1970 Le Mans

1970 — New rules ended the famous and popular Le Mans start and required seat belts – it changed Le Mans forever.

Le Mans’ signature run-across-the-road-leap-in-and-go start began as a measure of automotive utility in an age when many weren’t entirely convinced that cars were practical devices for long distance travel. The 24 Hours of Le Mans was organized to prove the efficacy of the long distance touring automobile. With that job done, the event became grand entertainment, the centerpiece of European motorsport, and the Le Mans start was one of its most glamorous components.

By the time Steve McQueen’s Solar Productions arrived to make their movie, the Le Mans start was gone: banished by good sense. The A.C.O. placed the cars in qualifying order in front of the pits with the drivers safely buckled in. McQueen made it work in the movie, and the first lap of the 1970 24 Hours was absent the horror of '69.

The first car in line was the white 917LH Langheck of Porsche Salzburg for Vic Elford and Kurt Ahrens. The 5.0-liter Group 5 sports cars had become Le Mans’ dominant species. Porsche had opened the year with a crushing victory in the 24 Hours of Daytona. Mario Andretti had won an electrifying Sebring for Ferrari in the new 512S, but only after the 917s had failed.

The 917 had forced Ferrari’s hand. Maranello created the 512S quickly. But the process had been reflexive and reactive. Like many premature births the 512S suffered growing pains throughout its brief life span, but for a first try it was a fast and amazing car. There were 11 of the big red "sports cars" at Le Mans to face a squad of seven 917 Porsches. Ferrari made his lot worse by joking openly about initial reports that Porsche was building a 12-cylinder sports car. Now he had to face that monster where it mattered most.

During June '69 Ferrari sold half his stock to Fiat, who would look after the production cars. Ferrari used some of that money to create the 512 and was building and selling Group 5 sports cars as fast as he coul, plus trying to run a tandem Formula 1 program. To ease this plight, Jacky Ickx was making a run at the F1 crown and doing much of the heavy lifting for the 512S program.

But Modena was in the midst of a protracted dry spell. Ickx had been burned in the Spanish GP, then burned again by leaking gasoline in the Belgian GP. This time around, he was feeling somewhat less like the Jacky Ickx of June '69 . Ferrari was numbed: winless throughout the '69 F1 season, with only Andretti’s passionate adrenaline-soaked victory at Sebring to show for it all.

Alfa Romeo returned to Le Mans, financially committed to the T33 prototype now wearing 3.0-liter V8 engines. They were two years late, prepared to fight a war that had already been lost: a battle with the obsolescent 3.0-liter Porsche 908 for prototype honors.

Like Matra, Alfa never saw the Group 5 loophole; at Porsche, loophole enlargement was company policy. Two of the reliable 908 roadsters were entered for the '70 edition regardless. One was a "non-racing" camera platform driven by Jonathan Williams and Herbert Linge; the Revson/McQueen Sebring roadster was equipped with bulky 35 mm movie cameras to record the whole thing for McQueen’s feature movie "Le Mans". The other 908 was a serious and well turned out private entry for Rudi Lins and Helmut Marko. They were parked 22nd in the line against the pit counter.

Matra had a pair of 3.0-liter V12 MS650s and a too-new MS660 for an almost unanimous French driving squad. The French national racing driver farm system was working at full power; only Jack Brabham broke the Gallic pedigree. No newcomer to sports cars, the three-time World Champion had been part of Aston Martin’s all-star DBR1 team.

There was no formal Porsche factory team. After a year with new manager Rico Steinemann, Porsche stunned the racing world by hiring John Wyer Automobiles to race and develop the 917. It was a profound decision and bore fruit at once. Wyer tamed the 917’s wonky aerodynamics with the K-version (kurzheck) short-tail bodywork. An abbreviated tail and a small center spoiler lacking any hint of cockpit adjustable aerodynamics tamed the 917’s bad aero-manners. Wyer’s fix slowed the 917 fractionally but made it a much more stable and cooperative racing platform. The English team in Gulf Oil’s blue and orange livery was complemented by the quasi-works Porsche Salzburg team. Stuttgart had all the bases covered. They considered themselves robbed in '69 and stood determined to have their rightful due in '70.

