It certainly was a what-the-fuck moment. Or does ramping up corner speeds make modern racing more exciting? Mercedes did have big plans for Le Mans, clearly, the problems began on the Thursday night qualifying session. As the nose pitch was tilted upwards, the downforce on the front axle reduced at a small rate as the car reached neutral pitch. But the team immediately withdrew all of its CLRs. Why did the Mercedes CLR Flip at Le Mans? During the 1999 Le Mans race weekend, the Mercedes-Benz CLRs flipped three times; twice with Mark Webber at the wheel (both of which weren’t caught on film) and then the famous flip … Longueur du circuit : 13,605 km; Distance parcourue : 4 967,991 km; Vitesse moyenne : 207,00 km/h ; Écart avec le 2 e : 23,551 km; 200 000 spectateurs; Bibliographie. With the downforce on the rear axle staying roughly constant throughout, the overall force on the car was nearing total lift at this angle of pitch.That equilibrium was met at +2.4 degrees in the experiments, with 400kg of downforce on the rear axle cancelled-out by the same value of lift at the front. Regulations were also altered for car design, with overhang limits being set to avoid any more potentially tragic incidents.Although Mercedes blamed the circuit for the team’s misfortune, research clearly shows that the CLR was simply not designed to handle the aerodynamic variance of Le Mans. Thankfully with active wings and millions of pounds going into racecar dynamic development, it seems that engineers have almost mastered the art of aerodynamics, learning lessons from these past disasters.

It’s 20 years on from the 1999 24 Hours of Le Mans. Christian Moity et Jean-Marc Teissèdre, Les 24 Heures du Mans … Add in the flat undersides of these cars along with big rear wings pushing down on the rear axle pivot point and the recipe for take-off is fairly prominent.Slipstreaming is another factor that could have reduced the frontal downforce on the car and when looking at the footage, the cars are attempting overtakes moments before the slips occur. Unauthorised use or duplication of our content without permission is a no. All of these accidents happened either once driving over crests or while clipping kerbs, showing the aerodynamic instability of the racing cars of that time once their noses lifted.As a result of the events in 1999, changes were made to the track by softening undulations, with the hill in the run-up to Indianapolis being smoothed to increase the safety factor within the car’s aero packages. The Mercedes-Benz CLR was a set of racing cars developed for Mercedes-Benz through a collaboration with in-house tuning division Mercedes-AMG and motorsports specialists HWA GmbH. A positive pitch angle lifts the nose into the air, while a negative angle pitches the car slightly downwards towards the track.In LMGTP cars, the pitch angle was generally negative as this made for high downforce in the corners, if sacrificing a little in terms of top speed. Designed to meet Le Mans Grand Touring Prototype (LMGTP) regulations, the CLRs were intended to compete in sports car events during 1999, most notably at the 24 Hours of Le Mans which Mercedes had last won in 1989. Should I still do chivalry towards hot birds?”,Congo: Forgotten Crichton Adaptation With a Talking Ape,Ayrton Senna’s fatal crash at Imola in 1994. The overhang from the front wheels was longer than the rest of the cars in the field by around 10cm.As a torque is a force multiplied by a distance, the longer overhang means that the twisting torque trying to rotate the car upwards from its front axle is increased, resulting in a much more pitch-sensitive vehicle which pivots from the rear axle. Although safety standards are now infiinitely better than decades ago, we still see colossal accidents.Any motorsport fan would be lying if they said it didn’t add to the spectacle. There were three AMG-Mercedes team entries, totalling nine drivers.A simple way to explain how it works is there are various categories within each race. A Porsche 911 GT1 racer performed the same acrobatics in 1998 at Road Atlanta as well as a BMW LMP flip two years later. Both Mark Webber and Peter Dumbreck flipped their Mercedes CLR-GT1s during practice for the 1999 Le Mans 24 hour race. The turbulent air stream that the car will enter as it goes for an overtake will reduce the smooth interaction of the incoming air with the small front splitter. Case closed.Cut to the Saturday morning warm-up before the race and Mark Webber, again, was catapulted into mid-air and landed upside down at Mulsanne corner.This time Mercedes withdrew this part of its team, with Webber, Jean-Marc Gounon, and Marcel Tiemann having to sit out the race on the sidelines.But despite the warning signs, the team was determined to race.The CLR team of Christophe Bouchut, Nick Heidfeld (another future F1 driver), and Brit Peter Dumbreck were 75 laps (a couple of hours) into the 24-hour race when the final disaster struck.There was no escaping that one for Mercedes-Benz. This will inevitably reduce the aerodynamic efficiency of the component, creating unwanted lift.During the 1999 Le Mans race weekend, the Mercedes-Benz CLRs flipped three times; twice with Mark Webber at the wheel (both of which weren’t caught on film) and then the famous flip of Peter Dumbreck’s car (above) on the approach to Indianapolis Corner. #6 Mercedes-Benz CLR - Team AMG Mercedes : 7 (14-20) #2 Toyota Gt-One - Team Toyota Motorsport : 15 (21-22 / 46 / 52-61 / 94 / 107) À noter.