1970 24 Hours of Le Mans
Once again Porsche had a dominant year in the championship and arrived as strong favourites to take their first outright victory in the Le Mans race.
[6][7] During tests in Zeltweg, Wyer's engineer John Horsmann had the idea to increase downforce at the expense of drag, and so a new short tail was moulded with aluminium sheets taped together.
Pedro Rodriguez (Le Mans winner in 1968 for Wyer) and Leo Kinnunen, in the second car, had won three races.
[9] A fourth JWA 917K entry was not accepted - the drivers were to have been actor Steve McQueen and reigning F1 world champion Jackie Stewart.
As Ford had done several years earlier, Porsche also supported a rival, second works team based in Austria (much to Wyer's surprise).
[9] The Martini Racing customer team also gained some support from Porsche AG, being the other runner of a 917L for Gérard Larrousse/ Willi Kauhsen.
Four were in the works team, led by their two F1 drivers Jacky Ickx and Clay Regazzoni, paired with hill-climb specialist Peter Schetty and Arturo Merzario respectively.
Ickx was carrying an injury after escaping from a burning car at the Spanish GP and then suffering a fuel leak at Spa just two weeks ago.
[13] In the other cars were Le Mans winner Nino Vaccarella with Ignazio Giunti and young F1 drivers Derek Bell and Ronnie Peterson.
The team brought four cars and had a strong driver line-up enticing Rolf Stommelen (from Porsche) and ‘Nanni’ Galli (from Matra).
[11] Even though General Motors officially had a long-standing ban on racing and supporting privateers, he had a new convertible and had sold his previous car to the Claude Aubriet's Ecurie Léopard.
Though not as quick as the longtails, the Ferraris were still faster than the 917Ks and Nino Vaccarella caused quite a stir on the first night of practice when he clocked the fastest time of 3:20.0.
[13] Best of the 2-litres was the new Ligier (4:03.4), and quickest GT was the Léopard Corvette (4:07.2) The biggest moment of the practice sessions was on Wednesday night when Dieter Spoerry's 908 and Jack Brabham's Matra arrived at the Ford Chicane at the same time.
However, badly shaken from the experience and an injured leg, he subsequently failed his medical test and the two cars he was cross-entered in (the third Salzburg 917 and the wrecked Martini 908) were withdrawn.
JWA's team manager David Yorke attributed it to the excessive number of bolts and pieces left by the Armco crews the day before.
This year the cars were lined up in echelon (but a shallower angle to allow easier getaway) with the drivers fully belted and strapped in for the start.
[8][10] After Elford had set a new lap record, he and Siffert established a clear margin at the front of the field and settled into a routine of alternating the lead.
Soon after, Reine Wisell, barely able to see through his Ferrari's oil-streaked windscreen had slowed on the side of the road approaching the very fast and tricky Maison Blanche (English: White House) corner.
Le Mans debutante Derek Bell had managed to swerve past Wisell but the excessive gearbox change-downs over-revved his engine and the car broke half a lap later on the Mulsanne Straight.
Gijs van Lennep had qualified the AAW Racing Team’s 917 11th and with the attrition they had moved up to 3rd by 10pm when co-entrant and driver David Piper spun it in the Esses, nudging the barrier and damaging the front suspension.
[12] Due to a faulty batch of third-party supplied parts, all three Matras retired with leaking piston rings within ten laps of each other, when Brabham and Cevert had been leading the prototypes, and running as high as 7th.
Soon afterward, van Lennep was motoring down the Mulsanne Straight in the AAW 917 at close to 290 km/h when a tyre blew out, possibly due to the earlier damage.
In a great debut for the new Martini Racing team, Gérard Larrousse and Willi Kauhsen finished second in the psychedelic 917 longtail[36] and the 908/02 of Rudi Lins and Helmut Marko was third.
Hans Herrmann was a race-veteran at age 42 in his 13th Le Mans and had driven for Mercedes and Porsche in F1 and survived the dangerous Mille Miglia and Carrera Panamericana races of the 1950s.
He had promised his wife to quit racing if he should finally win Le Mans, a success which he had missed narrowly by barely 120 metres in 1969.
To underline the safety problem, Jochen Rindt, 1965 Le Mans winner, was killed at Monza becoming the only posthumous F1 World Champion.
[38] Thirty years later, the second-placed Martini Porsche and its psychedelic paint scheme was voted by a public poll as the “Le Mans Car of the Century”.
He was pencilled in to share a JWAE Porsche 917 with current F1 World Champion Jackie Stewart but his life insurance company refused to cover him for Le Mans.
[40][41] Happy that the script had a Gulf-Porsche victory, Porsche released their works driver Herbert Linge to drive the camera-car, alongside Jonathan Williams.
A number of the race's drivers were also on hand, including Attwood, Bell, Elford, Galli, Jabouille, Parkes, Redman, Siffert, Spoerry and Stommelen.
