Drivers have different criteria they prioritise when it comes to choosing a favourite team-mate. For some, longevity is a crucial factor, as with time the relationship evolves naturally, while others relate most to drivers that they learned from.
Erik Comas falls into the latter category. One race working alongside Jan Lammers was enough for the Dutchman to make a lasting impression that earned him the 1990 Formula 3000 champion’s pick.
After four seasons of Formula 1 with Ligier and Larrousse, never managing to land himself in a worthy car, Comas switched to sportscars and made his Le Mans 24 Hours debut in 1995 with a Larbre-run Porsche. The same year, Comas entered the All-Japan GT Championship now known as Super GT with Toyota, before joining Nissan for 1997 in a move that also took him back to Le Mans.
The TWR-developed R390 GT1 had lacked reliability on its Le Mans bow, perhaps unsurprisingly given it had only committed to the project in September 1996. Two of its three cars were withdrawn, while Comas’s sole-remaining mount needed two gearbox changes to see the finish.
Tony Southgate’s considerably updated package boasted a new gearbox, improved cooling and driver ventilation for 1998, but it again lacked race-challenging pace, although its best entry finished third after late heartbreak for Toyota. Comas, Lammers and Andrea Montermini finished a delayed sixth, nine laps down on the winning Porsche, after qualifying over six seconds off the pace set by the fast-but-fragile Mercedes CLK-LM. Delays caused by changing an upright meant it was always playing catch-up.
PLUS: How a 128-day Mercedes miracle crushed its opposition
That Comas has positive memories of 1998 has much to do with Lammers, who had won Le Mans in a TWR-prepped Jaguar XJR-9 in 1988, and was according to Comas “the car captain because of his experience”. The Frenchman quickly warmed to Lammers, who had spent a fruitless 1997 campaigning the Lotus Elise GT1, and describes him as “a gentleman” who impressed on his team-mates the importance of handing the car back “in the same condition as you find it before”.
“I have learned everything from Le Mans from him,” says Comas, who also won the 1988 French Formula 3 title on his way up the ladder. “He’s the kind of guy, you meet him and he trusts you because he knows where you’re coming from.
“He wants to give the most of his knowledge to you, to transfer to you. He had won it with Jag in the late ‘80s, so he had a big experience at Le Mans and he was so kind. He was always open, sharing all the information. His target was not to be the quickest driver of the three of us. His target was to bring the car in the highest position.
“I could feel that Jan was really not a selfish person, absolutely not. He wanted to share, he wanted to share his experience, he wanted to share some strategy, [and details] about the track.”
"I really enjoyed working with him, it’s a shame we did only one race together" Erik Comas
Le Mans was the only race that year for the R390 GT1, which unlike Porsche and Mercedes didn’t have the added benefit of participation in the FIA GT Championship to iron out issues in a competitive setting. However, Comas, who had hoped to contest the Indy Racing League alongside his Le Mans and Japanese GT commitments with Nissan but found its Infiniti engine an overweight and underpowered proposition, did get to spend plenty of time with Lammers both in testing and in a team training camp – which solidified his impression of the 1990 Daytona 24 Hours winner.
“I thought, ‘that’s the guy I would like to have as a team-mate for a full year,’” says Comas, who reckons Montermini “was not receptive” to Lammers’ input. “He was like a brother. I really appreciated being with him at Le Mans.”
Comas continued with Nissan for Le Mans 1999 as the Japanese manufacturer entered a partnership with Courage that involved an exchange of chassis and engines between the two companies. But with Nissan’s TWR relationship concluding, Lammers didn’t return while Comas faced an early bath with engine failure on the R391 prototype he shared with Michael Krumm and Satoshi Motoyama.
“I really enjoyed working with him, it’s a shame we did only one race together,” adds Comas, who took a best result of second with Pescarolo in 2005. “But he is the team-mate that I have really appreciated the most, really a gentleman. I wish I had two Jan Lammers with me at Le Mans!”
