The 1981 24 Heures de Francorchamps will be remembered for its relatively incident free progress and a superb battle for the lead which went on all through the night and into Sunday afternoon. The weather certainly had a lot to do with keeping accidents to a minimum as, although wet for the first couple of hours, the night was dry and visibility good. Sunday morning dawned rather grey and foreboding but the sun soon perforated the cloud cover and warmed the place up nicely. There were a couple of funny things about this year’s race as well, like the start and finish! Your reporter had always thought it was a rolling start at Spa so he was a bit surprised when, after one slow lap behind the pace car, the huge field of saloons stopped on the grid and then disappeared towards Eau Rouge at a flourish of the Belgian tricolour!
As the spray dispersed, the Bastos Chevrolet Camaro of Claude Bourgoignie reappeared at La Source followed by Michel de Deyne’s similarly beefy, 5.7-litre monster. As at Le Mans where he came fourth in a Porsche 935, Bourgoignie shared his car with Briton John Cooper and former Grand Prix driver Reine Wisell. The Camaro led for about 50 minutes before stopping to have the fan and alternator replaced after a blade came off and smashed its way out through the front. The car was stationary for about half an hour before Wisell rejoined many laps behind the leaders. The Camaro ran reliably after that although it was unable to make up much ground because of the low rate of attrition and good conditions. Then the car stopped out on the circuit on Sunday morning with what the Bastos team described as a starter motor failure!
The Eminence Capri of Jean-Pierre Jaussaud and Romain Feitler held the lead for the next two hours but double Le Mans winner Jaussaud was out of luck this time when the Capri first picked up a misfire caused by dirt in the tank, and finally succumbed to engine failure in the early hours of the morning. The second Eminence car driven by Gunther Steckkonig/Marquet and three times world champion Jack Brabham was hobbled soon after the start with brake problems but slogged away for the duration and came home in 21st place. For Brabham it was his first Group 1 appearance since the British Grand Prix in 1980 when he drove a Renault 5 turbo and was offered a place in the French team at Spa, at behest of Goodyear.
