The background music for those interested: 0:00 - Gran Turismo 4 - Arcade Mode 0:27 - Gran Turismo 3 - Light Velocity / Car Dealer (my own remix) 2:17 - Gran Turismo 3 - Slipstream 4:12 - Gran Turismo 2 - East City
I would contend that Group C was not madness in its initial concept, but morphed towards that over time. I was just starting my mechanical engineering degree when it came out and the concept was fairly simple. Anything goes along as it fits into the silhouette except how much fuel you have. The idea was to drive innovation in motor sport. It started to come unstuck with Sauber, who had the massive V8 twin turbo they could wind up for qualification and getting to the front and then dial back for fuel economy. In a way it did all the groundwork for what Audi later did with diesels. But that also means that Sauber was innovating. The problem with Group C was it allowed those with enough money to out innovate the others. In a way that's motorsport at the top levels. Its as much about who can out innovate the rest rather than who has the best driver. AND ITS ALWAYS BEEN THAT WAY.
Well the top le mans cars of the late 90s and early 2000s are maybe the most revolutionary sports cars ever built. They're so revolutionary that today manufacturers still produce hypercars in the same style. Pagani is a good example.
this was the pinnacle of sports car racing. never been a fan of prototypes - they don't look like anything on the road. but these GT1 monsters, the fact that you could buy them and see them on the road made them feel just a bit nearer to you.
This a very odd take, because its litterally the opposite. Group GT1 was intended to race sports cars, yes. But that changed, when Porsche created the 911 GT1 for the 1996 season. After that, it was essentially a prototype in everything, except name. And unless you were the Sultan of Brunai, you couldn't buy any of them. So all in this is a very odd comment.
If I had a racing team with enough funds to participate in the WEC from 2023 onwards, I'd enter a Porsche with a livery reminiscent of the 911 GT1 '98. As I grew up in Germany, I grew up with Playing cards depicting predominantly German race cars. This white, blue and neon-red livery with the Mobil, IBM and Warsteiner-sponsor stickers will stay embedded in my brain forever. It's a prime example of a livery done perfectly!
GT1 was the downloadable car of the NFS series game Porsche Unleashed. Like you, whenever I come across GT1 name I always think of that livery. It's just awesome.
Every day I find new motorsports content on youtube and am blown away by how few views/subs the creators get. This is class stuff right here, great content
Not really: they did 4th and 5th in quali. You could say that of the 1995 McLaren F1 GTR which was 10s a lap slower than the prototypes it toppled, but certainly not of the 911 GT1 98', which was 1-2s slower over a lap compared to CLK LM & GT-One, over a 11km track. But if your technology can't last the 24h, you lost either way.
There is no homologation version of the 1998 Mercedes (with a V8 engine) either. Both Porsche and Mercedes built 25 homologation cars of their 1997 version.
They didn't actually gave up after 1998, as they did invest a lot of time and money in the LMP2000, that never raced... So, the hiatus really only began after that.
It's more complicated than that... 1. Group C was already dying of a slow death when the FIA brought that 3.5 liter rule in 1990. That's a thing which isn't often said... First of all, when the FIA created Group A, Group B, and Group C in 1982 things didn't go as planned. The FIA assumed that a Group B circuit racing would rise: that didn't happened. Which is why you got kind of a jump from Group 5 in the 1970s and early 1980s to GT1 in the GT circuit racing top class in Europe, and see some cars looking like touring cars in the 1980s IMSA GTO and SCCA Trans-Am. It's weird. It's also why they changed the name "world endurance championship" to "World Sports Prototype Championship" in 1986. But Group C had been used in "DTM" (well, DRM actually, but it's the same championship) up until 1985. It wasn't used anymore, been replaced by group A and than some DTM evolutionary rules. The BDRS SC was already moving away from C2 because some races had 9 competitors. That championship replaced thundersport... The interseries started to have Formula 2 and 3000 readapted, replaced some Group C and Can-am cars. By 1989, in the world sports car championship : the Sauber C9 that won was based on the Sauber C8, dating from 1985. The Porsche 962 dated from 1983-84. The Jaguar XJR-9 was evolved from a project dating from 1985. So the FIA wanted to shake things up in Group C to make the cars more modern, reduce cost in F1, and bring a world touring car series on crack by using the same engine all around... It didn't work as expected: too many teams tried in F1 and not enough in sports cars. Meanwhile, the cost of engines skyrocketed. The Alfa Romeo 164 procar was weirdly great to see, but that gone nowhere because nobody was interested. The intention were good. On paper the plan seemed great. Even how it was implemented had some good effects. They just didn't expect that much investment in F1 by teams during a recession. They also didn't expect the news sportcars to be that lacking in endurance and some old group C to still be that good. GT1 wasn't an FIA idea. It was by Jürgen Barth, Patrick Peter, and Stéphane Ratel. The SRO group and their GT3 tours? That was the early efforts of many of the same guys! The idea was to bring different cars used in one brand series together, including some touring cars. The FIA adopted their class system, because they can do that sometimes, and gave an homologation for a world championship to the same group. Here it wasn't just the FIA that killed it but also economics and bad timing: McLaren pulled out at the end of 1998, Panoz was talking of moving to the new LMP-1 class instead, BMW had pulled out two years earlier, one of Zackspeed car skipped one race and wanted to move to GT2 only (turns out that the viper was fun for them). Davidoff Classic racing team pulled out somewhere in 1998 from Gt1. At some points, you need a minimum number of entries to support a class. It died during the winter of 1998 due to lack of entries. The free engine design in F1: if you means the V12 and V8 in F1, everyone was de facto using a V10 before it became a rule to use a V10. I would like that the FIA bring some rules to encourage variability in F1 engines, I'm not sure how that could be done.
