Derek Bell: what it feels like to do 249mph at Le Mans. At night.

It's Lamar this weekend and it's Toyota's best chance of winning with Fernando Alonso desperate to add a lemon title to his two world championships, of course nothing could go wrong so instead of cursing everything by focusing too much on the challenges, we asked Derek. Bell to talk about Lamar in a generic way and reflect on some of the cars he has driven to victory. You've driven some iconic cars, the 512s with Ronnie, the latest development of the Porsche 917 with Gulf and Joseph and then of course the classic Porsches, the 956 and the 962. and so on, if we have set laps at Le Mans when the The car is doing

what

it should do and you don't have any problems and you're in Arnage or Indianapolis and it's the time of the race that you like best.

It could be early in the morning. It could be midday. I don't know which was the nicest of all of those. cars and the best moments and how those cars compare um there was one moment in particular naturally I remember the 962 and the 956 because we did it for five or six years, even more at Le Mans, so it became part of my body, but I loved going down that straight, of course, when there were no chicanes, but I loved going down that straight. You never thought anything was wrong because the cars I was lucky enough to drive never failed and never broke down aerodynamically because we had factory cars and again I was very lucky to have that, but as you drove there you literally started to look at

what

you were up to. sitting and you'll sit on it and it was even better at

night

because you're there in this little cocoon with a screen in front of you and the dials glow and they have water on them. gauge for both sides of the engine and they will both be at the same 80 degrees as if they were locked, you know they wouldn't blink, everything was stable and it was that constant and you knew you were doing 230 miles per hour. hour was faster in the 917, but I'm talking about that particular car and you started to assimilate what it was and your hands moved very slightly on the steering wheel, there were some reflections in the cabin and already down there, I mean you're in the At the top, you're in full throttle and fifth gear for a whole minute, that's quite a while and you had time to reflect and you just look around the car and you almost want to pat it. and I said, come on, we can win this and it was the strangest feeling because you are one with the machine, which I never felt on any other track because you didn't have time to think about it. but lamar going down that mul's arm, you could actually become you, you actually petted him like a horse or a dog, you knew you were going to do well and I wouldn't say that at times it probably disappointed us, but overall he always did.

What we wanted was fantastic. Many fans would say that the 917 is the best of all the long-distance sports prototypes. Do you agree with that? Well, I think if I had, I'd probably have the best memory because it was there for three years and it went from something that wasn't terribly good to something that was incredibly good and um, I think driving that 917 long tail for John and with the golf car that, you know, had been perfected by john horseman and norbert singer into a truly fantastic car. um you know drive that so you know for the factory um it was just spectacular and it was just you know so fast.

I remember when I first drove it I did my test drive for Porsche at Goodwood, believe it or not, with Ronnie and Pete Gethin. and I got the trip for some reason and then we went in December like a week before Christmas to Hockenheim and it was pouring rain and we were foggy and it was a week, you know, Hockenheim, I mean, it's not really a pretty place at any time. , but in the rain it's horrible and we were there driving around or I was doing aerodynamic tests that seemed crazy to find some evidence of something that could be done to the car, but I can't believe I was driving this long tail that was built to Lamar, you know, without any heroism, just driving, he was going through the corners, naturally he was suffering from a little bit of understeer, but it was nothing, they would have been quite fast on those pitches because this was the old Hockenheim countryside without long circuit without sheets well because it was wet you left the east curb and I don't remember if we took what became the cena curve or the jim clark cove I don't know very well if it was and The idea was to pass it flat, but in your mind, if you think about the balance of a 917 at Indianapolis, for example, compared to the 956 or 962, what was a 917 like driving at high speed in a fast corner?

I always thought she was very neutral, but I mean we made her neutral so we wouldn't have any heroics for 24 hours. I mean it was adjustable, obviously, the wing, you know, it was adjustable, but was Brabham predictable? I thought it was yes, but I'll say it again. It was really my first real year doing Lamar, it was '71 I had done the Ferrari the year before, but that didn't last long, before the engine died, but I felt like the 962 was just idiot proof, I mean to you. you could do anything with that car and it was very exciting when they told you, "okay, go out and you're going to qualify now and just go for it and you knew that the engine was the spare engine because with that you qualified and you would go out at the end of qualifying and you would do like hell and at the end you had up to 750 800 horsepower with that engine.

I mean, it was fabulous, just fantastic. Lamar is the most incredible track to drive at speed, right? I'm not too sure about this these. days because of the new curves they put in to make it slower, but I think the way we had it, you know, whistling past the pits and up under the Dunlop Bridge and down the other side almost 200 miles down the road. hour through the Dunlop corners to Te Rouge and down the straight, there's something incredible about having the perfect car because if you've passed Tet Rouge perfectly, you'll have 200 more revs than on the previous lap, you'll have five miles per mile. hour faster at the end and that's what it was about, what top speeds were you doing in the 917?

Well, when I finished testing there one day, Norbert Singer said the test weekend, Norbert Singer said, so how many revs are you ringing the

bell

on it? and I said oh it was pulling 8 100 revolutions oh that's good because at 8 2 she explodes he said that was it and I said then he pulls out his slide rule and it starts as we walk by and he starts to get and he starts laughing at him I said what are you laughing at he said I just calculated the maximum speed so I said well what did he say I think it's better you don't know so I said well you know the three of us are driving This for us can drive for 24 hours.

It's good to know that you know, so he said it allows for a Thai growth of 396 kilometers per hour or 246.