1977 24 Hours of Le Mans
When Pescarolo retired his 936 with engine problems, his co-driver Jacky Ickx was transferred to the sister car of Barth/Haywood, languishing in 41st place and 15 laps behind the leaders.
The French Porsche 935 of ASA-Cacchia was third, a further 16 laps behind, with the GTP Inaltéra of owner-driver Jean Rondeau, and Alain de Cadenet both barely ninety seconds behind.
Once again, like the year before, the Automobile Club de l'Ouest (ACO) was put off by the small championship fields and decided to run both classes together in the race.
After complaints by Renault the previous year of the fuel quality which had compromised their car's race, the Octane rating was raised to 100.6, the same as that used in Formula 1.
The only manufacturer works teams were from Porsche and Renault, although there were entries from several small-scale racing specialists like Inaltéra, Mirage, Osella and WM.
In addition, Hugues de Chaunac, manager of the Martini-Renault Formula 2 team was given the test-car as a client entry for his young drivers René Arnoux and Didier Pironi.
Jarier was a late substitute for Jean-Louis Lafosse who had not arrived with promised sponsorship money, which gave the lawyers work to argue in court.
[11][10] Their car from the previous year was bought by Simon Phillips of the Dorset Racing Associates team and was co-entered with de Cadenet.
[13] Le Mans local Jean Rondeau's team had had an excellent debut the previous year winning the new GTP class.
French Formula 1 veteran Jean-Pierre Beltoise drove one with American Al Holbert and the other had the all-female pairing of Italian Lella Lombardi with Belgian Christine Beckers.
Being the heaviest car in the field, the French fans nick-named it le petit camion ("little lorry") and the ACO allowed him to switch across to the GTP class.
Hamilton was joined by his regular co-driver David Preece along with Mike Salmon, who had been one of the drivers of the last Aston Martin entry, back in 1964.
[17] French rally driver Robert Neyret ran his Lancia Stratos again in the GTP class, the 2.4-litre Ferrari V6 modified with a KKK-turbo.
The French engine-builder, Société ROC, had three of the latest B36 Chevrons (the lightest cars in the race[10]) while the British Chandler-Ibec team ran a Chevron-Ford.
Their compatriots Dorset Racing had a Lola-Ford as did the Swiss GVEA team while French privateer Jean-Marie Lemerle had a Lola-ROC combination.
Enzo Osella replaced his usual driving line-up for the race with Alain Cudini, Raymond Touroul and Anna Cambiaghi.
With Ickx running the 936 and Jochen Mass no longer doing 24-hour events, driving duties were handed, once again, to the other team drivers Rolf Stommelen and Manfred Schurti.
The French JMS Racing team car was prepared by Henri Cachia for Claude Ballot-Léna with American champion Peter Gregg.
The Belgian Luigi Racing team (current holders of the European Touring Car Championship) entered two BMW 3.0 CSLs, one for champions Pierre Dieudonné and Jean Xhenceval, with Spartaco Dini, and the other for Eddy Joosen and Claude de Wael with Tom Walkinshaw brought in.
[26] Recent efforts by the ACO to draw Le Mans and American road-racing closer together did not bear any fruit this year, with no NASCAR or super-modified IMSA cars entered.
[27] Auctioneer and gentleman driver Hervé Poulain's latest BMW Art Car was painted this year by American Roy Lichtenstein.
Horsman had found his cars were lacking top-end speed (almost 30 kp/h (20 mph) slower than their fellow Renaults[6]) and the drivers complaining of feeling their helmets sucked up toward the airscoop.
[10] These included the leading GT car, the Kremer Porsche of Bob Wollek (17th), and the Osella (18th) as the fastest of the 2-litre Group 6 field – both ahead of Rondeau's Inaltéra GTP (20th with 4:00.7).
Pulling out of Indianapolis and racing toward Arnage, he over-revved the engine and broke a conrod, generating a long smoke trail and forcing the car's retirement.
Over the next thirteen hours, Barth and Haywood only drove one shift each as Ickx did his epic drive through the night, the equivalent of five F1 Grands Prix.
The remaining Mirage was sixth (114), ahead of the Cachia 935 (112), the Schiller Porsche (110), the De Cadenet back up to ninth and the women's Inaltéra in tenth (109).
He handed the car back to the equally fast Barth,[5] Minutes later, the French spectators were stunned when the engine of Jabouille's Alpine-Renault blew up in a cloud of smoke going down the Hunaudières straight.
Third, a long way back, was Rondeau's Inaltéra (262), then the ASA Cachia Porsche (260), and the rapidly closing De Cadenet (257), none of whom had overtaken the stopped Loos car.
[12][36] With ten minutes to go and having lost 5 laps, Barth slowly eased back onto the track with a clock strapped to the steering wheel to carefully monitor the remaining time.
[14] It was appropriate that one of Jacky Ickx's greatest drives, a full eleven hours, would give him his fourth victory, equalling the record held by Olivier Gendebien who was on hand to witness his Belgian compatriot's feat.
