Hans Stuck

When people ask me about the race of my life they expect me to mention a Grand Prix or maybe one of my Le Mans victories. But the one race that was the most satisfying for me in my career up to now took place not long ago. It was the last round of the German Supercup in 1988.

This was for me a very special race for two reasons. Firstly, it was the very last Group C race the 'real' Porsche works team took part in and, secondly, I have never since sat in such a high-tech racing car as the Porsche 962 with the PDK automatic transmission.

That was not simply a Group C Porsche - that was a rolling laboratory, specially built to test whatever Porsche wanted to try out under race conditions. That's why the factory didn't compete with it in the WS-PC, where reliability was more important than experimenting with more or less untested high-tech equipment.

In 1988 Porsche had entered two cars for Klaus Ludwig and myself. Klaus drove a 962 with conventional transmission while I was responsible for the development of the PDK.

There were two factions in the Porsche team then: one, which could have been called the conventional team and the other, the PDK crew I was working with. There was a kind of friendly rivalry between those teams and the 'conventionals' had developed a new lighter version of their gearbox for Klaus to use in the last Supercup events. So we were eagerly awaiting the Nurburgring round.

Porsche arrived at the Eifel circuit with small black flags fixed to the aerials on the roofs of our 962s to indicate that the race was going to be the last for the works team. The cold and rainy Nurburgring weather reflected the emotional state of the team members who were all sad that Porsche was going to drop out of Group C after so many years of competing in sportscar racing.

Our strongest adversaries were the Sauber-Mercedes of Jean-Louis Schlesser and Jochen Mass. Schlesser was definitely the man to beat after he had been so dominant in the previous rounds.

The event took place in treacherous conditions, mostly on a slippery track. But practice had been dry enough for me to secure pole position with a sensationally quick lap, which was a big boost for me. I had demonstrated the superiority of the PDK on a twisty circuit. After the qualifying races I was third, and hoped that it would be slightly wet on race day because I knew that my PDK transmission would work to my advantage then.

Although it had begun to rain just before the start of the race all the leading contenders had opted for slicks. Schlesser made the best start, but after a few laps I reeled him in.

To drive a Group C car on slicks on a wet track is really awful and there were many spins. Those drivers with conventional transmission had to back off when they accelerated too hard, but my semi-automatic transmission changed automatically to the next highest gear when there was too much wheelspin, which was really fantastic.

When I had just gained the lead from Jean-Louis on a soaking track the race was red-flagged, which was a pity because I think that nobody would have been able to go at my pace on slicks in those slippery conditions.

At the restart Bob Wollek got the jump on me, only to slide straight on at the first corner. Then began a lengthy dice with Mass, Ludwig and Schlesser. All four of us were struggling on the slippery track but I felt that I had slightly better traction compared to the others. Then Schlesser had several spins and fell back.

When it came to the compulsory fuel stop mine was extremely quick. I went on with slicks while Wollek on wets, who had recovered from his early spin, was becoming a real threat for me. He soon reeled me in, but I just managed to take the first Porsche win of that year, which gave our whole team some cause to celebrate.

But nonetheless it was a sad occasion. I was celebrating the victory of a car in which I was never to compete again, a car which I had developed together with an enthusiastic team of technicians. At Porsche I learned such a lot. They let me work with the car the way I wanted to. I could even decide on the kind of chips we were going to take for the electronics, and I chose which tyres we were going to develop.

Even if they knew you made the wrong decision they let you do it to give you the chance to learn from your mistakes. For me, the years with Porsche are of much greater value than all the experience I have gained in the different Formula 1 teams I raced for.