1970 24 Hours of Le Mans - Pre-race

Pre-race

During June 1969, Enzo Ferrari sold half of his company to Fiat to finance the construction of the required 25 cars to compete with the Porsche 917; the Ferrari 512, powered by a 5.0L V12, was introduced for the 1970 season. Despite a lack of factory drivers, as Ferrari had only two F1 pilots permanently under contract, the Scuderia entered four works cars. With another seven cars entered by customers, a total of eleven Ferrari 512S entries were accepted for Le Mans, plus a 1969 Ferrari 312P in the prototype category, in which three other factories competed.

More Armco was added to the track in the spots that originally weren't as dangerous as other spots where Armco was added the year previous.

Disappointed by the poor results of the 917 in 1969 and facing a new competition, Porsche contracted John Wyer and the Gulf Team to become the official Porsche team, and also the official development partner. During tests in Zeltweg, Wyer's engineer John Horsmann had the idea to increase downforce to the expense of drag, a new tail was molded with aluminum sheets taped together. This worked well as the new short tail gave the 917 better stability. The new version was called 917 K (Kurzheck).

Wyer was surprised to discover that another team was carefully preparing Le Mans with close support from Porsche. As in 1969, the Porsche Salzburg team was a de facto second works team under control of members of the Porsche family. The Martini Racing team also gained some support from Porsche AG; obviously Porsche had made major efforts to win the race with competing teams.

A new low drag version of the 917 was developed for Le Mans with support from the external consultant Robert Choulet. The 917 L (Langheck) featured a spectacular new "Long Tail" body with a wing, which had very low drag and better stability than the 1969 version. Ferrari brought a similar body, dubbed Coda Lunga.

Two 917 L were entered in Le Mans, one by Porsche Salzburg, the other by Martini Racing. The spectacular livery of this car was an elaborate whirls and swoops of light green on a dark blue background. The car gained the nickname of the Hippie Car or the Psychedelic Porsche from the team and media. The Porsche-Salzburg's 917L was powered by a new 4.9L engine that Porsche had introduced at the 1000km Monza.

Wyer lined up three 917Ks, two with the 4.9L engine for the regular drivers, and one with the 4.5L unit, for motorcycle champion Mike Hailwood. A fourth JWA 917K entry, chassis 013 with number 26, was not accepted - the drivers would have been actor Steve McQueen and reigning F1 world champion Jackie Stewart. Porsche Salzburg also entered a 917 K with the standard 4.5L engine for Hans Herrmann and Richard Attwood, while a third car with #24, which was qualified by Herrmann and Elford ahead of their #23 car, was withdrawn. With only one privateer 917K, that of David Piper, seven flat-12 from Zuffenhausen faced twelve V12 from Maranello's (incl. the 312P), as the entries of two 512S and four 917K had been rejected.

The 3.0L prototype category saw four competing factories. Of the two 1969 Ferrari 312P of NART driven in practise at rather slow pace, only chassis 0872 with the bubble roof extension was used to race, as 0870 had been sold. Of the three 1969 908/02 accepted, one of Martini crashed in practice, and the Solar Production car had to serve as camera mule anyway. Matra entered two MS650s (roadsters with tubular chassis) and a new MS660 (a roadster with monocoque chassis). Except for Jack Brabham all the drivers were French. Alfa Romeo, until 1951 the major Italian competitor, had upgraded their Alfa Romeo Tipo 33 from 2 to 3 litres.