1978 24 Hours of Le Mans
When the lead Renault Alpine A443 stopped on the circuit with a jammed gearbox, there was a sense of déjà vu for the French team.
Although the second-placed Porsche pulled back two of those laps, this time Renault would not be denied, and Pironi took the flag for a popular local victory with a record race-distance.
[1] This, in turn, meant the Automobile Club de l'Ouest (ACO) could merge the IMSA and GTX into a single class.
Not sanctioned by the FIA, it was a series that linked American races at Daytona, Sebring and Talladega with Le Mans and the Nürburgring.
Once again, the only manufacturer works teams were from Porsche and Renault, bolstered by entries from small-scale racing specialists Mirage, Osella and WM.
The extra engine power meant higher running temperatures and for the first time, Porsche had water-cooling, combined with its regular air-cooling.
Jürgen Barth had a new co-driver in Bob Wollek, driving the car that failed to finish last year fitted with the new engine.
[4][5] After a disastrous showing the previous year, Renault Alpine did extensive work on the 2.0-litre twin-turbo engines, making over thirty modifications.
[5]The bigger 2138cc engine with a single turbo put out slightly more power (520 vs 500 bhp) but could reach 360 kp/h (225 mph) on the Hunaudières straight, fully 25 kp/h faster than the Porsche.
The older cars were driven by rally specialists Jean Ragnotti, Guy Fréquelin with José Dolhem and Jean-Pierre Jarier with Le Mans veteran Derek Bell.
[11][5] Alain de Cadenet brought his next iteration based on the Lola T380, designed by Len Bailey (who had previously worked with John Wyer).
The LM78 was longer, and faster: with the 460 bhp Cosworth DFV engine, De Cadenet's regular co-driver Chris Craft was able to make 345 kp/h (215 mph) on the back straight.
Driven by Bob Neyrat's squad of female racers Christine Dacremont/Marianne Hoepfner, it had a bigger 2.85-litre Peugeot non-turbo engine.
Engineer Norbert Singer had ingeniously lowered the car, by lifting the chassis floor, fitting the gearbox and final-drive upside-down and putting the radiators in front of the massive 19" rear wheels.
Three cars were specially built by the Ferrari factory to IMSA specifications; two for Charles Pozzi's French team, and one for Luigi Chinetti from NART.
[25] Beyond the Porsche vs Ferrari battle in this IMSA class, there was a solitary BMW driven by former European champion Pierre Dieudonné with Alain Cudini.
Jacky Ickx set a sensational new lap record of 3:27.6, beating Arturo Merzario's mark by over a second to put the new Porsche on pole position.
After qualifying Pironi and Jaussaud chose to keep the bubble canopy, which they estimated was worth an extra 15 kp/h (10 mph) on the back straight.
[32] Both Depailler and Jabouille, driving the new A443, had found the bubble claustrophobic and causing bad reflections at night, so they asked for it to be removed from their car.
Then when the Jarier/Bell car, running third, stopped at the Tertre Rouge with a broken transmission at 2.30am, alarm bells started ringing for the French team.
[38] Earlier, just after midnight, the Toleman Osella had been leading the Group 6 2-litre class when it crashed at high speed following a puncture at the Mulsanne kink.
[17][36][40][41] The Porsche challenge started fading when Wollek brought his car into the pits just before 9am with the same ailment that had struck their team-mate earlier: no fifth gear and another 37 minutes lost.
[40] The Renault team wound back the turbo boost on their race-leader, but then half an hour later Depailler coasted to a halt at Mulsanne corner in a cloud of smoke with a jammed gearbox.
[42][34] The works 935 had a very difficult race, with a myriad of problems: a stuck throttle, leaking radiator, loose windscreen, replacing the distributor and the fuel pump.
With a 30-minute lead, the Pironi/Jaussaud car, despite a fading clutch, ran faultlessly for the rest of the race to take the victory, finishing five laps ahead of the two works Porsches.
Jean Rondeau came through to win the GTP class for the third year in a row, having the small pleasure of beating his former car by 15 laps (200 km).
[32] The Mirage drivers, Schuppan and Laffite, had been bedevilled by mechanical issues through the day, including three gearbox malfunctions and a broken turbo costing a total of four hours in the pits.
Having initially led the class, they had to undergo a full gearbox rebuild in the early evening, then were plagued by an overheating and misfiring engine.
Completely exhausted, he needed to be lifted out of the cockpit and given medical attention to get to the podium,[33][36] leaving an emotional Jaussaud to take the trophy.
With the withdrawal of the major local manufacturer, drawcard and sole competition, the organisation was very worried about the next year, and the financial losses if the crowds stayed away, disinterested.