Great video! I loved the 1998 GT1. As far as GT1 cars turning into prototypes, BPR and the FIA brought that on themselves. Under BPR rules, you only needed to build 1 road car to homologate the race car. That essentially encouraged manufacturers to build a GT prototype, which ended up killing the class. Had they raised the homologation number and encouraged manufacturers to convert road cars to racing, rather than the other way around, GT1 could have been extremely popular. Imagine McLaren F1 GTRs racing Ferrari F50s.
Well it was nerfed. other GT1 cars had 630hp the 911 GT1 only had 550hp because of the FIA GT1 rules stated that turbo charged cars had to be dropped 70hp. A good example is in the 97 FIA GT1 championship the Porsche 911 GT1 couldn't keep up with the McLaren F1 GTR, and Mercedes CLK GTR, but at lemans the McLaren F1 GTR was getting dusted by the 911 GT1 till it caught fire. The 911 GT1 should be 3× Lemans champion.
The WSC-95 was faster than the 911 GT-1 in 96 and proven reliable, it was rightly the odds on favourite. The 97 car beat itself with that massive engine fire, but it's worth remembering that we hadn't quite reached the era of bullet proof reliability that Audi would uscher in for the 2000's.
@@barryjohnson5288 in 97 there was a intake ruling that would affect boosted cars more than n/a..... Which is why the aging F1 was still able to be competitive in 97.... Fina shinitzer BMW F1 lost it's championship lead on the final race of the season when a the leading car cought on fire.......
I disagree that its clickbait. As I detail in the video, the reason that Porsche stopped racing the 911 GT1 (and ultimately left the sport until 2005), was because they felt the car was "too slow" to be competitive against the new cars from Mercedes and Toyota.
One car that is often overlooked is the Ferrari F50 GT1, which never got to race at all. It was supposed to race against the McLaren F1 GTR's, Porsche 911 GT1, Mercedes CLK GTR, etc. It's one of the great "what if' stories.
I remember the Radio Shack RC of the Porsche 911 GT1 I still have the Road & Track magazine that featured the Porsche 911 GT1 and the Mercedes CLK GTR road cars. That Gran Turismo music though 😁
Really nice content. Lots of interesting stuff from all your videos. I really hope you keep doing videos despite being a small chanel, the quality of the videos is really high and i know you will keep developing the quality of it over time. For the time being keep working and good luck
Why did Porsche abandon Le Mans? I’m guessing it’s because top level motorsport isn’t cheap, it’s a money pit. There comes a point where the manufacturers accountants look at the pros and cons and say that a motorsport race series is no longer worth entering.
@@MegaBYSON Porsche couldn’t compete… without spending vast sums of money in research and development. Why have so many Formula 1 manufacturers quit over the past 10 or 15 years? Motorsport is not cheap.
Lancia and Audi both build homologation specials way before Porsche, in the rally world. Dr Porsche was also racing well before WW2. Just not with his own company.
They did??? Before the 1973 911 Carrera RS Or the 1972 bmw CSL? or the 1965 Shelby gt350?...... Homologation specials were not new in the 80s...... I get it man, you think your a classic motorsports enthusiast now because you saw the Grand Tour special covering the Audi and lancia rivalry........cool dude 👍
@@MiguelGarcia-vj7oo Lancia Did it well before group B. The Stratos was a competition special. The 911 and BMW batmobile where built on existing platforms and where not the game changers that the Stratos or Quatro were. Also I never watch grand tour, Clarkson is more of a wanker than your gatekeeping comment.
One normally thinks of Le Mans cars as being prototypes or one iff efforts (Mazda 787, Dauer 962) uet the one Porsche Street Version GT1 for homologation was a one off. FIA "sports car" racing has gone a long way away from the days when Porsche built 25 917s to qualify as a production car.
Gonna say, wasn't the thing with Group C was that it was actually very sane and thus successful (unlike Group B which really was unhinged). The insane bit was killing the whole lot off with the infamous F1 engines rule change. Pricing out everyone except big manufacturers... who then promptly left for F1 proper anyway. GT1 was basically a way to rescue Le Mans from oblivion.
@@AJBa83 group C cars got so scarily fast that they had to add chicanes to the mulsanne straight! Yes it was ultimately the move to F1 engines and trying to spin group c off as a formula series that killed it, but by the later years (even pre-F1 engines) it was pretty crazy
@@automobilistic that's true. I've always wondered what an onboard from Win Percy's Mulsanne Jaguar crash would be like since according to Brundle he could see the tops of the trees underneath. Makes Dumbreck'd flying CLR look a bit small.
Good point, I had forgotten about the MC8-R. That being said I doubt Porsche weren't already working on the 911 GT1, as the MC8-R was revealed only a year before the 911 GT1 started racing.
@@automobilistic ah fair. Would be hard to believe the 96 car was developed that short. I do think the mc8-r deserves mention when talking about the rise of late 90s gt1.
The McLaren F1 was conceived and created before the creation of the BPR Global GT series, let alone the LMGT1 class, and so it is not fair to say the F1 was a homologation special the likes of which Porsche, Mercedes and Toyota built. It is certainly true that Mercedes finished the class though haha
@ countreefus I agree with tehsheik. It was the F1 that really set this all off, especially when it won Le Mans in 1995. Remember, Mercedes used the F1 as a test mule for their CLK GTR race car.
