The 1998 24 Hours of Le Mans was the 66th Grand Prix of Endurance and took place on 6 and 7 June 1998. It was won by the Porsche of Allan McNish, Stéphane Ortelli and Laurent Aïello, giving Porsche its record-extending 16th overall victory. The race had promised much with Porsche facing major works efforts from the Mercedes-Benz, Toyota, Nissan and Panoz GT teams as well as BMW and Ferrari prototypes. From the flagfall, at the earlier start-time of 2pm, it was the Toyota team setting the pace and by the evening, it was apparent it was going to be a Porsche versus Toyota duel, with the rest broken or left in their wake. The Toyota GT-One was racing on debut and gearbox problems afflicted all three of the cars before nightfall after leading comfortably. It was then that the two Porsche works cars took over, staying in front through the night, as the Toyotas pushed hard to make back the time lost. As dawn broke it was the Porsches' turn to have mechanical problems and the Toyota of Geoff Lees/Thierry Boutsen/Ralf Kelleners grabbed the lead back again. In 1997, Porsche had lost the victory in the final hours. This year it was Toyota and the Porsche 911 GT1 finally won at its third attempt. The latter part of the race was very tense, thrilling the crowd, with the Toyota and Porsche staying on the same lap for five hours, without letting up. It was finally broken at 12.35pm, with less than 90 minutes to go. Kelleners had a 1-minute lead over McNish, each with one pitstop remaining but it was then that the Toyota’s gearbox broke and he coasted to a stop. Thereafter, with three laps gap to the nearest Nissan, McNish and Alzen were able to ease back to take a 1-2 Porsche finish. For the works Nissan finishing third, it was the first time an all-Japanese crew had been on the Le Mans podium, and all four of the team cars finished. The prototypes never had the pace to match the GT1s and all had issues of some sort. The best placed was the Doyle-Risi Ferrari finishing 8th, 19 laps back. In the GT2 class, it was a 1-2 finish for the Viper Team ORECA Chryslers, running trouble-free and winning convincingly over the Porsche 911 teams.
Regulations Once again, the Automobile Club de l'Ouest (ACO) made no notable changes to their technical specifications. The Prototype class was renamed LM-P1. The maximum allowed engine volume was increased from 5.1 to 6.0-litres, or 4.0-litres if turbocharged. In the LM-P2 class, engines had to be non-turbo 6-cylinders of a maximum 3.5-litres.Spurring 2014, p.300 The ACO reverted to a standard grid lineup based solely on the practice time. The start-time for the race was also brought forward to 2pm to avoid a TV conflict with the French Open finals.Laban 2001, p.238Williams 2023, p.354Bernard et al 2023, p.81
In the US, Don Panoz liaised with the ACO and received copyright permission on his new race at his Road Atlanta circuit. The Petit Le Mans would be a 1000-mile or 10-hour race (whichever came first) to be held in October as the penultimate round of the 1998 IMSA season.Williams 2023, p.356Bernard et al 2023, p.275 It would be an experiment for both regulators, with both ACO and IMSA classes racing side-by-side.
Entries The 1998 entry list had a very strong manufacturer involvement, with 5 works teams in the Prototypes and 6 in the GT classes. In global racing, the International Sports Racing Series had given small fields in 1997, but the shoots of rebirth were apparent, and the 1998 series was gaining momentum, expanding to 8 rounds with almost twenty entries. In contrast, the GT1 series was already turning into a manufacturer “arms-race” with more and more money being spent. Over 30 prototypes entered for pre-qualifying, led by Porsche, Ferrari and Courage. Riley & Scott returned after winning the IMSA series and new designs came from BMW and WR. The P2 category was on life-support with just a single entry from Debora. In GT there were almost 50 entries, split evenly between GT1 and GT2. Having dominated from the latter half of the 1997 season, Mercedes-Benz looked strong for the win, although untried over 24 hours. Their competition would come from Nissan, Toyota and, of course, Porsche. The ACO gave automatic entry to only 6 cars this year as follows, removing two of the GT2 entries:Spurring 2014, p.298 1997 Le Mans 24hr Prototype class-winner (Joest Racing) 1997 Coupe d’Automne 4hr Prototype class-winner (Courage Compétition) 1997 Le Mans 24hr GT1 class-winner (Gulf Team Davidoff McLaren) 1997 FIA GT Championship GT1 class-winner (AMG-Mercedes) 1997 Coupe d’Automne 4hr GT1 class-winner (Gulf Team Davidoff McLaren) 1997 Le Mans 24hr GT2 class-winner (Elf Haberthur Racing)
Pundits and journalists thought the race was wide open, with at least 20 cars potentially able to take line honours, and no clear favourite. Would new, but fragile, power beat older, proven reliability?Clarke 2000, pp.132-4 Autosport Jun 4 1998Laban 2001, p.237 Also notable was that there were 27 former or current F1 drivers (be it racing, or as test-drivers) in the entry list.
Class Quantity Turboengines LM-P1 23 / 14 12 / 7 LM-P2 1 / 1 0 / 0 LM-GT1 24 / 15 14 / 9 LM-GT2 25 / 17 14 / 12 Total Entries 73 / 47 40 / 28 Note: The first number were at pre-qualification, the second the number who started.
