The Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company’s Post

A car that changed the sport forever So fast that the track of the world's most famous car race has been changed to ensure the event will not be repeated! Sauber Mercedes C9 • 1st place among the most #63 powerful cars in the world in the 1989 24-Hours of Le Mans, which is the pinnacle of challenge in car racing. - Total laps: 389 laps (total distance: 5,265.11km) It is the highest on the historic Circuit de la Sarthe! - At an average speed of 250 km/h - With a maximum speed of 401 km/h (on the track) One of the highest speeds ever in Le Mans history The C9's success was not limited to Le Mans, it also dominated the World Sports Car Racing Championship: • It won the World Championship title in 1988 and 1989, beating the strongest teams at that time. • Achieved 5 victories out of 11 major races in 1988, a winning streak that demonstrates the Sauber C9's dominance on racetracks. The car is not only iconic, it is a legend! It exists to this day in the Mercedes-Benz Museum. In closing The Sauber-Mercedes C9's accomplishments were not just race victories, rather, it was a testament to the ingenuity of engineering and teamwork! #ASME | #SettingTheStandards | #IconicCars #MercedesBenz | #SauberC9 | #LeMans

Just back from two days of pre-season testing at Circuit Paul Ricard in France, following two days at Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya the previous week. A switch this season from the British GT Championship to GT World Challenge for the European endurance rounds - races of between 3 and 24 hours, including at Le Castellet/Paul Ricard, the 24 Hours of Circuit of Spa Francorchamps s.a., Nurburgring, Monza and Jeddah (where F1 raced this weekend). Also a switch of team and manufacturer to Garage 59 and McLaren Racing, after I raced with them at the Gulf 12 Hours at Yas Marina in December - a race I fancy another crack at this year. With 55 GT3 cars on the grid from 9 manufacturers (Aston Martin, Audi, BMW, Ferrari, Honda, Lamborghini, McLaren, Mercedes-AMG and Porsche) and a lot of all-pro driver lineups, it’s the toughest GT racing championship in the world, so it’s going to be a massive challenge. But with my new team mates, McLaren Junior Pro race driver Nicolai Kjaergaard and Lewis Proctor, we’re looking forward to it! Here’s a (slow: getting cold tyres up to temp, but we don’t post footage of quick laps pre-season) POV lap of Paul Ricard from my helmet cam. And just to note that, from this season, all cars in the championship are running on 100% sustainable synthetic fuel, which is unquestionably the future for motorsport. 🍃 Some more images from testing (and the Gulf 12 Hours) in the comments below… #gtworldchallenge #racing #motorsport #sustainability #mclarenracing #garage59

IMSA GTP Race Car Homologations Extended Through 2029 LE MANS, France – As part of the annual press conference on the eve of the 24 Hours of Le Mans, officials from the International Motor Sports Association (IMSA) and the Automobile Club de l’Ouest (ACO) today confirmed that the homologations for the Le Mans Daytona h (LMDh) and Le Mans Hypercar (LMH) prototype race cars have been extended through the end of the 2029 racing season. Through a convergence agreement announced in 2021 between IMSA, the ACO and the Federation Internationale de l’Automobile (FIA), LMDh and LMH cars are eligible to race in both the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship Grand Touring Prototype (GTP) class and the FIA World Endurance Championship Hypercar class. “Endurance sports car racing on a global scale has never been stronger,” said IMSA President John Doonan. “Much of the success the WeatherTech Championship is currently experiencing has been driven by the shared platform we developed alongside our ACO and FIA colleagues for global prototype racing, and I’m confident the same can be said for the 24 Hours of Le Mans and the FIA WEC. In addition to extending homologations for the top prototype category, it also was revealed in the press conference that the current generation of Le Mans Prototype 2 (LMP2) race cars – which debuted in 2017 – will continue through the end of the 2027 WeatherTech Championship season. Read more: https://lnkd.in/ewKxjxcE

Thanks Guanyu (周冠宇) for letting me in onto the world of F1 and watch you race up-close… what a humbling and exhilirating experience this has been! The origins of F1 racing go all the way back to the beginning of last century when in 1904 the Vanderbilt Cup was organized in New York in 1904. It was not until in 1906 that car-racing was really born when the Automobile Club of France organized for 2 days in the circuit of Le Mans a race of 65 miles with 12 different automakers. All cars had 1 driver-racer and 1 auto-mecanic on board. Rules were that no one other than those 2 could touch their car. Fast forward more than 100 years later, how the industry has evolved. With die-hard F1 spectators attending live or broadcasted races covering 24 events in a year covering 24 countries spanning 3 continents globally from Europe to the US, Asia and the Middle-East, F1 saw total revenues exceeding USD 2.5 trillion for the 2022 calendar year. The exhilarating races, the superstar status of the drivers, and its global appeal and with the addition of the Las Vegas Grand Prix and the US catching up, competition and the battle for sponsorship deals intensified driving the bottom line. Starting as the test driver for the Renault F1 team in 2020 and the Alpine F1 team in In 2021, Zhou Guanyu is the first and so far the only, Chinese driver to start a World Championship Formula One race competing with the likes of Max Verstappen and Lewis Hamilton. GO ZHOU GO… 🫡