@@Thnsrd42 I agree that the F1 was a formidable GT car, but it was a road car first, and a race car second, which is within the spirit of the GT1 regulations. Was its pace responsible for porsche's re-reading of the rules? Quite possibly, but the F1 was not a homologation special like the 911 GT1 and Mercedes CLK-GTR. Goes to show just how good the F1 was that other teams needed a re-think to compete!
i think its incorrec to call the 911 GT1 itself a failure. The Le Mans GT1 class as a whole failed, but the Porsche GT1 was the one of the manufacturers to win the damn race with it
The 911 GT1 certainly wasnt a failure, it won Le Mans! But it wasnt the fastest car there, and that is reflected by the fact porsche chose to stop racing in GT1 even before the class was killed off
Porsche didn't "abandon Le Mans. After so much success in the 89s and 90s people (fans and other manufacturers) were getting tired of hearing about Porsche. So they turned their chassis development data over to sister company Audi. The R8 was born and Porsche A.G. continued to dominate under a different name. BTW: While Dr. Porsche was essentially conscripted by Hitler to design military vehicles and the Volkswagen during WWII, he got his start in automotive engineering with Auto Union in the 30s and designed some of their most successful Grand Prix cars.
Porsche were developing an LMP car for 2000, sadly it was scrapped and the progress was turned into the Carrera GT. Its my understanding that VW (who owned Audi from 1998) only merged with Porsche in 2011, and so if it is the case that Porsche were the brains behind Audi's great successes in the early 2000s I would love to know more about how that came to be!
@@automobilistic Porsche has been developing stuff for Audi since the late 80s ..... Porsches actually designed the VR6 engine and the corrado. They would also develop the RS2........ There's dealer showroom posters showcasing the 964 and RS2 together.
I still can't get my head around, Porsche nuts who insist that putting the engine behind the rear wheels is the best design. Even Porsche itself stopped doing that in their top tier racers over 60 years ago.
Just saying Porsche would not return for several Years is Sportscars not only misleading but dening interessting stories in its own. First Porsche did continue to produce GT2 and GTE cars for customer Teams with several class wins e.g. Manthey in '99 and Proton in '10. Additionally the LMP 2000 project Porsche denied exited until last year. The reason for cancellation are rumored but likely Audi R8. Than in 2005 with semi works Team Penske entering ALMS in LMP2. In 2008 and '09 customer treams even class win in Le Mans with this car. It is true a full blown works Team did not exitst up until 2013, but saying Porsche was not involved in Sportscar racing is so wrong.
The GT1 is only 40kg lighter than my stock 1979 930. Would not an aluminium, or better yet carbon, tub have made more sense? F1 had been using carbon for a decade at this point and Lotus had a street car (Elise) in aluminium.
This mostly had to do with the weight regulations of the GT1 class, which set a minimum allowed weight. 1996/7 there was no incentive for Porsche to save weight, as they were already as light as was allowed by the regulations. That being said many of the cars that competed in 1999 used aluminium honeycomb chassis, though that is at least in part due to the weight limit being decreased to 950 kg if I remember correctly
A little bit of an off-topic but related titbit: in competitive sailing (e.g. my dad races 505s, and I used to race Laser Radials) it's common for the class to have a minimum weight for the boat. It's common these days for the most competitive boats to be built underweight, the weight is then brought up to the minimum using lead ballast. Doing this lets you optimise the weight distribution of the boat in a way that wouldn't be possible if the weight was structural. Have racing car manufacturers ever done something similar?
The 917 was not a homologated car, as it raced in the Group 6 prototype class. The only road-legal examples of 917s are as a result of private modification. Porsche themselves never produced a 917 road car, as it was not required by the regulations of its class
@@automobilistic they did make one road legal 917K for the, at the time, owner of the Martini brand. It initially had Alabama plates and then changed to Texan ones in the early 00s after the owner's death.
Can I just say this, when all the manufactures were in their prime. Porsche wrong place and time with their quick cornering car, Toyota with their fast vehicle and Mercedes choice with their v8. Etc etc.
I think Porsche must have been a bit aggrieved that the TWR bitsa WSC car beat their true works effort twice in succession at Le Mans. They had a habit of losing interest when the works team lost, Like the late 80"s when they dropped the full works Group C cars after losing to Jaguar. They supported the privateers well (Joest) but weren't fully in it any more.
Not the first time with Porsche gets pissed when someone improves their own cars and beats their own game. the first time this happened was in 1956 when a swiss engineer put a wing on a 550 Spyder(before chaparral since he gets all the credit). I think he sets pole and Porsche lobbied to bann it since it beat their own works 550s with an A-list team of driver's..... Like savages, the officials ripped off the wing. Another time was with the Kremer racing 935k3...... Porsche was upset that it was better then their 935/78 which was the final factory version of the dominating 935 family...... The K3 would dominate everything and even defeat prototypes..... It's only kryptonite was the Zakspeed Ford capris in the DRM........
@@MiguelGarcia-vj7oo they can't have been that fussed about the 935 though as they continued to offer Joest and Kremer support after that when they ran the 936 copies and after that when they didn't have proper group c customer 956's. Mad given how awful the 1980 or 81 917 turned out. I think as any manufacturer would however, offer more customer support when they weren't up against the factory cars. But the 956/962 era was rife with the RLR tubs and privateers running massively modified chassis, yet Porsche still offered factory support to the Joest cars in the late 80's.
