28 replies to this topic

[HistoryFan]

In the late 80s the FIA decided that the Group C sports cars have to have an 3.5 litre engine like in F1. It was the beginning of the downfall of Group C. The FIA hoped that the engine manufactors could join F1 as well with the sports cars engines.

 

Jaguar, Mercedes, Peugeot built an 3.5 litre engine, but only Mercedes joined F1 as well.

Toyota, Mazda with Judd and BRM with Weslake also built 3.5 litre engines, but also didn't join F1.

 

Why not?

[hittheapex]

Good question, I don't know enough to give a complete answer, came here hoping somebody else had . The only thing I could add is a small correction. Peugeot did in fact come into F1 with a 3.5 litre V10 for McLaren in 1994.

Edited by hittheapex, 12 October 2015 - 14:53.

[DampMongoose]

In the late 80s the FIA decided that the Group C sports cars have to have an 3.5 litre engine like in F1. It was the beginning of the downfall of Group C. The FIA hoped that the engine manufactors could join F1 as well with the sports cars engines.

 

Jaguar, Mercedes, Peugeot built an 3.5 litre engine, but only Mercedes joined F1 as well.

Toyota, Mazda with Judd and BRM with Weslake also built 3.5 litre engines, but also didn't join F1.

 

Why not?

 

Not an answer just a point of note.  Jaguar did not build an engine as you suggested.  

 

Jaguar had a twin turbocharged 3.5 in the XRR-11 that was derived from the Metro 6R4 but given the new WSC rules required a naturally aspirated engine, they didn't build a new one.  They just used the readily available Ford HB engine from the Benetton detuned and rebadged as a Jaguar. 

 

Edit:  Also, the Judd engine used by Mazda did compete in F1 both as a Judd and later was the basis for the Yamaha... 

Edited by DampMongoose, 12 October 2015 - 15:12.

[PeterElleray]

And the Judd raced in F1 as a 3.5 litre...

 

So infact only Toyota and the 'BRM' did not make it into F1. You can discount the BRM as being a (very) low budget affair that never really got going, so no surprise that nobody took that one up.

 

As for the Toyota, when i joined Tom's in 1991 it was to join a team designing a F1 car to take this engine... In 1992 John Barnard arrived , with his own design team and was put in charge of that programme.

 

Not very long afterwards he left again, along with his team of designers, with nothing very much accomplished and no budget forthcoming from Japan.

 

So  i'm also still wondering, 25 years on, Why Happened and Why Not?

 

Peter

[jcbc3]

I thought Peugeots F1 engine had it's roots in the Endurance engine? Or is my memory playing a trick on me?

[427MkIV]

Good question, but the Group C Mercedes was a flat 12. The F1 Mercedes was a V8 built by Ilmor. Not a direct line from Group C to F1.

[john aston]

Err - V10 wasn't it ?

[Charlieman]

Possibly a short bloke with silver hair talked to a few Group C investors, and all future deals were forked.

[BRG]

Possibly a short bloke with silver hair talked to a few Group C investors, and all future deals were forked.

I always thought it was the dead hand of Bernie that stifled Gp C.  Just like he choked off the DTM/ITM when it got too prominent.  And the ETCC/WTCC.  He was subtle, by encouraging these series to over-reach themselves, they imploded and his F1 money mill was preserved.  And he probably did for CART too, though I can't see how he managed it.

 

I hope the WEC is watching its back.

[Charlieman]

I always thought it was the dead hand of Bernie that stifled Gp C.

If we apply Bernie's hand to everything that has gone wrong in motor sport, Bernie would have a lot *of a lot* to answer for. But Group C collapsed because it became ridiculously expensive. The cost of running an historic Group C car is "errr" jaw dropping. You could run a 2 litre Lola or Chevron for a couple of years...

 

Bernie has made a pickle of motor sport. It took a long time for the rally boys to work it out. Bernie runs F1 but he doesn't run the sport.

[427MkIV]

Err - V10 wasn't it ?

Yep, V10.

[doc knutsen]

If we apply Bernie's hand to everything that has gone wrong in motor sport, Bernie would have a lot *of a lot* to answer for. But Group C collapsed because it became ridiculously expensive. The cost of running an historic Group C car is "errr" jaw dropping. You could run a 2 litre Lola or Chevron for a couple of years...

