Ask Jan Lammers to name his favourite racing car, and he doesn’t plump for any of the Formula 1 machines he raced or tested – and the latter category includes the world championship-winning Lotus 79.
Nor does he go for the Toyota TS010 3.5-litre Group C contender he describes as the “fastest thing I ever drove”. Top of the list for the 1988 Le Mans 24 Hours winner is the BMW M1 Procar in which he was a race winner in the F1-support series that many regard as the greatest one-make championship of them all.
“It’s everything about that car, the series and the time,” says Lammers, a veteran of 23 grand prix starts and 24 at Le Mans. “It was the engine and the gearing of the car, the way it handled – it was such a joy to drive and really suited my style.”
His Procar season started with an out-of-the-box victory in the M1 from pole at Donington Park in April 1980 and then near misses at Avus and Monaco. He would almost certainly have won the former had his fire extinguisher not gone off and he remains disappointed and is more than a bit miffed that he missed out on the latter. He lost a clear chance to win on the streets of Monte Carlo courtesy of a bump from Didier Pironi while running at the head of the field.
“I was leading in the wet and braked early at the Tip Top bar for Mirabeau and Pironi torpedoed me – he just launched into the back of me,” recalls Lammers of an assault from the Ligier F1 driver, who was driving one of the entries that went to the five highest-placed Goodyear-shod drivers in opening F1 qualifying for the grand prix-supporting Procar rounds. “He pushed me over one of those high kerbs and I realised straight away that my suspension was broken.
“I can say it today all these years on, but I decided I was going to get my revenge at the hairpin and take him off, but I was a little bit too late: rather than T-boning him, I ended up putting myself in the wall. My team asked me why I’d ended up just driving into the wall. I couldn’t tell the real reason, of course!
Racing in M1 Procar Championship was physical at times, but Lammers relished it
Photo by: LAT Photographic
“I was so furious because I really wanted to win that race. I was driving for ATS in F1 at the time, but the Procar race was a chance to show yourself with equal machinery in front of everyone.”
The chance of victory at round two at Avus had disappeared when the in-cockpit extinguisher went off while Lammers…
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