Good point. That being said I highly doubt Porsche weren't already working on the 911 GT1, as the MC8-R was revealed only a year before the 911 GT1 started racing. Additionally, the huge failure of the MC8-R probably isn't what encouraged other manufacturers to follow suit - failure doesn't make for great inspiration lol
@@michaelgomez4994 they were both in the same class, man........ Jesus Christ.........and a lower class 911 was second place.... The 911 was winner overall as well in 1973 against prototypes. And a 935k3 won le mans overall in 1979. And the McLaren F1 won le mans overall in 1995..... It happens....... Sometimes the GT cars get the best of the prototypes........
I don't feel it was anti-Porsche at all! I have a lot of respect for the brand, I love a lot of their cars, I think other videos I've made about Porsches illustrate that. This video simply tells the story of this Porsche, there's no agenda lol
The background music for those interested:
0:00 - Gran Turismo 4 - Arcade Mode
0:27 - Gran Turismo 3 - Light Velocity / Car Dealer (my own remix)
2:17 - Gran Turismo 3 - Slipstream
4:12 - Gran Turismo 2 - East City
That makes the video 1000 times better hahahaha
I would contend that Group C was not madness in its initial concept, but morphed towards that over time. I was just starting my mechanical engineering degree when it came out and the concept was fairly simple. Anything goes along as it fits into the silhouette except how much fuel you have. The idea was to drive innovation in motor sport.
It started to come unstuck with Sauber, who had the massive V8 twin turbo they could wind up for qualification and getting to the front and then dial back for fuel economy. In a way it did all the groundwork for what Audi later did with diesels. But that also means that Sauber was innovating.
The problem with Group C was it allowed those with enough money to out innovate the others. In a way that's motorsport at the top levels. Its as much about who can out innovate the rest rather than who has the best driver.
AND ITS ALWAYS BEEN THAT WAY.
I hear Porsche, BMW, Ferrari will go back to Le Mans from 2023 -2024..
Talking of Gran Turismo, the Strassenversion is now on GT7 - it's not quite as effective as the track version but it can be tuned at least
@@BOABModels I'm looking forward to getting my hands on GT7, need to get my hands on a playstation though first haha
GT1 Era was amazing for the cars produced. CLK, Porsche GT1, F1, Lister, Lotus GT1, Diablo G1, Panoz
I agree, some of the greatest cars ever made in my opinion
Well the top le mans cars of the late 90s and early 2000s are maybe the most revolutionary sports cars ever built.
They're so revolutionary that today manufacturers still produce hypercars in the same style.
Pagani is a good example.
Include the Ferrari F50 GT in that because that is a BEAST
@@Gangsta_Playz more appropriately the maserati mc12
Totally agree. It's unfortunate that the politically driven rule makers then proceeded to ruin things.
Again.
Didn't know Porsche back in '98 defied gravity like the CLR one year later.
BMW LM also had it happen.
@@iandc7050 oh yeh, not quite as perfect of a flying flip but wayyyyy more scary in an open top car :|
Also that flying car at monza that almost clipped audi r8's rear wing
Sauber had a flight in the 80s aswell
@David van den Boom at the Mulsanne crest in 1985
this was the pinnacle of sports car racing. never been a fan of prototypes - they don't look like anything on the road. but these GT1 monsters, the fact that you could buy them and see them on the road made them feel just a bit nearer to you.
that was what I was initially hoping from lmh but oh well, atleast we have a decent amount of teams nows
@@askeladden450 i like that lmdh at least have unique looks to them. DPI and lmp all looked like they were stamped out of the same car factory.
This a very odd take, because its litterally the opposite.
Group GT1 was intended to race sports cars, yes.
But that changed, when Porsche created the 911 GT1 for the 1996 season.
After that, it was essentially a prototype in everything, except name.
And unless you were the Sultan of Brunai, you couldn't buy any of them.
So all in this is a very odd comment.
@@Orcawhale1 odd if you're too stupid to understand nuance and subtlety sure.
Lol, I think it was easier to see on at the racetrack, than the road version on streets
If I had a racing team with enough funds to participate in the WEC from 2023 onwards, I'd enter a Porsche with a livery reminiscent of the 911 GT1 '98. As I grew up in Germany, I grew up with Playing cards depicting predominantly German race cars. This white, blue and neon-red livery with the Mobil, IBM and Warsteiner-sponsor stickers will stay embedded in my brain forever. It's a prime example of a livery done perfectly!
Porsche did something like that at Petit Le Mans in 2018
i would have a merc clk lm 98 for todays wec :)
GT1 was the downloadable car of the NFS series game Porsche Unleashed. Like you, whenever I come across GT1 name I always think of that livery. It's just awesome.
I’m partial to the Lancia/Martini Liveries. Rally Icon and TIMELESS
I remember the GT1 era fondly, it went so crazy so quickly.
Every day I find new motorsports content on youtube and am blown away by how few views/subs the creators get. This is class stuff right here, great content
Thanks! Really glad you enjoyed it
That LeMans win was very similar to Mazda's. A slow midfield car that won because faster cars blew up.
A tribute to engineering really though
To finish first, first you must finish.
Not really: they did 4th and 5th in quali. You could say that of the 1995 McLaren F1 GTR which was 10s a lap slower than the prototypes it toppled, but certainly not of the 911 GT1 98', which was 1-2s slower over a lap compared to CLK LM & GT-One, over a 11km track. But if your technology can't last the 24h, you lost either way.
