Daily Sportscar interviewed JJ Lehto
Sami Aaltonen
08-06-2014, 01:10 PM
My fried gaved me this link. JJ talks a lot about his time behind the GTR streering wheel.
So glad to read this one, this really takes the F1 GTR once again new level.
Take a look!
http://www.dailysportscar.com/2014/08/06/catching-up-with-jj-lehto-remembering-1995-and-beyond.html
:smokin:
Here's the story 1995-1997:
http://www.dailysportscar.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/JJ-Lehto.jpg
"“Le Mans that year was definitely special because back then we still had really fast prototypes and we ‘just’ had a GT car.”
“The whole project, and certainly my involvement, came quite late. Paul Lanzante formed the team, he was a friend of Ron and they had decided to have an extra car at Le Mans, the whole thing came together really very quickly and at the last minute.”
“I did some testing with the car and, you know, it was a really nice car. I really liked the McLaren from the very first time I drove it, there was something very special about it, a sportscar with the seat in the middle and an absolutely incredible V12 BMW at the back. It was heavy, but very, very powerful and the torquiest engine I have ever driven, just so friendly to drive. The power was so smooth, so nice.”
“There were though a lot of issues with the car, especially when we went to Le Mans. We knew that the Prototypes were faster, and that we couldn’t really compete against them. Then we had some suspension problems, I remember that we bent the rear wishbones in qualifying.”
I am saying we, but it was me that did it!”
“Gordon Murray was thinking ‘What the hell is going on with the car’. We had changed a lot of things during Le Mans week including the ride height and had got the car better and better to drive. I really liked the car and had the privilege to drive it as much as I did.”
“After the wishbone issue though it left us worried about them for the race, wondering if they would last so we decided that during the race itself we wouldn’t use the kerbs as much as most probably that was the reason for the damage. That worked, they didn’t bend again, they lasted for 24 hours with no problems at all.”
Did you have the gearbox issues that plagued some of the other cars?
“No, all the cars had the issue because of the gear linkage wires. They started to stretch and if the gears didn’t go all the way in you started to break the dog rings. I’m pretty sure that the team changed absolutely everything before the race. We were aware of the risk so we tried to shift a little bit easier.”
“From the start of the race we were going well but started very easy. Sekiya was very quiet, I think he had a translator, Yannick (Dalmas) had, of course, already won the race three times, so he was ‘The Man’ – I guess I was the bullet!”
http://www.dailysportscar.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/JJ-Lehto-95-Le-Mans-2.jpg
“Yannick decided that we should start easy, and he started the race and ran it nice and easily, very smoothly because, as he said, you can’t win the race in the first hour, the second, or even in the tenth, but you can lose it!”
The plan then was to be steady, keep it on the track and out of the pits with no extra problems and luckily the rain came, and it was a long rain, and that evened things up a bit.”
“That was really the thing, because then I was able to compete against the prototypes and against the cars with better downforce.”
Were you aware how much of an impact you were making on pace at that time?
“I had a good day I guess! I just found the lines. I really enjoyed the car though, it was just such a great car to drive, and you could really drive it! Definitely the sportscar that I liked the most.”
It was my first win, McLaren’s first win and I know a lot of people refer back to it being a great win but I guess I’m not sure whether it feels like a long time ago or not! Next year it will be 20 years since it all happened!!”
Later of course you competed with no little success in the long-tail version of the car, and competed possibly surprisingly well for a car directly adapted from a road car against cars that were designed from the very start as racers?
http://www.dailysportscar.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/JJ-Lehto-97-FIA-GT-Spa.jpg
“Yes but Gordon Murray did a great job with that car. It was really carefully designed, the carbon chassis was quite strong and stiff, perhaps the weight distribution was less than ideal, there were a lot of drivers who struggled because the engine almost threw the car out of the corners, you had to adapt fast to find the way to drive it and some of the drivers didn’t find it that easy.”
“For me though I really loved that car, the torque was phenomenal, it was so nice to put the big gear in and…. nice!!”
