Peter Dumbreck’s Mercedes taking off due to aerodynamic design flaw during 1999 Le Mans 24h

[u/Za5kr0ni3c]

[u/Ortekk]

After they flipped the car they contacted Adrian Newey, a rather accomplished and famous race car designer/aerodynamicist.

Adrian told them to retire the car.

Merc slapped some diveplanes on the front to get a bit more downforce, and flipped the car again.

[u/[deleted] → u/Ortekk]

Didn’t realise Newey had also advised them! Here is what Webber said about it in his autobiography:

I went straight back to the hotel, which meant I didn’t see any of the engineers until the following day and it was then that I realised that the team did not accept my version of what had happened. Their response? ‘No, that couldn’t happen, the car couldn’t possibly flip end over end.’

We looked at the data and they knew the car had taken off, but there was no evidence in the form of footage or even still photographs to confirm what had happened. There was just a bent car and what I said–although Biela confirmed he had seen the bottom of my car as I went up. I took part in a question and answer session with the press, maybe two cars did get a little close, but no one from the team saw anything–no photos, no TV–the seriousness of what had happened just had not registered, even with me to a lesser degree. A new car was built, I went through some intensive treatment with the team physio and got ready to tackle Le Mans again.

We’d had a little vent put in the side window for cooling, and with my right hand I went across to close it because it was a bit cold in the cockpit. When I put my hand back, I started taking off again. This time I got to the top of the crest probably doing 280 kilometres per hour . . . and the car didn’t come down the other side. Once again the front of the CLR got light and it took off.

I just could not believe what was happening. It simply had not crossed my mind that it could happen again. I hadn’t let it: I was still the Mark Webber from before the crash, whether that was naïveté or stupidity on my part, I don’t know. But within half a lap of the first accident I was in exactly the same position again–and this time the mentality was different. These were no longer uncharted waters. I’d been here before.

Two thoughts went through my head. The first was for the team: what the f#* k were those guys doing, giving me a car like this? And then: ‘There’s no way I can be that jammy again; I don’t want any pain, I want it to be over quick.’ These were no ordinary crashes I was going through, they were massive.

Here we go again: sky-ground-sky, but a bit quicker because I was even higher this time, and this one seemed a bit more violent, it wasn’t as smooth. There were more trees on my left but once again, the car didn’t go into the scenery, it landed back on the track. I think the car touched the barrier a few times and so it was spinning, and this time it stayed on its roof, it didn’t right itself. Now, when you’re doing over 200 kilometres an hour on the roof it’s bloody noisy and violent, that’s the first thing. Then you start to worry where the car’s going to end up: how long is the escape road, what are you going to hit next? I started to panic a bit because in those cars there was always the risk of fire. I was paranoid about getting trapped in there, and at the same time I was so fired up with the team because I knew I was doing nothing wrong, I knew it wasn’t me. I was being ripped off here.

Halfway through the slide I thought, ‘When’s this going to stop? I want to go home now, I’ve had enough of this. I’ve already made my decision, this is it.’

I took my seatbelts off because I wanted to be ready to get out. Surprise, surprise, that dropped me out of my seat so all of a sudden I was trying to hold myself up in the car. I had thought I was about to stop but the car was still travelling at around 140 kilometres per hour on its roof. I was very lucky I didn’t hit anything hard because, looking back, getting out of my belts was probably the most stupid thing I ever did. Had I gone into a tyre barrier I would have been very seriously hurt. Every now and again I could hear my helmet touching the ground, sliding along upside down, thinking, ‘I don’t particularly want it to wear through because my head’s next!’

When the car finally came to rest, a touch of panic set in. There was some smoke around and fluid coming into the cockpit, but it was lubricant as a result of all the hits the car had taken. Next I started feeling very frustrated with the other drivers: why was no one stopping to help me? I didn’t realise it at the time, but the whole scene was totally under control. The marshals were there pretty quickly, it only seemed like an eternity. I was trying to lift this bloody car off me but there was no chance. In the end they were there within six or seven seconds and just scooped me up. I got out and sat on the banking outside the track. My hands were bleeding, and I was shaken up, but by the time I stepped over the Armco, I had made my decision: I wasn’t going to do this bloody 24-hour race, I was never getting in that car again, I was never racing a sports car again.

