1984 24 Hours of Le Mans
This group did not include the Joest Porsche of former winners Henri Pescarolo and Klaus Ludwig, who had been badly delayed by fuel-pressure issues in the first hour and were down in 30th position.
Having led through the night, the Wollek/Nannini Lancia had a long stop to fix its gearbox and the JFR Porsche in second pitted running on five cylinders.
It stayed fairly static at the front for the rest of the race, with Pescarolo getting his fourth Le Mans outright victory, and Ludwig his second.
[1][2] It also stated that the fuel-formula at the heart of the Group C regulations would be scrapped in 1985, in favour of IMSA's system of sliding weight-scale to balance engine capacity.
The works teams (essentially Porsche and Lancia) were furious after the considerable investment they had put into developing fuel-efficient engines (and engine-management systems), forecasting it would lead to a spiralling contest for more power over weight.
However, a simple fuel-counter mechanism allowed teams to track their fuel consumption, thereby removing the need for a mandatory number of pit-stops, when there was a set total volume (2600 litres) per car for the race.
The older 956 would be run by young F1 driver Stefan Johansson, Jean-Louis Schlesser and wealthy Colombian flower-merchant Mauricio de Narvaez.
This year, he stayed in the pits as team-manager, giving the driving duties to Guy Edwards, Rupert Keegan and debutante Roberto Moreno.
His first-choice drivers were unavailable: A. J. Foyt (family matters) and Hurley Haywood (leg injury) so he instead he got Michel Ferté and Edgar Dören to drive with him.
Henn also had a second Porsche in the C1 class, to be driven by previous race-winner Jean Rondeau alongside John Paul Jnr.
The second car had the regular championship pairing of Oscar Larrauri and Massimo Sigala, with Joël Gouhier joining for a one-off drive.
Lloyd ran it as a camera-car, and brought in Dakar Rally winner René Metge and Pink Floyd drummer Nick Mason as co-drivers.
The team had a very experienced multinational line-up with Tullius driving with Doc Bundy and British veteran Brian Redman in his car, while F1 driver John Watson, French GT champion Claude Ballot-Léna and Tony Adamowicz (who had last raced at Le Mans in 1972 with an NART Ferrari) were in the other.
Tracing its lineage back to the BMW-March project from 1980, the 83G and it successor, the 84G, were dominating the current IMSA season supported by March North America.
Meanwhile, the remnants of the Rondeau team prepared an M482 for Americans Walt Bohren and Jim Mullen, with works driver Alain Ferté on hand for local knowledge.
Without regular team-mate, Alain de Cadenet (driving with the Charles Ivey team), Courage and Michel Dubois brought in American John Jellinek as the third driver.
The assets were purchased, briefly, by John Cooper until passed on to Viscount Downe (an Aston Martin shareholder and president of the owners' club), who had previously run a privateer Nimrod.
Mallock himself raced one car with Drake Olson, son of the American Aston Martin distributor and the experienced British trio of John Sheldon, Mike Salmon and Richard Attwood (1970 winner).
[30] In 1982, Jim Busby and the BF Goodrich tyre company had won its class in a Porsche 924 fitted with their standard high-performance road-tyres.
[31] Alba Engineering had won four Championship races in the 1983 season, run by the Jolly Club team principals Martino Finotto and Carlo Facetti.
[37] Wanting to make a definite statement of intent, Lancia were out early in qualifying and soon put in very fast times with their wound-up qualifying-engines.
However, he never got a clear lap to challenge Jacky Ickx's time from the previous year, much to Wollek's disappointment (although he did win his body-weight in champagne[4]).
[42][43] Wollek duly took the lead into the Dunlop curve from the start, but was surprised when the little yellow bullet that was Dorchy's WM blasted past them all down Hunaudières straight, from eighth on the grid on a light fuel-load, to outbrake him at the Mulsanne corner.
This time, however, when he braked for Mulsanne the car snapped left and clattered the guardrail leading to a slow trip back to the pits.
Sheldon was storming down the straight at full speed, when a puncture made the car suddenly jerk left at the kink approaching the Mulsanne hairpin.
[15] Tiff Needell had a scary moment in his Kremer Porsche, when a bolt sheared in the gearbox plate leaving his rear suspension unsecured.
[12][53] As dawn approached, Wollek made a stop to fix a broken suspension link, but was soon able to take back the lead when the JFR car had a scheduled brake change.
[35] Raymond Touroul's non-turbo Porsche had led the GTO class since the first hour, after early issues stymied his rivals and they never caught up.
[53][45][49][17][55] This left the top-10 full of Porsches suggesting a dominance that had been anything but Vern Schuppan had just jumped into the Kremer car for his final stint and passed Henn into go up to second, when the engine dropped onto five cylinders.
The sister car had several interruptions during the night when it hit debris and late Sunday morning losing an hour fixing the gearbox.