Porsche had practically won the world sports car title before they got to Le Mans. Wyer had won Daytona, Monza, Brands Hatch and Spa with 917s and the Targa with the blunt 908/3. But it was Porsche Salzburg (Piech’s intramural team) that administered Porsche’s coup de grace in the 1000Km of the Nurburgring. The rivalry between John Wyer Automotive and Porsche Salzburg had been stronger stuff than the Porsche vs. Ferrari battle. But Maranello knew it could all be redeemed at Le Mans.

The new 512S long-tails were marginally faster on Mulsanne than the 917K. But Porsche had introduced a new 4.9-liter engine at Monza. Even Vic Elford was impressed and put the 4.9 917L Salzburg 917 on the pole with at an eye-watering 150.8mph lap. Nino Vaccarella put his coda lunge (long-tail) 512S next, just two-tenths behind. McQueen’s script, such as it was, lacked this much meat.

In honor of Porsche’s 20th participation at Le Mans, Dr. Porsche himself dropped the symbolic tricolor at 4:00 p.m. In fact there were four starting flags shown. The drivers were belted in their cars, tails to the wall and none, save Elford, could see Dr. Porsche clearly. It was a fine omen. Henry Ford II had dropped the gilded flag in ’66 when his cars won. Giovani Agnelli did the honors in ’68; a year later Fiat owned half of Ferrari. Now it was Porsche’s turn to start the race he ached to win more than any other.

Elford let the 917L eat. The car had been destroying lap records wherever it went: Spa, Nurburgring, Monza, no matter. The 917 was the road racing car of the year and maybe of the decade, eclipsing the best F1 cars when the speeds were high. Elford set a new Le Mans lap record almost at once and made several passes down the Mulsanne straight near 238mph. And Siffert was right behind him in Wyer’s 917K – then Vaccarella and the mob.

Elford and Siffert were into the tail of the field on the third lap, and Pedro Rodriguez decided it was time to join them. By 4:30 Vaccarella’s 512S was gone with a hole in the block. The first pits stops came 20min later, and both Elford and Siffert were racing again in 20sec. Rodriguez cruised by into the lead only to take his turn in the pits on the next lap. Siffert had lowered the lap record to 3:22 in his pursuit of Elford and that seemed to prove Wyer’s point about the kurzheck vs. the langheck rear deck. The crowd felt the first sprinkles of rain just after 5:30.

Siffert pitted early to have his wheel lugs tightened. This let Elford back in front. All the Ferraris had lost touch with the leaders, and Reine Wisell was in particular bother with rain and oil streaking and smearing his windshield. He was pottering through White House in his Filipinetti coda lunga at significantly reduced speed when Derek Bell burst out of the mist and slop in his 512S, going perhaps 100mph faster.

Somehow Bell produced a miracle and escaped a starring role in the television highlight reels. But his mirrors were a horror show. Reggazoni’s works 512S hit Wisell’s car, sent it spinning down the road and then mounted the barrier. Parkes arrived in the 512S he shared with Herbert Mueller and managed to hit both cars, setting his own on fire. The firemen made short work of it, but the long interval of silence at the pits was sobering. Three first-string Ferraris gone in a moment, and Bell’s 512S stranded on Hunaudiers with a broken engine. At least Bell got a ride to the pits before the really heavy rain began to fall at 8:00 o’clock.

Mike Hailwood had to walk back from the Dunlop Bridge in the downpour. Carlo Facetti’s Alfa spun only to be hit by the Hailwood/Hobbs JWA 917. Wyer was already in a silent rage when Hailwood arrived on foot. Mike The Bike got the infamous Wyer "death ray" stare and a curt comment.