“We knew that if it was a dry race (at Le Mans) there was no way you could compete against the prototypes but if it rained we’d have a shot.”
So glad to read this one, this really takes the F1 GTR once again new level.
Take a look!
http://www.dailysportscar.com/2014/08/06/catching-up-with-jj-lehto-remembering-1995-and-beyond.html
:smokin:
Here's the story 1995-1997:
http://www.dailysportscar.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/JJ-Lehto.jpg
"“Le Mans that year was definitely special because back then we still had really fast prototypes and we ‘just’ had a GT car.”
“The whole project, and certainly my involvement, came quite late. Paul Lanzante formed the team, he was a friend of Ron and they had decided to have an extra car at Le Mans, the whole thing came together really very quickly and at the last minute.”
“I did some testing with the car and, you know, it was a really nice car. I really liked the McLaren from the very first time I drove it, there was something very special about it, a sportscar with the seat in the middle and an absolutely incredible V12 BMW at the back. It was heavy, but very, very powerful and the torquiest engine I have ever driven, just so friendly to drive. The power was so smooth, so nice.”
“There were though a lot of issues with the car, especially when we went to Le Mans. We knew that the Prototypes were faster, and that we couldn’t really compete against them. Then we had some suspension problems, I remember that we bent the rear wishbones in qualifying.”
I am saying we, but it was me that did it!”
“Gordon Murray was thinking ‘What the hell is going on with the car’. We had changed a lot of things during Le Mans week including the ride height and had got the car better and better to drive. I really liked the car and had the privilege to drive it as much as I did.”
“After the wishbone issue though it left us worried about them for the race, wondering if they would last so we decided that during the race itself we wouldn’t use the kerbs as much as most probably that was the reason for the damage. That worked, they didn’t bend again, they lasted for 24 hours with no problems at all.”
Did you have the gearbox issues that plagued some of the other cars?
“No, all the cars had the issue because of the gear linkage wires. They started to stretch and if the gears didn’t go all the way in you started to break the dog rings. I’m pretty sure that the team changed absolutely everything before the race. We were aware of the risk so we tried to shift a little bit easier.”
“From the start of the race we were going well but started very easy. Sekiya was very quiet, I think he had a translator, Yannick (Dalmas) had, of course, already won the race three times, so he was ‘The Man’ – I guess I was the bullet!”
http://www.dailysportscar.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/JJ-Lehto-95-Le-Mans-2.jpg
“Yannick decided that we should start easy, and he started the race and ran it nice and easily, very smoothly because, as he said, you can’t win the race in the first hour, the second, or even in the tenth, but you can lose it!”
The plan then was to be steady, keep it on the track and out of the pits with no extra problems and luckily the rain came, and it was a long rain, and that evened things up a bit.”
“That was really the thing, because then I was able to compete against the prototypes and against the cars with better downforce.”
Were you aware how much of an impact you were making on pace at that time?
“I had a good day I guess! I just found the lines. I really enjoyed the car though, it was just such a great car to drive, and you could really drive it! Definitely the sportscar that I liked the most.”
It was my first win, McLaren’s first win and I know a lot of people refer back to it being a great win but I guess I’m not sure whether it feels like a long time ago or not! Next year it will be 20 years since it all happened!!”
Later of course you competed with no little success in the long-tail version of the car, and competed possibly surprisingly well for a car directly adapted from a road car against cars that were designed from the very start as racers?
http://www.dailysportscar.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/JJ-Lehto-97-FIA-GT-Spa.jpg
“Yes but Gordon Murray did a great job with that car. It was really carefully designed, the carbon chassis was quite strong and stiff, perhaps the weight distribution was less than ideal, there were a lot of drivers who struggled because the engine almost threw the car out of the corners, you had to adapt fast to find the way to drive it and some of the drivers didn’t find it that easy.”
“For me though I really loved that car, the torque was phenomenal, it was so nice to put the big gear in and…. nice!!”
“We knew that if it was a dry race (at Le Mans) there was no way you could compete against the prototypes but if it rained we’d have a shot.”
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