The 911 GT1 was really quick. It was only just behind the Mercedes CLK LM and Toyota GT One
It's sad that porsche only made 1 example of gt1 98. Imagine if they made loads of them like merceedes' clk gtr
"loads of them" and CLK GTR don't really work in one sentence
There is no homologation version of the 1998 Mercedes (with a V8 engine) either. Both Porsche and Mercedes built 25 homologation cars of their 1997 version.
@@X8X8X8X8X8X8X8X8X8XThere is one CLK LM road car
@@Jusuff
Oh, yes, you are correct.
Love the video :) despite being a 911 gt1 fanboy. The 993 gt1 road car is just the ultimate man made thing ever
Or maybe the Furai obviously
They didn't actually gave up after 1998, as they did invest a lot of time and money in the LMP2000, that never raced...
So, the hiatus really only began after that.
The LMP2000, such a shame it never got the chance to race ... 😞
Thanks for another stellar video. Love the history you provide on these amazing cars. Cheers!!
You're very welcome! Glad you enjoyed!
The legendary 917 also used a loophole like that to be homologated. It changed the goal posts and the not less legendary 70 and 71 seasons happened.
I recently found your channel last week and I have have now watched almost every video.
Your channel is just so great
Thanks! Really happy you're enjoying the videos!
Fantastic video. Great looking car. Cannot believe some were homolgated. Keep up the good work.
FIA really knows how to kill off the most exciting car categories: Group C, GT1, free engine design in F1 etc.
It's more complicated than that...
1.
Group C was already dying of a slow death when the FIA brought that 3.5 liter rule in 1990. That's a thing which isn't often said...
First of all, when the FIA created Group A, Group B, and Group C in 1982 things didn't go as planned. The FIA assumed that a Group B circuit racing would rise: that didn't happened. Which is why you got kind of a jump from Group 5 in the 1970s and early 1980s to GT1 in the GT circuit racing top class in Europe, and see some cars looking like touring cars in the 1980s IMSA GTO and SCCA Trans-Am. It's weird.
It's also why they changed the name "world endurance championship" to "World Sports Prototype Championship" in 1986.
But Group C had been used in "DTM" (well, DRM actually, but it's the same championship) up until 1985. It wasn't used anymore, been replaced by group A and than some DTM evolutionary rules.
The BDRS SC was already moving away from C2 because some races had 9 competitors. That championship replaced thundersport...
The interseries started to have Formula 2 and 3000 readapted, replaced some Group C and Can-am cars.
By 1989, in the world sports car championship : the Sauber C9 that won was based on the Sauber C8, dating from 1985. The Porsche 962 dated from 1983-84. The Jaguar XJR-9 was evolved from a project dating from 1985.
So the FIA wanted to shake things up in Group C to make the cars more modern, reduce cost in F1, and bring a world touring car series on crack by using the same engine all around... It didn't work as expected: too many teams tried in F1 and not enough in sports cars. Meanwhile, the cost of engines skyrocketed. The Alfa Romeo 164 procar was weirdly great to see, but that gone nowhere because nobody was interested.
The intention were good. On paper the plan seemed great. Even how it was implemented had some good effects.
They just didn't expect that much investment in F1 by teams during a recession. They also didn't expect the news sportcars to be that lacking in endurance and some old group C to still be that good.
GT1 wasn't an FIA idea. It was by Jürgen Barth, Patrick Peter, and Stéphane Ratel. The SRO group and their GT3 tours? That was the early efforts of many of the same guys! The idea was to bring different cars used in one brand series together, including some touring cars.
The FIA adopted their class system, because they can do that sometimes, and gave an homologation for a world championship to the same group.
Here it wasn't just the FIA that killed it but also economics and bad timing: McLaren pulled out at the end of 1998, Panoz was talking of moving to the new LMP-1 class instead, BMW had pulled out two years earlier, one of Zackspeed car skipped one race and wanted to move to GT2 only (turns out that the viper was fun for them). Davidoff Classic racing team pulled out somewhere in 1998 from Gt1.
At some points, you need a minimum number of entries to support a class. It died during the winter of 1998 due to lack of entries.
The free engine design in F1: if you means the V12 and V8 in F1, everyone was de facto using a V10 before it became a rule to use a V10. I would like that the FIA bring some rules to encourage variability in F1 engines, I'm not sure how that could be done.
0:15 bro thought this was rocket league
Love the Gran Turismo 2 music (I think it was in 1 too, but I played that one like 5 min)
Excellent content. Ive seen only one of these irl (not racing, stationary) and i think it still had a classic livery on it. Iconic.
first. great stuff you provide here. keep it coming, and hopefully your channel explodes, like it deserves!
Great video! I loved the 1998 GT1.
As far as GT1 cars turning into prototypes, BPR and the FIA brought that on themselves. Under BPR rules, you only needed to build 1 road car to homologate the race car. That essentially encouraged manufacturers to build a GT prototype, which ended up killing the class.
Had they raised the homologation number and encouraged manufacturers to convert road cars to racing, rather than the other way around, GT1 could have been extremely popular. Imagine McLaren F1 GTRs racing Ferrari F50s.
Love the Gran Turismo music in the background. Glorious!
The OST is amazing
fingers crossed that the Porsche-Penske outfit will have success next year
Well it was nerfed. other GT1 cars had 630hp the 911 GT1 only had 550hp because of the FIA GT1 rules stated that turbo charged cars had to be dropped 70hp.
