1970 24 Hours of Le Mans - Race

Race

Unsurprisingly, the low-drag, high-power Porsche Salzburg 917L 4.9 set the pole position at 3:19.8, with Vic Elford at the wheel. Only 0.2s behind was the fastest 512S Coda Lunga, though, and with the Siffert/Redman 917K, another 512 and the other Wyer 917 4.9 within 2 seconds, competition was close. The fastest Matra was 14th in practice, and the fastest Alfa at 17th was still ahead of two 512S.

For the first time the traditional "Le Mans start", in which the drivers run across the track to enter their cars, was replaced by a variant in which the pilots already sat in their cars, having had their belts safely strapped tight by mechanics. But now almost all cars entered the track simultaneously, so for 1971, a rolling "Indianapolis start" was chosen. For Porsche's 20th participation, Ferry Porsche himself was given the honour of dropping the tricolor flag at 16:00. After few laps, the engine of the Vaccarella/Giunti 512 that had qualified second failed, soon followed by the Wyer-917K 4.9 of Pedro Rodríguez with a cooling fan failure.

At 17:30, when the rain began to fall, all the Ferraris had already lost touch with the leaders. Soon after, Reine Wisell was running at reduced speed at Maison Blanche in his "coda lunga" Ferrari 512S, when Derek Bell came in another 512 S going around 160 km/h (100 mph) faster. Bell produced a miracle in avoiding the crash. The following Works 512S of Clay Regazzoni hit Wisell's, and Mike Parkes hit both cars, setting his own 512S on fire. Firemen came quickly and no drivers were seriously hurt. To complete Ferrari's disaster, Bell's engine had taken excessive RPMs in the adventure and broke on the Mulsanne straight, meaning that by now, three factory Ferrari and two of Scuderia Filipinetti were out. A few laps later, the Wyer car with Mike Hailwood crashed at the Dunlop Curve, eliminating the seventh top 10 qualifier.

The rain became heavier around 20:00, at a time when the last works Ferrari, driven by Peter Schetty and Jacky Ickx, was sixth. Ickx, probably the most talented driver of this era under the rain, managed to bring the car to second at midnight, but this ended tragically when Ickx had an accident that killed a corner worker at the Ford chicane. After Ickx's crash a little more than 4 hours into the event, 9 of the 11 (including all 4 works) Ferrari 512's entered were out of the race. Jack Brabham and François Cevert led the prototypes in the Matra roadster, but the V12s were using too much oil, and over a period of 9 laps all the Matras broke piston rings no later than lap 79. This wasn't the year either for Wyer, after Rodríguez and Hailwood out early, Jo Siffert blew his 4.9L engine by missing a shift while passing slower cars. Save for the polesitter, all the major players were gone during the night.

At dawn the weather turned from heavy rain to storm. Three 917s were leading, followed by a 908. The remaining Porsches just had to make it home safely, driving almost all day in the heavy rain without losing concentration. After 18 hours, also the Porsche-Salzburg 917 L had problems with its 4.9L engine, leaving only the 4.5L Porsches. Of the 51 cars that had started, 16 were still running after 24 hours, and twelve of them were Porsche, the camera car among them.

Hans Herrmann and Richard Attwood in their red and white No. 23 Porsche Salzburg 917 K won while Gérard Larrousse and Willi Kauhsen finished second with the Hippie Car of Martini Racing. Martini also entered a pair of Porsche 908/02 LH, and the one driven by Rudi Lins and Helmut Marko finished 3rd, ahead of two Ferrari 512, a Porsche 914 and a Porsche 911 as the seventh and last car to be classified, as all others had either dropped out or not covered enough distance compared to the winner. Porsche had won all four classes that had finishers.

Hans Herrmann, a veteran at age 42 who had survived the dangerous Mille Miglia and Carrera Panamericana races of the 1950s, had driven for Mercedes and Porsche in F1 and won the Targa Florio plus many other major races for Porsche, had promised his wife to quit racing if he should finally win the big one at Le Mans, a success which he had missed narrowly in 1969. So he retired with immediate effect, much to the surprise of his Porsche Salzburg team and its boss Louise Piëch.

After many class wins, Porsche had won Le Mans outright for the first time, the last and most sought after triumph for the former underdog which managed to win all others sports car races and titles during the 1960s. The next weekend, the two 917s were paraded across Stuttgart, from Zuffenhausen to the town hall square.