 

Bernie has made a pickle of motor sport. It took a long time for the rally boys to work it out. Bernie runs F1 but he doesn't run the sport.

Group C did not turn ridiculously expensive, it was made ridiculously expensive, by the powers that be - or were - at the time. A cunning plan, indeed: It was a thinly disguised plot to get the major Gr C players to go F1, having developed multi-cylinder atmo 3.5 liter engines for an endurance championship that subsequently was stabbed in the back after just one season.

Along with the 3.5 liter engine regulations, came the FIA axing of the C2 class, thus removing the privateers - for so long, the backbone of endurance racing, where manufacturer interest would ebb and flow. At the same time, race formats were altered to make the "package" more "TV friendly", and prices for hospitality and admission were hiked to F1 standards. For an inside view on how the major players would work, read Gordon Spice's book, paying extra attention to how he was "persuaded" to drop his plans for a C2 team organisation.

Edited by doc knutsen, 12 October 2015 - 20:19.

[HistoryFan]

And there were some talks about Benetton and Jaguar joining forces as well...

[HistoryFan]

But why didn't Aston ;Martin, Lancia and so on built a new sports car engine? Was it too expensive or just not attractive?

[Victor_RO]

But why didn't Aston ;Martin, Lancia and so on built a new sports car engine? Was it too expensive or just not attractive?

 

Lancia had pulled out by mid-1986, their involvement in sportscar racing at the time of the 3.5 liter regs was just over-optimistic Italian privateers persevering with very aged LC2s. Aston Martin ended its involvement after the end of 1989 because they had run out of budget. If Porsche couldn't find a viable opportunity to build an engine for these regs, I can't see how it would have been enticing for any smaller brand (in terms of cost).

[Henri Greuter]

In the late 80s the FIA decided that the Group C sports cars have to have an 3.5 litre engine like in F1. It was the beginning of the downfall of Group C. The FIA hoped that the engine manufactors could join F1 as well with the sports cars engines.

 

Jaguar, Mercedes, Peugeot built an 3.5 litre engine, but only Mercedes joined F1 as well.

Toyota, Mazda with Judd and BRM with Weslake also built 3.5 litre engines, but also didn't join F1.

 

Why not?

 

 

Basically: even if the cylinder capacity was the same for F1 and GpC, the differences between engine characteristics were massive. There was too much difference between an F1 and a Gp C car and the events they ran in. Gp C still had Le Mans as main rce and at that time there was still no limits on number of engines for the season. The grand prize within GpC was Le Mans and I'll bet you that the Le Mans winning Peugeot V10 engines were entirely different than their F1 engines and had little to nothing in common than being a 3.5 liter V10..

 

If my memory serves me well, the Jaguar badged Cosworth HB engines were eventually rebadged yet again and appeared in F1 with Minardi. But that is probably the closest it got.

 

But it certainly was a big trick by Bernard E. Tentively make obsolete F1 machinery suitable for GpC but the main aim of that was always to kill off GpC so it could not take away too much focus of F1. And hope that once GpC had imploded it would convince them to go to f1 instead.

For that reason alone I still hope and prey to see the current F1 implode and the ruins of if falling alongside Bernie E and him not being senile enough yet not to notice it anymore but instead feel the pain and hurts and personal losses in their entirety. What he did to others in his greed, I wish to see it happen to him at last.

 

 

 

Henri

[D-Type]

Henri, don't forget that Ernie Becclestone has sold "Formula 1" to a consortium of bankers who have kept him on to run it so he's immune to the financial consequences whatever happens.

[ghinzani]

And the Judd raced in F1 as a 3.5 litre...

 

So infact only Toyota and the 'BRM' did not make it into F1. You can discount the BRM as being a (very) low budget affair that never really got going, so no surprise that nobody took that one up.

 

As for the Toyota, when i joined Tom's in 1991 it was to join a team designing a F1 car to take this engine... In 1992 John Barnard arrived , with his own design team and was put in charge of that programme.

 

Not very long afterwards he left again, along with his team of designers, with nothing very much accomplished and no budget forthcoming from Japan.

 

So  i'm also still wondering, 25 years on, Why Happened and Why Not?

 

Peter

 

 

Now that would be nice to know, I remember the rumours at the time.