A good example is in the 97 FIA GT1 championship the Porsche 911 GT1 couldn't keep up with the McLaren F1 GTR, and Mercedes CLK GTR, but at lemans the McLaren F1 GTR was getting dusted by the 911 GT1 till it caught fire. The 911 GT1 should be 3× Lemans champion.
The WSC-95 was faster than the 911 GT-1 in 96 and proven reliable, it was rightly the odds on favourite. The 97 car beat itself with that massive engine fire, but it's worth remembering that we hadn't quite reached the era of bullet proof reliability that Audi would uscher in for the 2000's.
@@andrewcarter9649 the 911 GT1 should be 3 time lemans champions. (2 overall)
@@barryjohnson5288 in 97 there was a intake ruling that would affect boosted cars more than n/a..... Which is why the aging F1 was still able to be competitive in 97.... Fina shinitzer BMW F1 lost it's championship lead on the final race of the season when a the leading car cought on fire.......
clearly porsche fan boy making stuff up to save face, it couldn't compete, it was a long time ago
@@MegaBYSON at turbocharged GT1 cars were detuend to 550hp by the FIA rules, I'm not making it up.
Love the gran turismo music. Great channel
I was lucky enough to work on the gt1 in Germany 1996 whilst employed by Lola 🚘
I was on the back straight on Road Atlanta when the GT1 98 decided it wanted to be a F-22.
Me: sees the clickbait thumbnail while remembering who the manufacturer with the most wins at Le Mans.
I disagree that its clickbait. As I detail in the video, the reason that Porsche stopped racing the 911 GT1 (and ultimately left the sport until 2005), was because they felt the car was "too slow" to be competitive against the new cars from Mercedes and Toyota.
One car that is often overlooked is the Ferrari F50 GT1, which never got to race at all. It was supposed to race against the McLaren F1 GTR's, Porsche 911 GT1, Mercedes CLK GTR, etc. It's one of the great "what if' stories.
I remember the Radio Shack RC of the Porsche 911 GT1 I still have the Road & Track magazine that featured the Porsche 911 GT1 and the Mercedes CLK GTR road cars. That Gran Turismo music though 😁
Really nice content. Lots of interesting stuff from all your videos. I really hope you keep doing videos despite being a small chanel, the quality of the videos is really high and i know you will keep developing the quality of it over time. For the time being keep working and good luck
Thanks! I really appreciate the support and the kind words. Plenty more content on the way!
I've been watching your videos for 4 hours straight now
"intervoven with motorsport like no other" you say...one company pops into my head right away though.
Pennzoil, right?
That flip was sick!
Watching these cars fly gives me Top Gear vibes where we learned that Mark Weber is The Stig's favorite pilot.
Gran turismo music is a nice touch, nice video
@automobilistic The funny thing is that the 911 GT1 isn't the only mid engine 911. The RSR's as of late are mid engined & have been doing quite well.
That GT one era was fantastic to watch trackside, Porsche, Mercedes, Nissan, BMW and Toyota slugging it out, happy days.
1:26 Hey.. That is the best looking Nissan >~< Even better than any Skyline! Don't hurt her :(. She is not weird, she is special..
Thank you for sharing this insightful story. ✌🏻🇺🇸
How does this only have 1k views wtf?
Why did Porsche abandon Le Mans?
I’m guessing it’s because top level motorsport isn’t cheap, it’s a money pit. There comes a point where the manufacturers accountants look at the pros and cons and say that a motorsport race series is no longer worth entering.
he said it in the video, 'Porsche believed it couldn't compete', please don't make stuff up
@@MegaBYSON Porsche couldn’t compete… without spending vast sums of money in research and development. Why have so many Formula 1 manufacturers quit over the past 10 or 15 years? Motorsport is not cheap.
Great video
The Group B and the GT1 era were the best era in racing.
Please try to do an episode on the Lotus Elise GT1.
Absolute bonkers car.
Lancia and Audi both build homologation specials way before Porsche, in the rally world.
Dr Porsche was also racing well before WW2. Just not with his own company.
They did??? Before the 1973 911 Carrera RS Or the 1972 bmw CSL? or the 1965 Shelby gt350?...... Homologation specials were not new in the 80s...... I get it man, you think your a classic motorsports enthusiast now because you saw the Grand Tour special covering the Audi and lancia rivalry........cool dude 👍
@@MiguelGarcia-vj7oo Lancia Did it well before group B. The Stratos was a competition special.
The 911 and BMW batmobile where built on existing platforms and where not the game changers that the Stratos or Quatro were.
Also I never watch grand tour, Clarkson is more of a wanker than your gatekeeping comment.
Right until Porsche returned back to Le Mans to compete in the Le Mans Grand Touring Endurance class and the Le Mans Prototype 1 Hybrid class.
and.....
@@MegaBYSON continued on until they left, then developed their new hypercar which they will return to compete in Le Mans
One normally thinks of Le Mans cars as being prototypes or one iff efforts (Mazda 787, Dauer 962) uet the one Porsche Street Version GT1 for homologation was a one off. FIA "sports car" racing has gone a long way away from the days when Porsche built 25 917s to qualify as a production car.
Love the Gran Turismo soundtrack…
GT1 was created to stop the madness, but it only needed a year to turn insane
Haven't seen anything backfire as bad since the skirt ban in 1981
I'd loved to see the F50 GT racing against those.
As did so many of us.