The loss was less dramatic to Stuttgart: Porsches were first through fifth with Ickx a distant sixth in the best of the Ferraris. Jack Brabham and Francois Cevert led the Group 6 prototypes in the Matra roadster, but the V12s were using too much oil: all the Matras were digesting the stuff at a record rate and went en masse to the dead car park with bad piston rings at quarter distance.

Elford had gotten back into the lead, only to feel the car go woozy and imprecise. A leaking tire was the culprit, and a pit stop to remedy it allowed Siffert/Redman’s JWA 917 in front again.

The rain was good to Ickx. He was running hard and had come from sixth to second as Saturday became Sunday. He was four laps behind the leading 917 when both arrived at the Ford chicane. The Porsche had the line: the Ferrari spun, hit the barrier, left the road and climbed the opposite bank, running over and killing a corner worker.

Siffert was aboard the leading Porsche and feeling racy. He couldn’t resist when he came upon a trio of cars jockeying for position as they passed the pits. "Seppi" passed them all with his foot on the floor. When he reached for the next gear, he missed the shift. In the pits, co-driver Redman heard the 4.9 boxer buzz through the redline. A lap later, Siffert was in the pits with oil oozing from the tailpipes and the telltale pointing at 9600rpm. The Rodriguez/Kinunnen 917 had retired hours before, and Siffert’s mistake ended Wyer’s chance for a Le Mans hat trick.

Siffert’s indiscretion promoted the second-string 4.5-liter Porsche Salzburg 917 of Richard Attwood and Porsche-good-guy Hans Herrmann into the lead. By 4:00 o’clock and halfway, the orange No. 23 was still in front, followed by both 917 langhecks and the amazing privately entered 908 of Rudi Lins and Dr. Helmut Marko. The Rolf Stommelen/Nanni Galli Alfa T33 was fifth overall, and the NART 512S of Sam Posey and Ronnie Bucknam was sixth and best of breed.

Porsche had good news deeper in the pack. The weather was abominable and attrition was high, but one of its new 914/6 GTs led the Grand Touring race from the 911s and the unlimited-displacement Corvettes. Dawn brought an electric storm to the southern horizon, and the race entered the floating lull the French call "le procession". Only the trip of the starring Elford/Ahrens 917 langheck to the dead car park at breakfast time relieved the banality. The retirement promoted the Lins/Marco Martini-entered 908 into second place, but the purple and green Tony Lapine-designed 917 langheck was stretching its considerable legs and well on its way now that daylight, such as it was, had arrived, and the rain seemed to retreat.

Le procession. Attwood and Herrmann led at noon. McQueen reckoned he had at least 250,000ft of film in the can, and his Sebring-908 was in the top 10 – or would have been had it been racing. Gerard Larousse and Willy Kauhsen had the No. "3+hippy" 917 in second but were five laps behind the leaders.

Herrmann made his last stop with 90min on the clock. Attwood stood on the counter, gallantly allowing Herrmann to finish. It was his due, revenge for his narrow defeat the pervious year. But Hans timed it just wrong crossing the line at 3:59 and had to go around again. The first car under the flag was the Solar Productions 908 camera car.

The remains of the mighty 917 armada were 1-2-3 at the top. The Martini 908 was an amazing fourth, and once again Luigi Chinetti’s North American Racing Team was the best Ferrari: Posey and Bucknam home fifth overall and fourth in Group 5.

The course had dried enough to allow the 427 Corvette to use most of its considerable horsepower, Henri Greder and Jean-Paul Rouget winning the unlimited GT and the 914/6 GT was first in GT under 2.0-liters.

McQueen’s trusty 908 Sebring mount was an amazing, but unclassified, ninth overall. The movie became a cult favorite with orthodox Le Mans followers. The race was something less than the season preceding it promised: a new record of only seven cars finished. All the headline players and big guns were gone before dawn.

But Porsche had finally won Le Mans, and there is no asterisk in the record book, save the one noting Ferry Porsche’s honorary participation at the start.