🚩 Au Revoir GTE The World Endurance Championship is the premier international endurance racing championship, featuring top-level prototype and GT cars. Organised by the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA). They are allowing the world's leading car manufacturers to compete in long-distance races worldwide. The World Endurance Championship was established in 2012, replacing the Intercontinental Le Mans Cup. One of the most notable features of the WEC was its diverse range of classes, which has now been simplified. There will now only be two classes, Hypercar and LMGT3. The previous GTE class has been replaced by Le Mans Grand Touring (LMGT3). The two Classes race at the same time. In the Hypercar Class, 19 manufacturers from nine different brands will compete. Namely, Aston Martin, BMW, Corvette, Ferrari, Ford, Lexus, Lamborghini, McLaren and Porsche. Each LMGT3 team may only enter two cars; 9 manufacturers are competing. The Le Mans Grand Touring (LMGT3) class allows both works and 'gentlemen drivers.' The 2024 FIA WEC season has eight races. The regular distance for a WEC race is 6 hours, except for the 10 hours of Qatar and the 8 Hours of Bahrain. The highlight of the season is the 24 Hours of Le Mans. Unlike fixed-distance races, where the winner is determined by minimum time, Le Mans' 24 Hours is won by the car that covers the greatest distance in 24 hours.

Congratulations to McLaren for winning the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix on Sunday. Rest in Peace to the legend - Bruce McLaren 🏎️🏆💫 Lando Norris won his fourth race of the year and held off the Ferrari tandem of Carlos Sainz and Charles Leclerc to deliver the team’s first title since 1998. McLaren team entered the weekend with a 21-point advantage over Ferrari and sustained a slightly smaller margin by the race’s end. The British outfit ended the season with 666 points compared to Ferrari’s 652, while Red Bull settled for third with 589 points. McLaren is one of the oldest active teams in F1, and has been in competition every year since 1966. Bruce McLaren was a New Zealand racing driver, automotive designer, engineer and motorsport executive, who competed in Formula One racing. In endurance racing, McLaren also won the 24 Hours of Le Mans in 1966 with Ford. With his restless ambition, he soon founded his own team, Bruce McLaren Motor Racing Ltd, in 1963, and took the marque into grand prix racing in 1966. McLaren's Formula 1 effort was immediately respected for its solid engineering prowess and fun, no-nonsense attitude. McLaren's design flair and ingenuity were graphically demonstrated in powerful sports car racing. Just as the Can-Am began to become very popular with fans in Canada and the U.S., the new McLaren cars finished second twice, and third twice, in six races. In 1967, they won five of six races and in 1968, four of six. The following year, McLarens proved unbeatable, winning all 11 races. In two races, they finished 1–2–3. Bruce tragically lost his life while testing one of the Can-Am cars which bore his name at Goodwood in 1970. #racing #f1 #formulaone #automotive #engineering #design #cars

There's a reason why Formula 1 isn't as much of a "dangerous" motorsport as it used to be in the 1970s. All kudos to one of the biggest advocates of race track and driver safety, Sir Jackie Stuart, who encouraged the safety of drivers on tracks like Silverstone where accidents or incidents on the race are eminent. Did you know that the 1975 British GP, is considered one of the classic Grand Prix, to go down in the history of F1? Now, I know many of us weren't born back then, but this article will help you understand why driver safety is so important. More than the "need for speed." (You'll know the reference if you've watched Tom Cruise.) The 1975 British GP is notoriously known for the carnage, or, let's say, the number of crashes that took place, which cut short the entire race. More than half the drivers on the entire grid were involved in the crash that left only six cars in contention. The race ended on lap 57, and the winner of the British GP was based on the driver's stats and position on lap 55. The safety concerns were emphasized after this particular race because the debris from the cars hit a marshal and one of the spectators in the race. It is important to know that motorsport, apart from being an enjoyable race to watch, was great because someone like Sir Stuart remembered that every driver has a family looking forward to having dinner with them. Because of the efforts of people like him, the safety protocols of other racing formats like WECs and IndyCar have been established strongly enough to avoid mishaps that ruin the entire race. But apart from the crashes, this race was also fun to watch because of a four-way battle between the greatest drivers of that point in time. To know more about the four-way battle royale in the 1975 British GP, please read this special classic race report. The link to the article is included in the comments! #britishgp #formula1 #f1 #safetyfirst #racing #motorsports #WEC #IndyCar #1975britishGP

Our next episode about the Golden Age of Endurance Racing is online at Motorsport Retro: #racecars #lemans #peterauto #lemansclassic #spaclassic #enduranceracing #motorsports #vintagecars

#feinsider #nissanproud #nissanemployee #KeyMoments From Formula E History #season 2 :2015/16 Already wanting to get bigger and better, Formula E welcomed seven new manufacturers for the second season. Regulations were opened up to allow teams to design their own motors, inverters, gearboxes and rear suspension, with power also bumped to 170kW. Ten races made up the calendar in nine different cities, and for a consecutive year there was a nail-biting championship battle. This time it was Buemi and Lucas di Grassi, with both drivers hunting down their first Formula E title. Both drivers won three races respectively over the season, taking things down to another finale in London’s Battersea Park. As fans around the world held their breath, the all-electric championship had one of its most surreal moments when both championship contenders crashed on the first lap. Buemi and di Grassi managed to limp back to the pits, with the title now being decided by the important point for fastest lap. The point went to Buemi, who won the Drivers’ title with his team Renault e.Dams finishing the Teams’ Standing on top for another year. Will know about more in following posts #feinsider #nissanproud #nissanev #sustainability #environmentalsustainability

Malthe Jakobsen will make his full-time FIA World Endurance Championship debut in 2025 for the Peugeot Sport #Hypercar team having taken on the role of reserve driver this year. Read more ⤵️ #WEC #Peugeot #LeMans24 #Motorsport #Endurance #Racing #Sportscars