The unmistakable rumble of the Sauber-Mercedes C9’s V8 was the soundtrack to a breakout year in Kenneth Acheson’s racing career. Two wins in the 1989 World Sports Prototype Championship and second at the Le Mans 24 Hours marked a remarkable return to the international racing scene for the Ulsterman, who had four years earlier struggled with desperately uncompetitive Formula 1 machinery before making a career in Japan that put his name back on the map.
Acheson points out that the honour bestowed by Autosport readers in voting it as the Racing Car of the Year in 1989 must have made the C9 pretty special, and that it most certainly was. Having just been pipped to the title in 1988 by Martin Brundle’s Jaguar XJR-9, Jean-Louis Schlesser made amends in 1989 to see off Acheson’s co-driver Mauro Baldi in a season-long fight as the Swiss operation was only beaten once in eight world championship rounds by Joest’s 962 at Dijon when tyre preservation played a significant role in the result.
“That whole year was great,” says Acheson. “Dave Price ran that car, I got on well with Mauro [Baldi], the team was just an incredibly nice place to be where they were competitive and very good at what they did. The car was a pleasure to drive.”
Such was its impact that for Acheson the C9 even usurps “the only car I’ve driven and realised I’d got a smile on my face”. The 1987 Japanese Group C champion believes the Toyota TS010 in which he again finished second at Le Mans in 1992 had the edge on Peugeot for pace the following year, “but our reliability just fell apart”.
“It was just ridiculously fast compared to what we’d driven before,” Acheson says of the Toyota, which “gripped like you wouldn’t believe”.
Acheson’s first outing with the C9 in 1988 was curtailed when an unexplained tyre blowout for team-mate Klaus Niedzwiedz prompted Sauber to withdraw. But he was asked back for the Fuji 1000km WSPC round, sharing with Schlesser and Jochen Mass. He led during the race but delays caused by a loss of boost and subsequent repairs, attributed to a loose bolt in the turbo wastegate, cost four laps and limited their C9 to fifth at the flag. However Acheson had made enough of an impression to contest the full 1989 season and Le Mans, now a non-championship event.
Acheson was accepting of his number two role, which in the fuel-limited Group C formula meant he was the foil responsible for keeping the car in contention during the middle stint without abusing his consumption. A difficult tightrope to walk, but one which in the C9 he didn’t find an arduous task.
Source: Autosport