LM-P1 Although Porsche's focus was with its GT1 cars, they invited Reinhold Joest to run their victorious TWR prototype a third time, now as a full works-assisted entry. Joined by the sister car that had been returned to the Porsche factory, they were re-engined with factory 3.2-litre powerplants and given new bodywork from Norbert Singer's design team to improve downforce. Now renamed as the “Porsche LMP1-98”, they also received the GT1 powertrain, gearbox and TAG engine-management system. The engine was restricted to just 530 bhp compared to the 600 bhp of the GT1s, but the car was also almost 80 kg lighter.Spurring 2012, pp.320-1 Michele Alboreto and Stefan Johansson were reunited with their winning car, shared this time with works driver, and triple Le Mans winner, Yannick Dalmas. The second car had a new combination of Pierre-Henri Raphanel, James Weaver and David Murry.
This year, the Ferrari 333 SP was racing in series on both sides of the Atlantic, and four of the cars came to Le Mans. In the USA, racing had fractured into two series with the rival USRRC Can-Am Championship set up against the IMSA GT Championship that was looking to align with the ACO. Many of the prototype teams just ran cars in both and Gianpiero Moretti's Momo Racing Ferrari won the two blue riband events of the respective series, at Daytona and Sebring, at the start of the year. He thus returned to Le Mans with his regular co-drivers Didier Theys and Mauro Baldi (a Le Mans-winner in 1994) looking for a rare endurance triple. Dan Doyle had switched his team from the Riley & Scott to the 333 SP in a new relationship with Houston Ferrari dealer Giuseppe Risi. Their drivers Wayne Taylor and Eric van de Poele had also won a round in the IMSA series and were joined by Fermín Vélez. Both teams were running the latest development of the Ferrari 333, which had aerodynamic revisions, carbon brakes and a new 6-speed gearbox. With the ACO restrictors, it was tuned to 600 bhp.Spurring 2012, pp.308-9 The other team running an upgraded Ferrari was the French JB Racing team, who had won the Brno round of the European series, after replacing their Porsche GT1. With regular team driver Emmanuel Collard being picked up by Toyota for this race, his teammate Vincenzo Sospiri was joined by the French duo of Jean-Christophe Boullion and Jérôme Policand. The fourth car was the four-year old chassis of Stéphane Ratel's Pilot Racing, which did not take up the upgrade kit. Co-owner Michel Ferté had veteran François Migault (in his 25th Le Mans) and Pascal Fabre as co-drivers. Ferrari's rivalry with Riley & Scott carried over to Le Mans again, with honours currently fairly even in the American series. Frenchman Philippe Gache, moving up from the ORECA Team Viper, bought one of the latest R & S Mk IIIs to run it in the ISRS. He had the car set up by the Solution F company in Provence, who had previously prepared his rallying cars. With the engine tuned in the US to produce 550 bhp, the car arrived just in time for Pre-qualifying but only got three quick laps in. The team did then score a 4th place at its first ISRS race, at Brno. For Le Mans, Gache brought in two former motorcycle racers as his co-drivers: Belgian Didier de Radiguès (also a Spa 24 Hours winner in 1997) and the Australian world champion Wayne Gardner, who had both latterly switched to four-wheel racing.Spurring 2014, p.322Bernard et al 2023, p.290
Courage Compétition arrived with its new C51, the first model from a renewed collaboration with Nissan. Back in 1989, Courage had run a March-Nissan alongside its own cars. Built around the turbocharged 3.0-litre V8 VRH-30L engine it, in turn, gave Nissan expertise in prototype chassis design as it looked to move into the LM P1 class. With 32-valves and twin IHI turbos, it put 540 bhp through Hewland's new 6-speed LSG sequential gearbox. Based on the C41 carbon/honeycomb chassis, designer Paolo Catone did extensive work reworking the suspension and rear-end to improve aerodynamics. NISMO Europe's Chris Goodwin came onboard as a project manager. Courage arrived with four cars, in the process becoming the French manufacturer with the most Le Mans starts (17 times).Spurring 2012, pp.318-20Clarke 2000, p.137 Autocar Jun 10 1998 Two of them were C51s, driven by Didier Cottaz/Marc Goossens/Jean-Philippe Belloc in the famous #13, and Fredrik Ekblom/Patrice Gay/Takeshi Tsuchiya. Two Porsche-powered Courages were also entered. The C36 of the La Filière Elf young-driver academy returned. This year the veteran ’’grognard’’ Henri Pescarolo was joined by Olivier Grouillard and French F3 championship leader Franck Montagny. The other car was a 1997 C41 updated by the factory by relocating the radiators to remedy the engine overheating issues. Redesignated the C50, the car was then sold to the Japanese Team AM-PM who had Mazda veteran Yojiro Terada, Franck Fréon and Olivier Thévenin as the drivers.
For their 29th consecutive Le Mans start, the Kremer brothers brought their 5-year-old K8 Spyders out for a last hurrah. Almo Coppelli squeaked in through the Pre-qualifying by the tiniest of margins (0.008 seconds) ahead of the privateer K8 of Franz Konrad. He was joined by Rocky Agusta (moving up from his GT cars) and Xavier Pompidou. An Evo version of the K8 was also entered but its untested aerodynamics gave dangerous handling at high speed, and it failed to qualify.