Everyone and I said EVERYONE remembers the CLR-LM as a laughing stock for it's "take-offs" at the Mulsanne Hump and Indianapolis kink, but what no one remembers is how magnificent-looking, advanced and fast this piece of engeneering was. It was the pinnacle of a 3 years-old perpetual developement for a new Mercedes Era that should have dominated the Endurance World, after the great success of the '97 V12 CLK, which from a "cold start" at the Hockenheim won race after race the FIA GT1 Champ, compleately dominated in 1998 with the CLK-LM the following year but failing to win Le Mans sadly for problems with the new V8 engine (very relaiable in the other Endurance races, but not so much for 24 Hours to the limit), and the obvious '99 ending should have been a triumph in the only race they hadn't won yet: Le Mans. The car itself, was even way more aerodininamically advanced then the predecessor, being designed for Le Mans and LM only, and demonstrated it's enormous potential during the test capaign at Magny-Cours, California Speedway oval, and Hockenheim, but sadly, they forgot the humps and crests (giant one for such speeds) of Le Sarthe during the advanced aero design. If it wasn't for that, the CLR-LM would have dominated the '99 Le Mans 24 Hours for real... she would have pushed on and on with it's battle with Toyota, beating in the end the TS-020s with the new more durable V12 in terms of efficiency, keeping it's pace after the Gt-One retires, leaving no room to the BMW V12-LMR to retake the lead, and ending with a sure win - maybe even in a 1-2 dead-heat parade for the Silver Arrows. In the end, a majestic LM car, with a fatal floor, that deserved another final and another legacy in the mind of the enthusiasts. But I'm sure that you are on my side.
Thanks to it's acrobatics even the floor of the car was well engineered and quite lovely... To me the car looked alot like an airplane wing. It was a gorgeous car though and it was the 2nd best looking prototype besides the Toyota GT-ONE... and yes it's a GT-ONE and NOT a "GT1" lol
Absolutely! The last Le Mans 24h this year was boring as fuck. The cars aren't looking like these anymore. The cars in 1999 were just amazing they had to keep the design like that. These from 2018 are looking like pickup trucks when you look it from the side. Not good. I'm so disappointed of how Le Mans 24h continues to change every year!
@@nanderlizernanderlizer684 They are the most beautiful cars in Le Mans 24h history! Mercedes, BMW, Toyota, Lister... AMAZING cars different from the inside, different from the OUTSIDE which is very important to me and many fans! Years ago like 1950 to 1990 american cars, european cars, japanese cars - you can just take a 1 second look and guess where's been made and the name of the brand and even the name of the model. Now 2019 they all look the same. That's very ugly, everything is mixed and if one brand create something, the others are stealing it immediately and the result is the outside design of the cars is identical. It's Le Mans 24h, not Formula 1 you know...
Great review of '99 that brings up memories of a 24-hour viewing party with friends (Speedvision in the States). All-singing and dancing Toyota beaten by fate and the glorious sounding BMW V12LMR. Love this era!
What the hell is wrong with the 6 people who did the "thumbs down" on this video? How could you not like this? I bet those people don't like beer, sex, music, fishing, or even ping pong. They live lives of liking nothing at all.... This is awesome and thank you for posting this! Watching in 2019 👍👍
@@KarlBainbridge lol... Two votes down from Webber cuz he flipped twice - one from Peter dumbreck cuz he flipped once - and the other 3 votes were from the aerodynamic engineer who built a car that was also a kite.
Wowww sin duda una de las mejores épocas de Le mans, los autos son un sueño, el Toyota gt One, el Mercedes-Benz CLK GTR mi favorito el Viper team oreca, recuerdo cuando los manejaba en el gran turismo 2 😢 son unos sueños de a automóviles
i hope for the mercedes project one and the aston valkyre and maybe an updated ferarri fxxk and the new mclaren speedtail with a new aero kit the only thing im missing is a porsche
My wife and I were there. With the Courage-Nissan Italian driven team. She was watching the video feed in the hospitality tent when the famous back flip took place. My wife has great big brown eyes and they just about doubled in size.
The regulations dictated the laptimes, as they always have at LeMans... they were doing similar race laps in 91 and 92 in the low thirties on the same layout.
@@marks7197 hi Mark, is it actually in the regulations? I imagine it must be quite hard to write that. I know the ACO have always wanted the average lap time to be around 3.30. Their way of ensuring that speeds don't become dangerously high.