[HistoryFan]

Lancia had pulled out by mid-1986, their involvement in sportscar racing at the time of the 3.5 liter regs was just over-optimistic Italian privateers persevering with very aged LC2s. Aston Martin ended its involvement after the end of 1989 because they had run out of budget. If Porsche couldn't find a viable opportunity to build an engine for these regs, I can't see how it would have been enticing for any smaller brand (in terms of cost).

 

Were the 3.5 litres engines that much more expensive then the engines used until 1991?
 

[HistoryFan]

 

But it certainly was a big trick by Bernard E. Tentively make obsolete F1 machinery suitable for GpC but the main aim of that was always to kill off GpC

 

But why has that move killed Group C? Just because he knew that the engine manufactors would not built new 3.5 litres Group C engines?

 

[BRG]

Were the 3.5 litres engines that much more expensive then the engines used until 1991?
 

Yes.  The Porsche 956/962 that dominated Gp C used their basic flat 6 engine that had been used in various cars for a decade previously (935, 936 etc).  Jaguar used their production V12.  Whereas the 3.5s were going to be purpose built racing engines that cost a fortune.

[427MkIV]

Yes.  The Porsche 956/962 that dominated Gp C used their basic flat 6 engine that had been used in various cars for a decade previously (935, 936 etc).  Jaguar used their production V12.  Whereas the 3.5s were going to be purpose built racing engines that cost a fortune.

 

The 936 and 956 engine was the 2.65-litre engine Porsche built to race in the Indy 500 before USAC changed the rules to make it run the same boost as V8s.

[Henri Greuter]

Henri, don't forget that Ernie Becclestone has sold "Formula 1" to a consortium of bankers who have kept him on to run it so he's immune to the financial consequences whatever happens.

 

 

Right, but he still has a share of the cake. And I hope it will hurt his pride too when he sees all that he built up, over the backs and remains of all he destroyed in his path of destruction collapse.

The old style Gp C thrived also because of the media attention it got from a company like Videovision and Brian Kreisky who aired their reports on International Motor sport at Sky channel. Those reports helped to make GpC popular. Once that greedy Ecclestone got in charge about GpC as well, Kreisky&Co were served off to enhance the collapse of Endurance racing. I can't help but wishing to see Ecclestone at least to some extend the same as he arranged others had to because of his interests.

 

Henri

[Henri Greuter]

But why has that move killed Group C? Just because he knew that the engine manufactors would not built new 3.5 litres Group C engines?

 

 

 

Pretty much answered already. GpC also thrived because of the privateers in C2 and within C1 with the avaialbility of a number of 962s. In the final years of the GpC that participation of privateers within C1 was heavily endangered already because, if we rate Porsche and Lancia as the old guard who made customer cars available, the newbies like Jaguar, Sauber-Mercedes, Nissan and Mazda didn't. So even customers who wanted to remain active within C1 couldn't upgrade on newer cars and had to rely on whatever uppdate still possible on the 962 design of, by then, some years old.

So the privateer support for C1 was disappearing, the category created for them ceased to exist and by then it was, with the new cars all left to factory efforts. And at that time the japanese manufacturers didn't care so much at all for the entire GpC championship, all they cared for was Le Mans.

And as already stated, the new 3.5 liter engines were  much more expensive to design, built and run. Pretty much beyond the budgets of most privateer teams.

Ecclestone knew all about that. Once privateers couldn't particiapte anymore (remember 1991-1993, or read about it what kind of races we had at the time) GpC was pretty much doomed.

 

All of that combined contributed to the downfall of GpC. Ecclestone speeded up the process massively but I think that, due to the non availability of more recent customer C1 cars, it likely was to happen anyway once factory teams withdrew as well because of mission accomplished or whatever other reason, mostly money related.

 

henri

[uechtel]

Pretty much answered already. GpC also thrived because of the privateers in C2 and within C1 with the avaialbility of a number of 962s. In the final years of the GpC that participation of privateers within C1 was heavily endangered already because, if we rate Porsche and Lancia as the old guard who made customer cars available, the newbies like Jaguar, Sauber-Mercedes, Nissan and Mazda didn't. So even customers who wanted to remain active within C1 couldn't upgrade on newer cars and had to rely on whatever uppdate still possible on the 962 design of, by then, some years old.

