Group C Racing – Castellet
(Dix Mille Tours)

Mercedes of power

Group C Racing has for the second consecutive year closed his championship in Provence, on one of the very few circuits of the old world, where it’s worth while whipping the powerful engines that push the prototypes making part of them at wild speed. The eve of the race was animated by the official news that announced the Peugeot 905, owned by Mahe, taking part in the race, but at the end the French private owner restricted himself to exhibit the car in one of the stands of the circuit, where, by the way, it must be said the fans of the circuit were not easily admitted. Thus only sixteen of the 22 expected cars entered the circuit, with a big number of different versions of Spice; among them the SE89P powered Pontiac, developed for IMSA and entered by the crew made by Rosina-Mondini. In addition to these two drivers the Italian colours were represented by the fourth model of a Lancia LC2, driven on the track at the beginning of the Eighties by Mirabella team and unique model to be sold to a private team.

The whole weekend was animated by the duel among a usual Mercedes C11 of Berridge-Evans, the Nissan R90 driven by Kubota and the Spice Pontiac with the two Italian drivers, with the German car undoubtedly favoured by a bigger power which allowed to reach the speed of 336.4 km/h at the bottom of Mistral. After a pole taken on Saturday the “Silver Arrow” was continuously in the lead of the group, with the exception of few laps during the compulsory pit-stops: to trouble the Mercedes were drivers like Kubota at first, but the Japanese was forced to retire due to a collision on overtaking, and later the crew of Rosina-Mondini, with the latter that in the last laps arrived even at five seconds from the tread. Unfortunately even the Spice was forced to retire, when there were only three laps missing to the end, because of a banal problem of the oil pump, allowing Mercedes to march on parade, just when Harburg-Park in a Porsche 962 and Donoan in the Spice SE88C gained the other two steps of podium taking advantage of the problems suffered by the Meyricks, also at the wheel of Spice.

Marco Zanello
Photos take by Giacomo and Marco Zanello

Qualifying results

Race results

Gallery