Porsches Win At Last

By Simon Taylor and Patrick McNally (Autosport 18 June 1970)

After trying so hard for so long, Porsche scored their first outright win in the Le Mans 24
Hours last weekend when the Salzburg-entered 917 of Richard Attwood/Hans Herrmann
finished first, five laps ahead of the long-tailed 917 of Gerard Larrousse/Willi Kauhsen.
To make Porsche's victory complete, the 908 Spyder of Rudi Lins/Helmut Marko was
third, winning the Group 6 category, and the 914/6 scored its first important result when
Claude Ballot-Lena/Guy Chasseuil finished an official sixth overall and won the GT
category.

More than ever, Le Mans this year was a race of attrition. Only two of the seven 917s entered
finished the race: two Gulf-JW cars retired with engine trouble, the Siffert/Redman car when
leading comfortably, and the third crashed. Nine of the 11 Ferrari 512Ss retired before half
distance: the Ickx/Schetty works car, which would have moved into the lead when Siffert
retired, had gone off the road in pouring rain a matter of minutes before, killing a marshal. Four
more 512Ss were eliminated in a multiple accident, and another of the quick ones blew up its
engine in the first half-hour. All the works Matras and Alfa Romeos failed to finish.
Heavy thunderstorm which completely flooded the track were responsible for many of the
accidents, but during a dry period Vic Elford's long-tailed Salzburg Porsche set a new lap record,
averaging a fraction under 150 mph. With the retirement of the fastest cars and the poor
weather conditions, the race average was far from being a record.

ENTRY
The Le Mans 24 Hours, the world's most romantic race, has almost always been a battle
between two marques - Jaguar and Mercedes-Benz, Jaguar and Ferrari, Ferrari and Ford, Ford
and Porsche. This was more than ever true of 1970's Vingt-Quatre Heures, for the
newly-crowned sports car champions, Porsche, and the recently rejuvenated Ferrari team were
meeting for their most important confrontation yet. Noone knows better than Porsche that, in
the eyes of the world, it is more important to win the Le Mans 24 Hours than to win the Sports
Car Championship title itself - as 1969 proved, when Porsche had already won the championship
but were beaten so dramatcally by a JW GT40 at Le Mans.

In fact, even more was at stake this year, both for Zuffenhausen and for Maranello. Porsche
first came to Le Mans in 1951, with an 1100 cc coupé, and won their class. Ever since they
have been consistent class winners: but overall victory has never been theirs. It eluded them
last year despite enormous factory expenditure on racing, and remained the one important
event Porsche have tried and failed to win. As for Ferrari, despite the huge injection of financial
support from Fiat and a new car designed, built and homologated for the sole purpose of
beating the Porsche 917, there had been little succes in 1970, apart from a fluke win at
Sebring. In Formula 1 Ferrari's fortunes are also rather low, and never had the Italians needed a
victory so badly to rstore their morale and their public image - particularly in a race which they
had won six times on the trot in the previous decade.

In terms of numbers, it was 11 512Ss versus eight 917s, but all the 917s were JW- or
factory-prepared, whereas the Ferraris varied from the latest factory coupés with lightweight
long-tailied bodywork and Le Mans engines to the private entries of Scuderia Picchio Rosso and
Goerge Loos.