@@paulreilly3904 Yes the ACO were constantly altering ballast, tyre widths and air restrictions etc to slow the cars down. The qualifying times of the Group C cars in 1992 were 10 seconds or so faster than the GT1 cars of the late 90s.
@@marks7197, thanks for your reply, endurance racing is my favourite form of motorsports. I learn so much from people such as yourself taking the time to share their knowledge. 👍
@@paulreilly3904 No worries, it was a great era of racing in the group c period, and the early BPR series too. I was fortunate to have watched most of the Silverstone, Brands Hatch and Donington Group C events in person. Give me a shout if there's anything you're interested in, I'll try and answer if I can.
The Japanese driven Toyota GT One car should have won if that car hadn't had that blown tire in the first place. Boy, I wanted that car to win that race. Anyone else agree with me on this?
@@YOUENNNN Well that too but it's also because they're low. Sometimes literally scratching the asphalt. And that's mostly because those are GT cars instead of prototypes. This was a time when hypercars and super-cars were the fastest class at le mans. Modern le mans cars are mostly LMP types and hybrid prototypes and those are too high from the ground. You show me one petrol head that likes high cars.
thevmanvjDept. of Correction: Announcer boo-boo (55:46--55:55)....The spectacular blowover and crash of the Mercedes driven by Peter Dunbreck was NOT on Mulsanne Straight...... it was on the second dogleg curve on the run from Mulsanne Corner to Indianapolis.
11 feb 2019 5:59 pm est: i don't like that name gt-one,why not gt-1.english-language for 'one' is not pronouncable but toyota deliberately use written version for 1,'one' like propaganda
Plz teach everyone how to stop calling the Toyota a GT1... IT IS A GT-ONE! 👍👍👍 And it was the best looking LM car EVER and wouid have ONE the race (won the race.. Haha) if they didn't have so many tire explosions. I think the tire technology was just not good enough for that car and the stress that 700hp and 350kph was doing to the rear tires.... I think it's sad that Toyota only won the 2018 and 2019 le mans because they had NO competition. Everyone knew before the race that they would win and not the same way we all knew audi would win in the early 2000's. The audi won because it was the most reliable, not the fastest car. But there were "equal" cars to the R8, R10 and R15. The R8 was fantastic but had the same power as all the rest of the lmp1 cars. R10 had less power than some of the other lmp1 cars but WAY more torque and better reliability. R15 was technically slower than the Peugeot 908 - the Peugeot team just screwed up their pit stops and the cars would like to catch on fire... Until 2009 when they finally got it right and won... Toyota raced in the 2013, 14, 15, 16, and 17 races against other lmp1 hybrid cars and LOST EVERY YEAR. They couldn't win until both audi and Porsche stopped racing. I don't consider the last 2 years REAL wins and I still think Mazda is the only Japanese company that has won le mans. Ts050 against non hybrid car is no contest - its almost like lmp1 VS lmp2 cars. Toyota had more power and the hybrid means they can pass anyone at any time and not get stuck behind slower traffic. 2020 le mans is going to be the same. I honestly hope both Toyota cars break and the petrol cars like Rebellion and Ginetta are the winners. Toyota is not cheating because they are within the ACO rules - but hybrid VS non hybrid is not a good race.
11 feb 2019 5:56 pm est: 48:21 benz-clr fly maybe because front-bumper does not have front-splitter.source:carlos comment 'That happens when you only have downforce in the rear of the car and not in the front! Front splitters are very important!' in that movie,sorted newest 1st in ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-nkcGPf-fLV0.html#11_feb_2019_6_32_pm_est (Le Mans Flying Cars) from youtube-search(why mercedes fly in lemans)result 1 thanks.
Webber's flying mercedes in practice at the end of Mulsanne will remain forever one of the great moments in Le Man's history. I shit my pants just looking at it.
Were you there in person? I ask because there wasn't any tv footage of either of Webber's flips (hence why his team didnt believe him), neither on Mulsanne in pre race practice or the 2nd kink before Indianapolis in qualifying, only Dumbreck's race crash was caught by the tv cameras.
Haven't even got to that point yet but I bet it's either the Toyota blowing the rear tire for the 2nd time... Or whoever was driving at the end standing up in the car as he crossed the line... Ah shit now I gotta skip and find out lol
Yep. Tire blowout. If it wasn't for those tire problems, they'd have won the race. Best Le Mans car ever if you entered them all in a beauty contest - fast as hell too! And how little did we know that those little R8's from Audi were about to start a decade of domination... That R8 coupe' was pretty damn sexy!