Lap of the Gods - Nissan R90CK

April 30, 2015
Story By
John Brooks

The Le Mans 24 Hours is generally regarded as an endurance event pure and simple, so what happens there over a single lap tends to be overshadowed by the enormity of the whole race. However, there are always exceptions to any rule and one lap round the Circuit de la Sarthe on June 14, 1990 has passed into motorsport legend.

In 1990 Nissan mounted one of the biggest ever campaigns in their attempt to become the first Japanese manufacturer to win the Le Mans 24 Hours. Indeed you would have to go back to the '60s and the heyday of Ford to find such an effort expended at La Sarthe. No less than seven cars were entered, five of them officially representing the European, North American and Japanese subsidiaries plus two private entries.

Right from the start the Nissans were in charge, topping the timesheets on the Wednesday, the first day of practice, with 1-2-4 but this stellar performance was shaded the next day, actually it was obliterated by a lap that is still spoken of in awe a quarter of a century later.

At around 9pm Mark Blundell was released by the team on to a virtually deserted circuit. The 3.5L turbocharged V8 engine was running 2 bars of pressure, good for a 1,000hp or so we speculated at the time, but who knows the truth of that statement.

What is more certain, having been disclosed since, was that there was an issue with the wastegate control on the turbo unit; it was jammed or had failed, vastly increasing the power. The Japanese engineers wanted to stop the car immediately but the team wanted to go on to what would become a spectacular lap.

I spoke with the Team Manager, David Price, later who confirmed this story, adding that he had got onto the radio to tell his driver to comply with the management's request to abort the lap but had "accidentally" failed to push the transmission button so Mark did not hear the instructions, and by then it was too late......

The driver did his bit hanging on to the wild beast that the car had become, the Nissan was reportedly clocked at over 230mph just before the new chicanes that had been installed on the Mulsanne Straight in an attempt to control the ever spiraling maximum velocities of the cars.

Mark only encountered one car during his pole lap and somehow managed keep control, following the progress from the on board camera is scary; who knows what it would have been like to wrestle with the wheel. Nissan put out a film about the lap which has found its way on to YouTube and it is absolutely f'in awesome.

The stopwatch was clicked at 3:27.02, which was 6.04-seconds faster than the second placed car, an enormous margin. Nissan were rampant that day taking 1-3-4-5 places on the grid.

And that was the high water mark for Nissan in 1990. One car, #25, did not make the start of the race as the transmission failed on the warm up lap. #24 with Giafranco Brancatelli at the wheel was involved in a collision with the Toyota of Aguri Suzuki. The Toyota was out on the spot and the Nissan lost several laps and eventually retired with engine problems during the early hours of Sunday.

For much of the race it looked as if the #83 American effort would give Nissan the win it desperately wanted but just before 9am on Sunday, Derek Daly brought the car in reporting a persistent smell of petrol in the cockpit. Nearly three hours were spent changing the leaking fuel tank before the car was posted as a retirement. It was whispered at the time that the UK-based NME team were aware of a potential issue with the tank and had neglected to mention it to their American cousins, there being little love lost between the two arms of Nissan Motorsport. So it was left to the Japanese entry #23 to salvage a little pride for Nissan taking a consolation 5th place...

The legend that is Mark Blundell's pole lap in 1990 lives on and the car, seen here at the Goodwood Members' Meeting is warmly received wherever it goes. Some dreams do come true, as was the case with the Nissan R90CK. (Photos: courtesy of and copyright Simon Hildrew, and John Brooks)

Lap of the Gods - Nissan R90CK

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