While colleague Sudhir Matai and I were soaking up the atmosphere at this years 24 Hours of Le Mans, we were stopped in our tracks by the sound of something very loud and obviously very powerful heading out onto the curcuit, at a time when all the competing teams were supposedly taking a break. We managed to catch a glimpse of the track just as the magnificent Mazda 787B came flying past the pits on its demonstration laps.
This was the car, piloted by Bertrand Gachot, Johnny Herbert and Volker Weidler, that gave Mazda the unlikeliest of race victories at the 1991 Le Mans event and, to date, remains the only Japanese entry to have taken the chequered flag.
As each of its main rivals (Jaguar XJR12, Peugeot 908, Porsche 962C and Sauber-Mercedes) stumbled the Mazda, which had only qualified in 19th position, hit the lead with less than three hours to go in the race. So significant was this moment that Japanese television stations interrupted regular programming to broadcast the closing laps and subsequent victory.
In a fitting tribute, Johnny Herbert ascended the staircase to the Le Mans podium after this year’s demonstration run. He was unable to do the same after the 1991 victory having suffered severe dehydration by the end of the event.
In this video we see Herbert fighting at the wheel, and changing gears manually, at the helm of the mighty 522 kW 787B as he completes a demonstration lap of the famous Circuit de la Sarthe.
