1972 24 Hours of Le Mans - Pre-race

Pre-race

The track layout was changed yet again, with a new section of turns being built between Arnage and the Ford chicane for the purposes of bypassing the dangerously fast Maison Blanche and the fast curves through the route up towards Maison Blanche and the pits. The five new turns installed would later become known as the Porsche curves, while at the same time a second chicane was added to the Ford chicane to help with the creation of a new pit lane entrance.

For 1972, 5.0L cars were banned from the World Championship and thus from Le Mans. The Prototype (Group 6) category became the new Sport (Group 5) category with no minimal production required. This left the game open for the best 3.0L cars with F1-like engines.

In 1971, the best competitor in the 3.0L class was Alfa Romeo who managed to beat the Porsche 917 at three races. Alfa Romeo made the choice to build a new car for 1972. Unusually, the new 33 TT3 was built on a tubular chassis while the previous prototype was a monocoque. Making the new car competitive and competing in both the World championship and Le Mans proved to be too much for the team.

Ferrari and Matra took different approaches. Matra cut down its participation in endurance racing to focus on Le Mans, while Ferrari made the opposite choice preferring to compete for the World Championship and to bypass Le Mans, as the F1 inspired 312 PB was optimized for 1000 km races.

This made Matra the favorite for the 24 hours, with four cars entered – 3 brand new Matra 670, an evolution of the 660 specially constructed and designed to race in Le Mans, and an older but updated 660. They faced an opposition consisting mainly of three Alfa Romeo 33 TT3s, two semi-official Lola T280s entered by Jo Bonnier's team, and one private Porsche 908L enrolled by Reinhold Joest. This car was similar to the Porsche that finished second in 1969 and was considered seriously outdated and underpowered.