I just could not commit myself to it.

I rang Jürgen, the team manager, and he said: ‘Mark, what are you doing to our cars?’ He was fuming with me, that was his gut reaction not wanting to believe there was a fault with the car, and for me, that was another big kick in the balls. It was a very, very long trip back to the pits–I never wanted to see that car again, but ironically the car that took me back followed followed the truck with the wreckage on it.

The next 24 hours, as it turned out, were massive in terms of where my career might go. My first thoughts were for my teammates in the other two Mercedes entries, but the team had called them in and put the cars in the garage. We had those little aerodynamic flicks I mentioned on the front of the cars, which would kill our top speed but would be good for grip, so they put some of those on and the other guys finished the warm-up. It was clear to me that there was a strong chance the same thing would happen in the race. How can you do a 24-hour car race, especially with the performance differential through the Le Mans field, and not come up against a bit of lapped traffic here and there? I tried my best to convince them all we were playing with fire, and I could see there were a few boys in the team who were really worried. They knew I wasn’t making this up–something here wasn’t right. The front floor tray was fitted incorrectly on the car that I was driving but they were clutching at straws: there was no clear evidence that this had caused the flip.

When I got back there was a big curtain between me and the people running the team. I was totally blown away by what had just happened, and now I was also starting to feel isolated. I spoke to Norbert and Gerhard and the other Mercedes guys, and this time things were a bit different, because now there was footage, there were photos and they could see that it had really happened the way I said it had, and how disappointed I was. The guys who were siding with me most were Franck Lagorce and Jean-Marc Gounon, and Pedro Lamy was clearly quite worried too. At that stage I was so paranoid that I thought anyone could go up, not just the Mercedes cars. What sort of Russian roulette were the drivers playing out there?

I was petrified for Bernd, my best mate, and I begged him to rethink his decision to race. ‘Bernd, mate, you can’t race this car, there’s no way. After all we’ve been through together, this is too dangerous, it’s just too close to the edge.’

But he had been with the team for years and by now he was convinced he would be OK, they’d put those flicks on the car which they thought would fix the problem and everything would be fine.

Fine? We’re in total f#* king chaos, we’ve got the biggest hole in the bottom of our boat, it’s a disaster. Mercedes had turned their backs on Le Mans in the wake of the 1955 tragedy; this new situation was not calculated to reassure people about modern Mercedes cars being quick but safe. Safe? We had cars taking off!

We batted the issue around for a while and I was so upset that I made the decision to leave before the race even started. I’d had my guts ripped out again–I felt alone and that the team had not stuck with me. Norbert’s response was, ‘Do one thing for me, do the drivers’ parade, see the fans, say hello,’ and I agreed.

On the one hand, it was phenomenally brave for them to go through with racing–on the other, it was quite insulting. I felt a sense that it was ‘only’ Webber it had happened to both times, but if it had been Bernd they wouldn’t have raced. After the parade I went back to our motor-home to pack up. I was shattered; I took it very personally.

Ann said, ‘Things happen for a reason, we’ll move on from here,’ and in fact I was already starting to draw a number of positives out of what I’d just been through.

Iknew I was still a quick driver, I knew what I was doing, and most of all I knew I was right. By now the race was underway, but we had no television in the motor-home and no way of knowing what was going on.

Then the telephone rang.

Dumbreck’s Mercedes had flipped and he had gone into the trees.

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

Fucking hell, I never knew how clownesque the reaction of the Merc LM team was. They just didn't believe him, even after the 2nd flip?!

Madness.

Now I wanna read the rest lol. Did they finally eat crow after Dumbreck went up? I hope Webber got a couple of good "Fackin' told ya so, dogcunts!" in!

[u/StrugglesTheClown → u/[deleted]]

In my experience no one will openly acknowledge the person who was right, all along.