“Insane Group C” ? Don’t you mean WONDERFUL…
I mean both haha
@@automobilistic 🤣
Gonna say, wasn't the thing with Group C was that it was actually very sane and thus successful (unlike Group B which really was unhinged). The insane bit was killing the whole lot off with the infamous F1 engines rule change. Pricing out everyone except big manufacturers... who then promptly left for F1 proper anyway. GT1 was basically a way to rescue Le Mans from oblivion.
@@AJBa83 group C cars got so scarily fast that they had to add chicanes to the mulsanne straight! Yes it was ultimately the move to F1 engines and trying to spin group c off as a formula series that killed it, but by the later years (even pre-F1 engines) it was pretty crazy
@@automobilistic that's true. I've always wondered what an onboard from Win Percy's Mulsanne Jaguar crash would be like since according to Brundle he could see the tops of the trees underneath. Makes Dumbreck'd flying CLR look a bit small.
The sard mc8-r entered Le Mans in 1995 and it was the first to do the one off homologation car entry. Porsche got the idea from them
Good point, I had forgotten about the MC8-R. That being said I doubt Porsche weren't already working on the 911 GT1, as the MC8-R was revealed only a year before the 911 GT1 started racing.
@@automobilistic ah fair. Would be hard to believe the 96 car was developed that short. I do think the mc8-r deserves mention when talking about the rise of late 90s gt1.
Appears they failed to observe the "keep the rubber side down" technique ...
The Mclaren F1 was out before the 911 GT1. Mclaren started the madness, Mercedes finished it. Great vid though.
The McLaren F1 was conceived and created before the creation of the BPR Global GT series, let alone the LMGT1 class, and so it is not fair to say the F1 was a homologation special the likes of which Porsche, Mercedes and Toyota built. It is certainly true that Mercedes finished the class though haha
@ countreefus I agree with tehsheik. It was the F1 that really set this all off, especially when it won Le Mans in 1995. Remember, Mercedes used the F1 as a test mule for their CLK GTR race car.
@@Thnsrd42 I agree that the F1 was a formidable GT car, but it was a road car first, and a race car second, which is within the spirit of the GT1 regulations. Was its pace responsible for porsche's re-reading of the rules? Quite possibly, but the F1 was not a homologation special like the 911 GT1 and Mercedes CLK-GTR. Goes to show just how good the F1 was that other teams needed a re-think to compete!
Can you make a video of Toyota GT ONE, and the new Toyota ,ganzo,that is destroying the new prototype class?
When your race car identifies as an airplane.
i think its incorrec to call the 911 GT1 itself a failure. The Le Mans GT1 class as a whole failed, but the Porsche GT1 was the one of the manufacturers to win the damn race with it
The 911 GT1 certainly wasnt a failure, it won Le Mans! But it wasnt the fastest car there, and that is reflected by the fact porsche chose to stop racing in GT1 even before the class was killed off
I love the Gran Turismo music
Your pronunciation is impeccable.
So much space left without sponsors. 😹
Mercedes should consider putting some on the floor. There is so much footages of the cars from that angle.
Esse caso é o mesmo das Mercedes, . A área na frente do eixo dianteiro, é muito comprida
I want to play Gran Turismo 3 so bad right now.
Mercedes-Benz: “Hold my downforce.”
Porsche didn't "abandon Le Mans. After so much success in the 89s and 90s people (fans and other manufacturers) were getting tired of hearing about Porsche. So they turned their chassis development data over to sister company Audi. The R8 was born and Porsche A.G. continued to dominate under a different name.
BTW: While Dr. Porsche was essentially conscripted by Hitler to design military vehicles and the Volkswagen during WWII, he got his start in automotive engineering with Auto Union in the 30s and designed some of their most successful Grand Prix cars.
Porsche were developing an LMP car for 2000, sadly it was scrapped and the progress was turned into the Carrera GT. Its my understanding that VW (who owned Audi from 1998) only merged with Porsche in 2011, and so if it is the case that Porsche were the brains behind Audi's great successes in the early 2000s I would love to know more about how that came to be!
@@automobilistic Porsche has been developing stuff for Audi since the late 80s ..... Porsches actually designed the VR6 engine and the corrado. They would also develop the RS2........ There's dealer showroom posters showcasing the 964 and RS2 together.
Porsche didn't have enough money to put his cars into the race in the early years of Porsche.
True, if I remember correctly they first competed at Le Mans specifically in the early 50s
What a beautiful car tho
You win the prize for being the first automobile journalist who correctly says “miles per hour” - well done!!
Thank you for your awesome videos i fucking adore so much that you use the awesome Gran turismo soundtrack keep the amazing content coming plz!
996Headlight♥
Wait but Group B started the trend of making road cars by designing rally cars
The real question is, how much is that road car they made one of worth???
I still can't get my head around, Porsche nuts who insist that putting the engine behind the rear wheels is the best design. Even Porsche itself stopped doing that in their top tier racers over 60 years ago.
Can you make video about why Audi so dominates 24h le mans
Dr Ulrich ran an amazing team. They could swap an entire rear end assembly in an insanely short time. They had some of the best drivers and engineers.
GT1 Championship was killed off by the Mercedes CLK GTR. It was winning everything.
wait the Ferdinand was from Porsche?
prettiest car ever made
Just saying Porsche would not return for several Years is Sportscars not only misleading but dening interessting stories in its own. First Porsche did continue to produce GT2 and GTE cars for customer Teams with several class wins e.g. Manthey in '99 and Proton in '10. Additionally the LMP 2000 project Porsche denied exited until last year. The reason for cancellation are rumored but likely Audi R8. Than in 2005 with semi works Team Penske entering ALMS in LMP2. In 2008 and '09 customer treams even class win in Le Mans with this car. It is true a full blown works Team did not exitst up until 2013, but saying Porsche was not involved in Sportscar racing is so wrong.
