---Sauber-Mercedes C9 Yves Saint Laurent IMSA Sunbank 24 Hours '89
---What-If Livery Concept
Created through Gran Turismo 7
The Sauber-Mercedes C9 is known around the motorsport world for two things: The car to give Mercedes-Benz it's only Le Mans win in 1989, and having one of the most brutal-sounding engines in Group C History. It was not an instant success, as it was a culmination of good partners at the right time, and with a fresh sen t along the way.
The partnership started in 1987, with the combination between Swiss' Peter Sauber and Mercedes-Benz resulting in the potent chassis and aerodynamics of Sauber's engineers ,and the creation of a over 800HP twin turbo 5.0L M119HL from Mercedes-Benz' E500-Series.
With brutal acceleration and power down the straights, and with drivers such as Jochen Mass, Mauro Baldi, Jean-Louis Schlesser, Jean-Pierre Jabouille, Alain Culdini, and one venerable Micheal Schumacher, they were a dominant force in 1989. Winning 7 out of the 8 races in the World Sportscar Championship, including a one-two at Le Mans in a similar dominant fashion. With all this success in one year, would on eof the race in the beginning of the year in Florida go?
With a similar fashion to the later effort by Nissan and winning Daytona in their Group C R91CP, Sauber and Mercedes would make a similar attempt with the one-race backing of previous sponsor Yves Saint Laurent, and a lime of both Mass and Schlesser, but adding previous driver Chip Ganassi. These three would be abundant with experience in the car spanning three years, so how the race would go is more smoothly, and would be more than a match for the IMSA stalwarts of Porsche 962s , Nissan Ford Probe's, Nissan GTP's and Castrol Jaguars. Another dominant performance probably, but we may never know.
Photo Credit:@24HuresdeloL/Gran Turismo 7
---ALL RIGHTS TO---
Sauber Motorsport AG
Yves Saint Laurent
AEG
Castrol
Michelin
Bilstein
IMSA
Gran Turismo 7
