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.
