the timeframe, the cars themselves look so fresh and strangely modern – even if conversely the slab-sided simplicity of the aerodynamics clearly dates them. It’s the purity of those gently sweeping lines and how the bubble cockpits are perfectly in proportion to the width and length of these enduro monsters that not only makes us weak at the knees, but also provides the perfect billboard canvas for some of motor sport’s greatest liveries. Stickers and colours might not make racing cars go quicker, but they sure count in our emotional response, especially when liveries were executed with the style and grace displayed on most Group Cs.

Henry Pearman receives Scarf and Goggles trophy at the Classic at Silverstone

Derek Bell (right), with Group C collector Henry Pearman

Jakob Ebrey

Serge and I also agreed on something else: aside from our revels in past sports car glories, we’re also fit to burst with excitement about what is to come next year, at the 100th anniversary edition of the Le Mans 24 Hours – and beyond. It’s already becoming something of a cliché to note that the new LMDh/Hypercar era carries echoes of Group C, and something of its spirit too. The parallels are a trap all too easy to fall into, especially as Porsche has committed to selling customer versions of its new 963 – it’s even in the name!  – just as it did in high numbers with the 956 and its US-friendly 962 successor.

Look hard enough and you can even spot a Group C trace in Jota Sport, the British LMP2 which has been named as the first customer 963 runner. Back then, major companies, be they cigarette sellers or otherwise, were addicted to motor sport has a means of advertising their brand, but big deals for genuine household names are rarer today. So take a bow, Jota, for landing support from car rental giant Hertz – whose black and yellow colours offer a great opportunity to create a memorable look with shades of the fabulously stylish New Man Joest Porsche which won Le Mans back to back in 1984-85…

The parallels are everywhere – including in the potential roster of top-line racing drivers who are likely to complete stints in the new era. Take it all into account and no wonder we’re all excited, with multiple entries lining up for 2023 from Ferrari, Porsche, Cadillac and Peugeot, to join the already established attacks from Toyota and Glickenhaus. In terms of depth and variety, just like the old days, then.

Group C Porsches assembled at Silverstone for the Classic

Iconic Group C liveries have endured

Jakob Ebrey

Except it isn’t. And the more I hear the comparison between LMDh/Hypercar and Group C, the more uncomfortable it is making me feel. Why? Because for all the echoes that are emanating, the world and motor sport has moved on so far from what we knew four decades ago that it’s just not fair or realistic to think history is about to be repeated. After all, Group C didn’t rely on Balance of Performance.

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BoP. The big beast with flappy ears and a long trunk that’s always present when we consider the new era – for better as well as for worse. On one hand, equalising different concepts of GTs to race each other on a supposedly level playing field is one thing, but should BoP really decide who wins Le Mans overall? On the other, it has for years, in the equivalency formula that was a core ingredient of the hybrid LMP1 era, so it’s probably way beyond time to be squeamish now. But what really causes a wrinkle of concern is, as those with skin in the new game readily admit, this era to come is completely reliant on trust in the regulators to get it right – and that’s what makes me nervous. Not that I’m suggesting any level of  incompetence… Heaven forbid! Rather, that such faith creates an unfair expectation, on anyone in the chair. After all, would you want to be in the middle of all those manufacturers making the detailed calls on who gets what break ahead of Le Mans? No, me neither.

To compound my concern, the trust and sense of fair play stretches beyond the regulators to every competitor – as Porsche motor sport chief Thomas Laudenbach told me at the Goodwood Festival of Speed launch for the 963. “If we didn’t accept BoP I don’t think we would ever have what we are facing now,” he said. “If we want to have this convergence [of regulations] and cost control we have to accept BoP. Now we have to get it right.

Side view of Derek Bell and Stefan Bellof Porsche 962

1987 Porsche 962 was piloted by Derek Bell at Silverstone

Damien Smith

“We have a certain trust in the sanctioning bodies, otherwise we wouldn’t participate. But to me every competitor has a responsibility to give his contribution. We have it in our hands together to get it right. Yes, it is not easy, that’s right. But I always want to look at it in a positive way, as a chance for a new era of endurance racing. All together we have to get it right so that everybody who comes to race can say ‘I had a fair chance to win’. Now we have got to make a perfect job.”

Perfection in motor sport? Sure, Max Verstappen and Red Bull came mighty close at Spa on Sunday, but in the context Laudenbach meant it’s a tall order. A faint alarm bell rang when he said those words a couple of months ago, and the more I think about them the louder it chimes. Yes, let’s be positive – that’s imperative. But still… I fear the potential for rules arguments turning into political battles and major fall-outs could well undermine much of the good work achieved so far.

Am I wrong to allow such creeping doubts to fester, before even a wheel has turned in anger? I hope so, I really do because there’s a new generation that has never seen sports car racing that has come close to the intensity of Group C.

Walking through the Silverstone collection, curated by serial owner and category obsessive Henry Pearman, from his own stable and those of others, was a breathtaking snapshot of an age that delivered spectacular cars, outlandish feats and courageous heroes. Gatherings of the Rothmans works cars are always special when they include Le Mans and world title winners, although it was 956-007 – the ‘Bellof car’ – that kept me lingering the longest at Silverstone. This is the one in which Stefan Bellof fired to all-out and race lap records at the last world championship round held at the original Nürburgring Norsdschleife in 1983 – then left his team-mate Derek Bell exasperated by firing it into a ball at Pflanzgarten. The wreckage was sold a year later to Al Holbert, surely America’s greatest Group C exponent, who turned it into a Miller beer-sponsored show car and left it to slumber for years in a North Carolina museum. Chris Crawford dug it out and bought it in 2007, then commissioned a full restoration to its considerable Bellof & Bell glory.

Further along the line, John Fitzpatrick’s J David colours always accentuated the 956’s sweeping form quite perfectly, while the Kremer Skoal Bandit car – driven with joy and gusto in the demo by Mike Wilds – has always been a personal favourite. Chewing tobacco? Disgusting habit. Yet without wishing to condone an industry now rightly considered a societal global pariah, those nasty nicotine dealers sure understood the power of marketing, didn’t they? In the fear of getting ‘cancelled’, I can’t help but notice that nearly all the best racing liveries were created to flog what a friend of mine used to call “death sticks”… Although to my eyes the less ethically troubling Kouros cologne Sauber C8 stole the Silverstone show anyway.

Group C Porsches lined up for the Classic at Silverstone

Group C era is remembered as glorious now, but was rife with politics at the time

Jakob Ebrey

The trouble is, and lest we forget, blessed Group C also had its ingrained problems right from the start. Here come those parallels again… Forty years ago first time out at the Silverstone 6 Hours, the new turbo fuel formula left Bell and Jacky Ickx ‘racing’ the new 956 with not one but both hands tied behind their backs simply to make it to the chequered flag, in what amounted to a frustrating efficiency crawl, as Lancia’s old LC1 blotted the German script. Fuel rows were so damaging it even drove the works team away from Le Mans completely in 1984, paving the way for Joest’s first win.

Without reins, nostalgia can be dangerous when it comes to the full and true story, so here’s one potential comparison the new era will hope to avoid. Group C was rife with politics – not everything was better back then. So can we really trust today in faith and a ‘greater good’ perspective to see us through the inevitable storms to come? Lessons from the past – even from the golden times we love the most – suggest it might be a stretch.

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