David Morton
Lifetime Supporter
I was in the Schnitzer garage during the 1997 Le Mans 24h and the car was the Gordan Murray designed McLAREN F1 gtr using the BMW engine. About 0800hrs JJ Lehto fell asleep. Not really a big deal unless you realise he fell asleep while he was driving. The car spun into the brick wall on the right hand side between the start straight and the pit lane. It had to do another lap to get into the pits but that was the last lap it did. The team stripped all the bodywork and ancilliaries and then Murray examined the front right area of the cf monocoque. To me it looked like a small fracture - I've seen bigger cracks with bandages over them in aeroplanes that I flew -but Murray retired the car as in his, and Charlie Lamm's opinion, this small crack had wrecked the front end of the monocoque. And yes, watching the team pulling it apart it did seem quite brittle. I've got the whole episode on video. I'll try and reformat it - if nothing else it's quite interesting.