1964 24 Hours of Le Mans
The second was the Ferrari of Graham Hill and Jo Bonnier for the British Maranello Concessionaires team, ahead of the works 330 P of John Surtees and Lorenzo Bandini.
Aside from a few adjustments to the sliding scale of minimum weight to engine capacity, the Automobile Club de l'Ouest (ACO) made very few changes to its regulations this year.
Stalwart Ferrari privateer Jean Guichet was rewarded with a works drive this year alongside Nino Vaccarella.
Americans Richie Ginther and Masten Gregory had one car, while Phil Hill was paired up with Kiwi Bruce McLaren and Jo Schlesser drove with Richard Attwood (who had driven the Lola in the 1963 race).
[11] Regular team driver André Simon, still recovering after a testing accident at Monza, was joined by fellow French veteran Maurice Trintignant.
[13] Regular team drivers Edgar Barth / Herbert Linge were joined by Gerhard Mitter / Colin Davis – who had earlier had a sensational win in the 1964 Targa Florio.
[14][4] René Bonnet, the previous year's class winner, returned with five cars including a pair of the victorious Aérodjet LM6s, now with an 1149cc Renault engine.
Four customer teams (NART, Maranello Concessionaires, Equipe Nationale Belge and privateer Fernand Tavano) entered the reliable 3-litre thoroughbred, now with new body-styling.
The Shelby Cobras had been very successful in American racing, and for the new year, it was given new aerodynamic bodywork and the bigger 289 cu in (4.7L) Windsor engine.
[18] Aston Martin shut down their racing department when John Wyer left to manage the Ford program, selling off the three DP prototypes.
Their only competition in-class was a works MGB entry, driven by British rally ace Paddy Hopkirk and Andrew Hedges.
Three cars were entered by the Milanese Scuderia Sant Ambroeus team who had already taken class victories at the Sebring, Targa Florio and Nürburgring races.
[24][4][1] By race week, the Fords had got aerodynamic improvements making them much more competitive, including a tail ‘lip’ to reduce rear-end lift.
[27] His teammate, David Piper's Ferrari, burst an oil-line immediately and left a trail of oil through the Esses to where the car stopped at Tertre Rouge.
[27] Giancarlo Baghetti bought in his SEFAC Ferrari with a chronic clutch problem, losing 75 minutes and 20 laps straight up.
[11] On the second lap with the cars wary of the oil flags, Ginther got a run on the three Ferraris ahead of him and blasted past them on the Mulsanne Straight doing 7200rpm (unofficially nearly 340kp/h).
[23] Dropping back the revs to the 6500rpm prescribed by the team, he still managed to pull out a 40-second lead in the first hour covering a record 15 laps.
Then came the Cobras of Gurney and Sears, ahead of Attwood's Ford, Barth's Porsche and Tavano's Ferrari GTO rounding out the Top-10.
Phil Hill had made a half-dozen pit-stops with the troublesome Ford until the cause was traced to a blocked carburettor left uncleaned after an engine change the night before.
After alternator problems struck the Cunningham Cobra, their compatriots Gurney and Bondurant inherited their fourth place and heading the GT classes, five laps behind.
Fifth, and a further lap back, was the 2-litre Porsche of Barth and Linge benefitting from the bigger cars’ issues, and leading the Index of Performance.
Soon after midnight the grandstand spectators were stunned when the transmission of José Rosinski's Ferrari GTO just exploded as it roared past the pits.
Although bits of the differential peppered Lindner's Jaguar in the pits (getting a driveshaft change[20]) and flew off into the crowd, no-one was seriously injured.
It just missed Phil Hill's Ford GT which itself retired around 5.30am with gearbox problems after having got back up to fourth and setting a new lap record.
The Ferrari of Vaccarella and Guichet never missed a beat, gradually extending its lead, in the end winning comfortably by five laps setting a new distance record.
Ferrari swept the podium with the British 330 P of Graham Hill and Jo Bonnier second, seven laps ahead of Surtees and Bandini in the works car.
Despite having high engine temperatures through the second day, Dan Gurney and Bob Bondurant had a consistent run to bring home the Shelby American Daytona Coupé in fourth, first in the GT category, and a lap ahead of the nearest Ferrari GTOs.
As well as Barth's lap-record for a 2-litre car, five of the six 904 GTs finished – in 7th, 8th, 10th, 11th and 12th led by French privateers Robert Buchet and Guy Ligier.
Peter Lindner, who had brought his privateer Jaguar to the race, would be killed at the end of the year in that car when he crashed in heavy rain at Montlhéry.
[39] Dutchman Jonkheer Carel Godin de Beaufort, stalwart privateer Porsche driver in sports cars and F1 would also be killed later in the year, in practice for the German F1 Grand Prix.
