Derek Bell – Group C master: 'I was a racer, not a developer'

Looking back on an incredible career at recent Group C celebrations, Derek Bell impressed upon Damien Smith how much his passion for racing remains

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Bell's passion still shines through today at the age of 80

Porsche

Group C has been much in the mind this year, hasn’t it? The 40th anniversary triggered inevitable celebrations, from Goodwood to Silverstone and beyond, and with so many great cars still out there, lovingly maintained by dedicated enthusiasts such as Henry Pearman, there has been ample opportunity to wind back the clock and turn up the boost.

But was Group C over-rated? Perish the thought! It’s considered a halcyon time for sports car racing, arguably better than it’s ever been before or since – although I’d say the variety of cars and manufacturers and strength in depth in driver talent at Le Mans during the 1950s and ’60s was at times superior. Just look at the entry for the 24 Hours in 1967. Formula 1 aces, top-line Americans, renowned long-distance specialists, all competing at the height of the Ford vs Ferrari rivalry. It was a grid packed with unmatched quality.

For all of our love furnished on Group C – for good reason – it’s easy to overlook how shaky the category sometimes appeared, especially in its early years when Porsche dominated both numerically and in terms of results. Remember that great ad the manufacturer took out after Le Mans 1983? ‘Nobody’s perfect’ it read, before listing Porsches in positions one to 10 – except for ninth where a Sauber-BMW breaks the 956-wash (the C7 driven by Colombian Diego Montoya and Americans Tony Garcia and Albert Naon as you’re asking). Top-line sports car racing was in danger of almost becoming one-make – except it wasn’t, as Derek Bell was at pains to stress when Motor Sport caught up with him recently to reflect on the celebrations he has whole-heartedly enjoyed this year.

Le Mans 1983

Porsche took nine out of top ten places at Le Mans 1983

GP Library/Universal Images Group via Getty Images

“The grid was full of Porsches, but I suppose I always try to protect Porsche participation in that era,” says Bell, soon to turn 81 and by far the most successful 956/962 driver across the world championship and US IMSA series, with 32 victories. “There were 18 cars on the grid at Le Mans one year, but funnily enough we didn’t call them 956s or 962s back then. We called them the Joest car, the Richard Lloyd car, the Brun car and so on. We got away from the denomination because some had a different shape. There was a Kremer shape, a Richard Lloyd shape and so on. That made the grid look different.

From the archive

“I never looked at it and thought ‘Shit, it’s all bloody Porsches’. But if I had been in a Jag I might have done, I suppose. But they came in with three or four works cars and probably could have had more. Then again, teams would have had to deal with Tom Walkinshaw…”

That was the point about Porsche. It wasn’t just about the works Rothmans cars. The vast array of customers who bought 956s and 962s not only sourced their own colourful commercial sponsorship – liveries are a key element of the Group C mystique – they were also free to develop the cars independently of the factory. “Porsche gave an opportunity for everyone to buy a car and go and win races,” as Derek puts it.

A conversation with Bell is always a pleasure, especially as you never quite know which direction it’ll take, given the length and breadth of his remarkable career. He describes his 1970s as “a mess”, given how his F1 ambitions ran out of steam. And having tasted life as a Porsche works driver in 1971, in the final year of the revered 917 as a contender on the world stage, he jumped about from car to manufacturer: John Wyer’s Gulf Mirages in which he claimed the first of his five Le Mans wins in 1975; the corresponding season helping Alfa Romeo to a World Championship of Makes title; the Jaguar XJ12C European Touring Car Championship campaign – “a high profile disaster and quite amusing”; and even becoming the token non-Frenchman in the Renault-Alpine A442.

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Bell was “token non-French driver” at Alpine-Renault

Between it all there were one-offs and cameos to create what in hindsight was a wonderful patchwork career, but at the time hardly offered the job security and continuity any of us naturally strive for in life.

