1975 24 Hours of Le Mans - Pre-race

Pre-race

In the wake of the oil crisis, Le Mans introduced rules in 1975 regarding fuel consumption. In response, the CSI excluded the 24 Hours from the World Championship for Makes. The rules required cars to go a minimum of 20 laps between refueling, along with the use of mandated fuel tank sizes. These regulations would be a predecessor to the Group C era of the 1980s.

Running at lower RPM to match the fuel limitation, a Cosworth DFV engine could be reliable on 24 hours. John Wyer had planned his retirement but he couldn't resist to the opportunity to win Le Mans again, and he chose not to retire this year and to make Le Mans the sole race of the Gulf team program for the 1975 season. Two new Gulf GR-8's were designed and constructed especially for Le Mans, largely a derivative of the Gulf GR-7 but with new bodywork giving up-to-date aerodynamics optimized for Le Mans and fuel efficiency. With the technology of Gulf that could provide specially tuned fuel, the Gulf team were by far the favorite.

The new rules were also an opportunity for Guy Ligier who had previous experience in racing a Cosworth at Le Mans. As Matra had withdrawn from competition, Ligier managed to acquire the services of Matra's engineer Gérard Ducarouge, and the sponsorship of Gitanes. The sales of Ligier road going JS-2 had decreased drastically with the oil crisis, and the team was preparing his entry in Formula One for 1976. This left limited financial and engineering means for endurance racing. Ligier made the choice to run the race with the experienced Ligier JS-2's chassis fitted with DFV engines and Hewland gearboxes. In terms of performance the Gulf prototypes were clearly superior to the Ligier that were initially designed in 1971 as Maserati-powered road-cars and hacked as Cosworth-powered prototypes in 1975. Achieving superior reliability was the sole chance for the team to gain advantage over the Gulfs. Ligier chose to run some races of the World Championship before Le Mans as tests runs for the Cosworth-powered JS-2.

Gulf entered 2 GR-8's in Le Mans while Ligier entered 2 JS-2 Cosworth and one JS-2 Maserati. Both rivals had seriously downgraded their DFV engines: the Gulf had around 380 hp (280 kW), while the Ligiers had 420 hp (310 kW) to compensate some of their handicap.

Alpine-Renault entered one 2.0L A441 C with an all-women team. As the A441 was probably the best 2.0L car of that era and 2.0L cars weren't much restrained by fuel limitation, this car was a serious outsider.

Porsche made a minimal effort, being represented only by private teams. The rest of the opposition consisted in a brand new and very aerodynamic-looking Lola T380-Cosworth entered by the gentleman-driver Alain de Cadenet, partnering Chris Craft. De Cadenet was here to finish, according to various sources he had limited his DFV RPMs so low that the engine wasn't able to deliver more than 350 hp.