So the privateer support for C1 was disappearing, the category created for them ceased to exist and by then it was, with the new cars all left to factory efforts. And at that time the japanese manufacturers didn't care so much at all for the entire GpC championship, all they cared for was Le Mans.

And as already stated, the new 3.5 liter engines were  much more expensive to design, built and run. Pretty much beyond the budgets of most privateer teams.

Ecclestone knew all about that. Once privateers couldn't particiapte anymore (remember 1991-1993, or read about it what kind of races we had at the time) GpC was pretty much doomed.

 

All of that combined contributed to the downfall of GpC. Ecclestone speeded up the process massively but I think that, due to the non availability of more recent customer C1 cars, it likely was to happen anyway once factory teams withdrew as well because of mission accomplished or whatever other reason, mostly money related.

 

henri

 

I think this is indeed the main factor. Rather than any intention of Ecclestone to "kill" Group C was the decicive development that more and more works teams entered the stage. As usual and demonstrated frequently before and after in other series, with their potential they could speed up the screw of development so that cheap customer-friendly solutions were to fall behind quickly. In order to keep their customers in the game Porsche would have had to develop a new engine anyway and to me it is doubtful whether they would have delivered them a competitive solution even if the series had not switched to the 3.5 litre engines.

 

What Ecclestone certainly can be blamed for is, that obviously he was not unhappy with this development, otherweise he could have used his influence to push regulations that could have kept the privateers in the game (in particular something like C2 as mentioned above).

 

[Mark A]

There was also the Nissan 3.5l V12 engine for Group C as well, that never existed beyond a few races.

 

[PeterElleray]

Good Summary Henri.

 

The one thing you can usually guarentee when a manufacturer joins the party is that they will leave again when they have either won all the races or non of them.

 

If you want a business model for a stable, affordable (relatively) viable international racing championship you need look no further than the original Group C.

 

Peter

[brucemoxon]

I once read (Robert A Heinlein wrote it) that 'any time there's a question that's why don't (doesn't, do, did, didn't)...' the answer is always 'money.'

 

If it was worth it to these manufacturers in terms of prestige, publicity, or even training for their engineering staff, they would.

 

 

 

 

Bruce Moxon

[doc knutsen]

I think this is indeed the main factor. Rather than any intention of Ecclestone to "kill" Group C was the decicive development that more and more works teams entered the stage. As usual and demonstrated frequently before and after in other series, with their potential they could speed up the screw of development so that cheap customer-friendly solutions were to fall behind quickly. In order to keep their customers in the game Porsche would have had to develop a new engine anyway and to me it is doubtful whether they would have delivered them a competitive solution even if the series had not switched to the 3.5 litre engines.

 

What Ecclestone certainly can be blamed for is, that obviously he was not unhappy with this development, otherweise he could have used his influence to push regulations that could have kept the privateers in the game (in particular something like C2 as mentioned above).

 

 

By 1990, there were some major hitters in Group C,  with M-B, Porsche, Jaguar, Mazda, Toyota and Nissan spending their  considerable budgets in sports car racing, rather than seeing the light and going F1 instead. We simply could not have that, could we? Jaguar (TWR) launched the turbocharged V6 out of the Metro 6R4. This engine had a very short life span, as it became obsolete when gr C went 3.5 atmo for 1991. As for Porsche, the 956/962 was still competitive, especially at Le Mans. Remember Pareja's Brun heartbreak, with retirement from 2nd place literally in the last 15 minutes of the Le Mans  24-hour race in 1990?

There were numerous privateer 962s around still, at the end of the fuel efficiency Gr C, with people like Richard Lloyd developing the 962 concept even further, including a carbon monocoque. For my money, the original Gr C could have gone on, with a healthy privateer base able to do well, even against the works efforts. The beauty of the original Gr C concept was that it provided so many ways to the Casbah, with big stock-block atmo engines taking on purpose built racing engines, atmospheric and super/turbocharged, with a wonderful diversity as the result.

 

Remember Procar? That was a 3.5 atmo manufacturer's class that backfired.  And how about the power struggle around the Vingt-Quatre Heures, with the ACO standing up to the FIA and acquiring the land to build the Mulsanne chikanes, thus keeping their autonomy. Too bad sports car racing did not have the political clout to stand up to the FIA and its commercial rights holder.

Edited by doc knutsen, 17 October 2015 - 13:53.