The GT1 is only 40kg lighter than my stock 1979 930. Would not an aluminium, or better yet carbon, tub have made more sense? F1 had been using carbon for a decade at this point and Lotus had a street car (Elise) in aluminium.
This mostly had to do with the weight regulations of the GT1 class, which set a minimum allowed weight. 1996/7 there was no incentive for Porsche to save weight, as they were already as light as was allowed by the regulations. That being said many of the cars that competed in 1999 used aluminium honeycomb chassis, though that is at least in part due to the weight limit being decreased to 950 kg if I remember correctly
@@automobilistic Thanks.
A little bit of an off-topic but related titbit: in competitive sailing (e.g. my dad races 505s, and I used to race Laser Radials) it's common for the class to have a minimum weight for the boat. It's common these days for the most competitive boats to be built underweight, the weight is then brought up to the minimum using lead ballast.
Doing this lets you optimise the weight distribution of the boat in a way that wouldn't be possible if the weight was structural. Have racing car manufacturers ever done something similar?
@@nerd1000ify Our boats were never weighed so never carried ballast.
@@nerd1000ify pretty much every race car manufacturer in every series does this nowadays if they can if a minimum weight is imposed.
Remember guys, to finish first. First you need to finish!
What Porsche did with the GT1, wasn't it just the same with the 917 decades earlier?
The 917 was not a homologated car, as it raced in the Group 6 prototype class. The only road-legal examples of 917s are as a result of private modification. Porsche themselves never produced a 917 road car, as it was not required by the regulations of its class
@@automobilistic they did make one road legal 917K for the, at the time, owner of the Martini brand. It initially had Alabama plates and then changed to Texan ones in the early 00s after the owner's death.
They’re still there
bravo
Can I just say this, when all the manufactures were in their prime. Porsche wrong place and time with their quick cornering car, Toyota with their fast vehicle and Mercedes choice with their v8. Etc etc.
Eu sou mais slow e ainda cá ando.
I think Porsche must have been a bit aggrieved that the TWR bitsa WSC car beat their true works effort twice in succession at Le Mans. They had a habit of losing interest when the works team lost, Like the late 80"s when they dropped the full works Group C cars after losing to Jaguar. They supported the privateers well (Joest) but weren't fully in it any more.
Not the first time with Porsche gets pissed when someone improves their own cars and beats their own game. the first time this happened was in 1956 when a swiss engineer put a wing on a 550 Spyder(before chaparral since he gets all the credit). I think he sets pole and Porsche lobbied to bann it since it beat their own works 550s with an A-list team of driver's..... Like savages, the officials ripped off the wing. Another time was with the Kremer racing 935k3...... Porsche was upset that it was better then their 935/78 which was the final factory version of the dominating 935 family...... The K3 would dominate everything and even defeat prototypes..... It's only kryptonite was the Zakspeed Ford capris in the DRM........
@@MiguelGarcia-vj7oo they can't have been that fussed about the 935 though as they continued to offer Joest and Kremer support after that when they ran the 936 copies and after that when they didn't have proper group c customer 956's. Mad given how awful the 1980 or 81 917 turned out. I think as any manufacturer would however, offer more customer support when they weren't up against the factory cars. But the 956/962 era was rife with the RLR tubs and privateers running massively modified chassis, yet Porsche still offered factory support to the Joest cars in the late 80's.
Easy, they're saving money for F1 campaign
6:18
Porsche didnt create the trend
Toyota did with the failure named MC8R
Good point. That being said I highly doubt Porsche weren't already working on the 911 GT1, as the MC8-R was revealed only a year before the 911 GT1 started racing. Additionally, the huge failure of the MC8-R probably isn't what encouraged other manufacturers to follow suit - failure doesn't make for great inspiration lol
Ahh yes, the people's car. How do we forget
fun fact: the porsche gt1 was beaten by the corvette c5r at the 2001 daytona 24h
There's a reason Porsche ended the factory effort after 1998...
No shit it makes since.... The GT1 was super old by then and wasn't that competitive originally anyways..........
@@MiguelGarcia-vj7oo the c5r was in a slower class. and still won
@@MiguelGarcia-vj7oo it’s not a gt1 car and beat all gt1 cars and prototypes at the daytona 24h
@@michaelgomez4994 they were both in the same class, man........ Jesus Christ.........and a lower class 911 was second place.... The 911 was winner overall as well in 1973 against prototypes. And a 935k3 won le mans overall in 1979. And the McLaren F1 won le mans overall in 1995..... It happens....... Sometimes the GT cars get the best of the prototypes........
Automoblism? interesting
Too slow, but still amazing
Question for germans: is this pronounciation of Porsche correct?
9
NO TECH IN GERMAN CARS 2022.
Love them or loathe them Porsche is one of the ugliest cars on the road so why do some people swoon over them?
I wish you'd get to the point!
Porsche and WW2 tanks doesn’t sit right with me. But who asked.
Porshhh
A purely biased 'Anti-Porsche' video👎. If you want to make a proper video, at least try to make it from a neutral point of view. 'Boo'
I don't feel it was anti-Porsche at all! I have a lot of respect for the brand, I love a lot of their cars, I think other videos I've made about Porsches illustrate that. This video simply tells the story of this Porsche, there's no agenda lol