BMW'S FIRST AND LAST

The German giant returns to Le Mans 25 years after it last conquered the circuit. Gary Watkins recalls a hare and tortoise story

- Gary Watkins

It wasn’t an auspicious start. Less than an hour into BMW’s 1999 Le Mans 24 Hours campaign at the pre-event test one car was parked in the barriers, the other two were ensconced in the pits and wouldn’t leave until a couple of hours into the afternoon session. The German manufacturer, back at the French enduro for a second crack with a Le Mans Prototype, didn’t look like a potential winner. Not with Toyota, Mercedes, Audi and Nissan ranged against it in a year that until the present era stood as the high-water mark in manufacturer participation at the front of the field. Yet six weeks later, BMW was celebrating a dramatic victory after a back-and-forth battle with the first named of those opponents. 

"The telemetry data showed that the wing went AWOL at over 200mph"

One of the three new V12 LMRs designed, built and developed by Williams and run by the Schnitzer Motorsport squad had crashed minutes into the first of the two sessions of what was then known as pre-qualifying — not everyone on the entry went forward to race weekend. It wasn’t initially clear why Yannick Dalmas had crashed at the Indianapolis sequence. Or rather it wasn’t understood what had caused the loss of the rear wing, which resulted in him spinning wildly through the quick right-hander. Until it was — and a fix made — the remaining Bimmers wouldn’t be back on track.