The Nurburgring has endurance heritage woven in to the complex fabric of its history. From the epic feats of Stirling Moss in the 1950s, John Surtees in the 60s, Jacky Ickx in the 70s and Stefan Bellof in the 80s, endurance racing in the Eifel mountains is where legends are made.
Almost a quarter of a century ago, to the day, Group C was perhaps at its zenith and 38 cars gathered at the Nurburgring for round six of the 1990 World Sports Prototype Championship. The quality of the field was exceptional, with two cars each from Sauber-Mercedes, Jaguar, Toyota and Nissan, as well as a remarkable 15 Porsche 962s.
The competing drivers read almost as a ‘who’s who’ of endurance racing greats from the era. Schlesser, Mass, Brundle, Lammers, Blundell, Wollek, Schneider, Stuck, Pescarolo and a young F3 wunderkind called Michael Schumacher.
A capacity crowd packed the then 4.542km circuit and saw a dominant 1-2 for the Sauber entered Mercedes-Benz C11’s. The reigning champion car driven by Jean-Louis Schlesser and Mauro Baldi fended off the sister Merc of Mass and Schumacher, despite the German youngster given future notice of intent by leading and opening a gap during his double stint. Remarkably the then 21 year old future multiple F1 champion was also competing in the German F3 race on the same weekend. Naturally, he won it!
The win was Schlesser’s and Sauber’s third consecutive win at the Nurburgring, and also the third of five that Schlesser and Baldi would win on the way to the drivers’ title that year.
The podium was completed by Martin Brundle and Alain Ferte in one of the Jaguar XJR-11 cars, while current Audi team partner Reinhold Joest saw two of his three Porsche 962 cars come home 6th and 12th.
This weekend’s honoured WEC Grand Marshal, Hans-Joachim Stuck, driving the third Joest Porsche had an early drive back to his home close to the track when the car he shared with Jonathan Palmer retired after just 12 laps and before the endurance legend even got behind the wheel!
Sam Smith
Photo: COPYRIGHT OF AND COURTESY OF JOHN BROOKS. NURBURGRING (NURBURG, GERMANY), WORLD SPORTS PROTOTYPE CHAMPIONSHIP, 19 AUGUST 1990. The race-winning Sauber Mercedes C11 of Jean-Louis Schlesser and Mauro Baldi.
