Was it really that fast? The Mazda 787B

02 Apr 2017

From what I’ve seen so far, you guy’s opinion on the 787B was that it was so fast it was banned. I did A little research and it’s not as straight forward you you guys thought. Now let me get this out there now, I’m not saying the car was slow and it got lucky. I’m saying that a combination of untested rules, politics, and capitalizing on others misfortunes caused one of the most heated debates over an iconic car.

Pre race

1991 would bring a few major changes for the season. The cars where to be changed to a 3.5 liter displacement. Now this is where things went south for the 1991 season. First off every team had terrible reliability problems because of the untested engines. Every 1991 spec car failed to qualify, except for one car. Peugeot was new for the 1991 season making the 1991 spec car their only option. Every other team switched to their 1990 chassis. These teams included Mercedes, Toyota and jaguar. While in testing the 787B was not the fastest by far, but it had one thing up his sleeve, reliability. Qualifying came and the 3.5L cars where unable to qualify causing the team to switch the the 1990s cars. The 787B qualified almost 12 seconds behind the lead prototype. The Peugeots got to keep 1-2 because they where running the 3.5L cars contrary to the rest of the field.

Le mans

Now there was one more trick up Mazda’s sleeve. The cars ran with only 800 kg compared to the others who ran 1000 kg. Now with the mazdas starting farther back the head of the team knew the reliability of the 787B was going to be the key to success so he told his drivers to go all out. Sure enough reliability issues plagued the rest of the field putting the Mazda in the catbird seat for the win. In the end the sheer reliability of the 787B compared to the troubled 3.5L cars brought the win for Mazda.

The one hit wonder

The 787B could not repeat the win ever since Le Mans. In the 23 races it competed in it only won 1 race. In 1992 the 3.5Ls where now enforced causing all cars to switch. The 787B would live on as the MXR-01 or just a jaguar chassis with Mazda logos and paint jobs with a 3.5L engine. This car would not win the 1992 Le Mans race, making the 1991 race it’s mazda’s only win. The sheer reliability of the 787B caused the car to make history, and to this day the car is the only Japanese car to win at Le Mans

Final remarks

So was it really banned for being to fast? The short answer is no. The rotary was only banned because of rules that where already in the making. To be honest the 3.5L rule was supposed to be implemented the year of it’s victory, but the 3.5Ls where proved unreliable causing the the teams to switch to last year’s cars. The ban of the rotary was only a byproduct of the 1991 rules being enforced for 1992. For this reason the ultra reliable 787B never had it’s rotary engine return. Also if it was so fast why didn’t it win the 1990 race. I’ll let you think about that. The 787B now lives on in Gran turismo as one of the fastest cars in the game. This iconic car showed us that speed didn’t really matter compared to something so complicated as reliability.

Comments

Eduardo Silva faialnuno nuno

Thank you.

Despite the lack of speed in this race, rotary Mazdas in other racing series around the world were showing good pace. In many of these other series the rotary was banned for this reason. In the case of Mazda with the 787B they chose reliability over more power. They ran the car 200hp lower than it could have run and perhaps with the full power output it would have been more competitive in terms of speed.

And with only 800kg to haul around the 787B could have blitzed the field with max power

Yes the RX-792P and the IMSA GTO Rx7 were quick in IMSA, but again they weren’t directly banned. Mazda was busy shifting its focus to regular piston engined during the 1990’s, so Mazda’s road car lineup was actually phasing out the rotary. As fewer and fewer Mazda’s were sold with rotaries, it didn’t really makes sense to continue racing them from a marketing perspective. So they simply stopped using them.

The rotary did come back to Le Mans few times after the demise of the World Sportscar Championship and the 3.5L Group C cars. In 1994 an IMSA GTO RX7 participated, and in 1995 Mazda backed the Kudu DG3 WSC, followed by the DGLM in 1996. Only after that did the rotary truly disappear from Le mans.

Short answer: No.
Long answer: Hell no.

You’re a bit wrong about the MXR-01 though. It had nothing to do with the 787B.
It was a Jaguar XJR-14 chassis with a Judd V10 shoved into it and Mazda badges plastered everywhere.
https://www.carthrottle.com/post/w83x6dz/

Yep thanks for that the website i was using for research wasn’t very clear with what he was saying and I was limited with the websites that actually knew what they where talking about. That’s why the post was so short. All I had to work with for the 1991 race was
“The 787B exceeded after braving everyone else’s reliability problems”
I’m not joking that’s was literally was it