As he readily admits, Group C gave Bell a second wind at a time when he thought his professional career was drawing to a close. But it wasn’t just about the World Sportscar Championship, in which he claimed back-to-back titles in 1985-86. IMSA also offered a welcome land of opportunity, especially once Derek found a kindred spirit in Al Holbert, whom he first met during a brief return to the Porsche fold pre-956, in 1980.

“Porsche was going to run three 924 GTs at Le Mans, a British, German and American car and I was in the British car with Andy Rouse and Tony Dron,” Bell recalls. “Al was in the American car with Peter Gregg. Poor old Peter had an incident and hit another car and got a bit of concussion, so they decided not to run him. They put me in the American car because the British car had three drivers. At 8am on the Sunday morning we were lying fifth overall, because it had been bucketing with rain and the car went so far on a tank full of fuel. We just went perfectly quickly, but a piston blew because of that bloody four miles of open throttle at Le Mans.” They finished 13th overall, fourth in class.

“From that Al and I became buddies. He was bloody good, totally underrated. A great engineer, a great leader, a great driver – and he was the head of Porsche’s North American racing operation in that roaring period in the mid-1980s. I don’t know how he did it because he was so calm in how he handled the whole thing. Then he tragically died.”

Holbert was killed on September 30, 1988 – 34 years ago this week – when his Piper PA-60 Aerostar crashed on take-off as he attempted to fly home from the Colombus Grand Prix IMSA race to catch his son playing a college football match.

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In famous Löwenbrau Porsche at Daytona ’86

Porsche

There are plenty of what-might-have-beens left dangling by Holbert’s death at just 42 years old, one of which is the 962 successor he had planned. “We were having a rough time by then in IMSA and I remember saying we need a new car so badly,” says Bell, who was sharing with Holbert the weekend he died. “Al spoke to Porsche about an upgrade. They said to build a new car will cost $16m and Al said I’ll build you one for $1.6m. Al actually designed the car and made up an eighth-scale model which he had in a box at the track at Colombus.

He’d said to me that morning ‘I’ve got something to show you’. He was never very demonstrative and kept things very close to his chest. He opened the box and there was this amazing looking 962 evolution and he said ‘that’s the intermediary car I’m building for you and me for next year’. He was doing it. And that night he died in the plane crash.”

From the archive

Holbert won Le Mans three times, twice in partnership with Bell and Hans Stuck in 1986-87. Derek also scored two of his three Daytona 24 Hours victories with the American (and Al Unser Jr) driving the famous Lowenbrau-sponsored 962 in the same years. But by 1988 Bell’s factory racing life was winding down as Porsche began to transfer responsibilities to Joest to keep its sports car end up. Derek reveals another sliding doors moment in his life. “Porsche would have paid for Al’s new car, so they must have thought a lot of him,” he says. “When he died, within a week they asked me ‘can you do what Al did?’ I said you must be joking. I live in Pagham, Sussex. I didn’t have enough will or desire to take on the programme, plus I was no spring chicken I guess. I was in my late 40s” – a mere youth, Derek! – “and didn’t really need a project like that.”

Bell never was team boss material. He was always a purist racing driver, more interested in winning races than developing cars.

“At times during my time at Porsche I’d get tweaked up about something, developing the PDK gearbox or ABS brakes,” he recalls.

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The most successful driver of the Group C era, Bell remains synonymous with Porsche 956/962s

“I said I joined Porsche to be a racing driver not a development driver. If you want me to develop something I’ll spend six months at Paul Ricard, but I want to win the races. Professor [Helmuth] Bott never argued, and at least you knew you could say it to him. But his retort was always ‘Herr Bell, we have to develop things because on a Monday morning after a race meeting we have to tell the board what we have found. And every race has to be a development of something.’ Every time I bitched and moaned that’s what I got in my ear. And they were right, I respect that. Once you understand that you can understand why Porsche went racing.”

Porsche returns to Le Mans and premier league sports car racing next year, the only manufacturer so far staying true to its old Group C spirit of making cars available to customers. Racing is still all about development, ultimately about selling road cars, even if the motor sport landscape has changed almost out of recognition in the past 40 years. But how pleasing that in essence some things never change. Just like Derek Bell.

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