Page 22 - On the Prowl: The Definitive History of the Walkinshaw Jaguar Sports Car Team

ON THE PROWL
1989: Trouble on Three Fronts
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Le Mans is the big objective for all
the Japanese teams… I think that
the 1990 Le Mans will go down as a
classic of all time.
– Howard Marsden
††
‡‡
FISA vs. the ACO
As the world ticked over into the final decade of both the
century and the millennium, a sense of change and instability was
in the air. Just two months earlier, the Berlin Wall had come down, and it
was clear that the days of the Iron Curtain were numbered.
In the West, the tide was also turning, although not in a good way.
Dark economic clouds were gathering, and the coming storm would be a
brief recession that doggedly refused to let go.
In the face of an economic downturn, the Fédération Internationale du
Sport Automobile knew that the motorsport programs of manufacturers
would likely be on the chopping block. As they evaluated the state of
the WSPC, they were faced with the possibility of Le Mans leaving the
championship in 1990. Its absence undoubtedly removed the incentive
for any manufacturer to participate.
In 1989, the WSPC had been blessed with Jaguar, Mercedes, Nissan,
Toyota, Aston Martin and Mazda all participating in every race, under pain
of a $250,000 fine. With no Le Mans, they would almost certainly lose
Mazda, and likely the other Japanese entries too, for whom the 24-hour
race was pretty much all they cared about in prototype racing beyond
their own borders. Howard Marsden, the man at the top of Nissan’s
program, summed it up succinctly when he said “Le Mans is the big
objective for all the Japanese teams… I think that the 1990 Le Mans will
go down as a classic of all time.” FISA President Jean-Marie Balestre, a man not known for compromise
or reason, confirmed the details of the deal publicly on November 8th
,
but that very week met with WSC champion Jean-Louis Schlesser,
ostensibly to congratulate the Frenchman. During their conversation,
Schlesser reiterated his hatred of the Mulsanne Straight and strongly
advocated for it to be broken into smaller chunks through the addition of
chicanes. Balestre’s response indicated he was planning on squeezing
more concessions out of the ACO yet, hinting to Schlesser that not only
was it not likely the race would be part of the championship, but that by
not being on the calendar, it wouldn’t run at all.
One week later, FISA put out a release saying that talks were still
ongoing but revealing nothing of the October 12th agreement. One item
that had yet to be agreed was the term of the contract. FISA wanted
three years, the ACO at least five, especially as they were committing to
a significant investment in constructing the new pit buildings.
One week before FISA’s World Motorsport Council meeting on
December 7th, Balestre began to show the cards he was planning on
playing next, when he briefly mentioned concerns about the safety of
the track used for the Le Mans 24 Hours. It put the ACO on notice that
they could expect choppy waters ahead, especially as the track’s
homologation was due to expire at the end of the year. Without it, no
racing could happen.
It seemed as though FISA had been thinking hard about how to exert
more leverage on the ACO, given that there were still gaps in the contract,
and they seemed to land on a particularly sneaky approach.
At the conclusion of the meeting, the bombshell was dropped. FISA
announced that they would no longer approve tracks for homologation
if they contained any straight longer than two kilometers. The only such
track was Le Mans.
The ACO didn’t care about FISA’s position. They felt that they held the
upper hand. It made no difference to them whether they were part of the
World Championship or not; they would still get 55 entries willing to put
down the hefty entry fee to be part of the spectacle, and in turn attract
the quarter of a million paying spectators. Why should they give up TV
rights and lucrative paddock hospitality contracts just to put themselves
under the thumb of Bernie Ecclestone and his FISA henchmen?
Negotiations initially progressed with an air of good will and
compromise, and by October 12th a draft agreement was in place. On the
face of it, the ACO seemed to come off worse: they surrendered all TV
rights except for France and Japan in 1990, turned over pit credentialing
to FISA, agreed to base the full grid on the new 3.5-liter formula for 1991
onwards, and would commit to building an entirely new pits complex for
1991 (something that everyone agreed was way overdue).
VMazda was one of the Japanese teams which really only wanted to
race at Le Mans. In 1989 it signed up for the championship expecting that
not doing so would exclude it from the big race, only to find out that it had
been dropped. It’s not a mistake that would be made in 1990. Compatriots
Nissan and Toyota did choose to stay for another year. (Jerry Lewis-Evans)
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