The Jaguar that Jan Lammers to the top brought
Posted on 08-01-2015 at 17:36 by Ricardo – 23 Comments”
Jan Lammers wrote autosporthistorie when he in 1988 with the Jaguar XJR-9 winning over the finish during the 24 Hours of Le Mans. Not only for the Netherlands, but for all of Jaguar, because that victory put the British brand back on the map. Exactly this Jaguar XJR-9 is seen during klassiekerbeurs Interclassics & Topmobiel in Maastricht, that Thursday, the doors opened.
The XJR-9 from the Tom Walkinshaw Racing team in the famous Silk Cut livery with chassis number TWR-J12C-488 is cherished by Jaguar Daimler Heritage Trust, for the victory of 1988 marked a new milestone that Jaguar’s dominance of Le Mans in the fifties with the C and D-types did revive. More than three decades, the British victory have to wait, and thanks to Jan Lammers was Jaguar back on top.
The XJR-9 has a 7 litre V12 engine with 760 hp and 828 Nm of torque. With the door open is the carbon structure of the chassis is good to see. In the ’80s experimented manufacturers for racing and the other with carbon. The present British Jaguar technicians explained the manufacturing process. The material contains in addition to carbon fiber, also fiber that in a layered together is held by resin to add. After manufacturing the a number of hours compressed into the desired shape. This process works without baking in an oven. The composition of the resin is the big secret of each manufacturer.
Broken gearbox
The winning car from 1988, driven by Jan Lammers, Johnny Dumfries and Andy Wallace, drove 394 laps and laid down a distance of 5.332,79 kilometres. At the finish line was the Jaguar an edge of 2.36 minutes on the Porsche 962 that second was.
“I have been in 1988, a fantastic year had,” said Jan Lammers, looking back at Other Times Sports, which, in 2009, an episode in the 24 Hours of Le Mans dedicated. During the race he heard from a teammate that one of the other Jaguars were lost due to problems with the gearbox. In his last stint on Sunday get Lammers also problems with the switch, the tank jumps out of third gear and stays in fourth gear: Lammers: “I spoke to myself that I no longer shift lever would sit. Then I did the whole circuit constant in his four passed, also at 60-70 km/h turns. Actually I had a pit in his four with a massively slipping clutch. […] It’s a miracle we made it to the finish line. When later the gearbox out was achieved and was there when the last bolt is all quite broken off.”
Jaguar was in the eighties again stepped in racing because the former world sportscar championship (WSC) is a major crowd puller. Brands such as Mercedes and Peugeot were involved with factory teams and had big budgets. In addition to Le Mans, there was a handful of other endurance races worldwide, just as now, in the World Endurance Championship (WEC).
The origin of the XJR-project is located in the United States, where the Group 44 team of Bob Tullius, the XJR-5 developed for the American IMSA GTP championship. For Europe did Jaguar a call on Tom Walkinshaw Racing, which has a different chassis built, but with the same V12 engine used. In the base was the same block as originating in the Jaguar E-type was, and did service until the end of the eighties, in various configurations, including the winning 7-litre in 1988.
By reglementswijzigingen in the early nineties, where Jaguar had to leave to take the old V12, kept the British cat seen it before in the sport-prototype racing.
A nice overview of the Jaguar racehistorie from the XK120 to the XJR-14 as the last sports-prototype and assembled by Jaguar Heritage, you can see here:
Gallery: Jaguar XJR-9
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With thanks to Robert van den Oever and Maarten van der Pas for this contribution!