1972: Graham Hill wins Le Mans

Matra's main opposition came from Alfa Romeo and Lola, in the absence of Ferrari. The Alfas proved quite able challengers until half-distance when clutch trouble seriously delayed the de Adamich/Vaccarella and Marko/Elford cars, and the Stommelen/Galli car retired with engine failure. At the finish only de Adamich/Vaccarella were left in fourth place, 37 laps behind the winners.

The two Bonnier Lolas both led during the early stages of the race and despite various problems were always well-placed until their retirements. As widely recorded, the whole race lost much of its appeal when shortly after 8 am on Sunday news filtered through that Jo Bonnier had been involved in a serious accident. It soon became sadly apparent that Bonnier had been killed when his Lola cannoned off a Ferrari Daytona, flew off the track into some trees. Earlier in the race Bonnier had a terrifying sideways moment on Mulsanne when a tyre lost a tread wrecking the rear bodywork. After a long pit-stop with braking problems on Sunday morning, Bonnier was making up lost time from eighth place when the dreadful accident happened. The other Lola, that of de Fierlandt/Larrousse, went extremely well, de Fierlandt surprising a lot of people for his turn of speed, but that car too had problems and eventually retired before half-distance went it went off the road and could not restart, having no clutch.

Behind the two Matras was the very consistent, special-bodied Porsche 908 of Reinhold Joest/Michel Weber which had no dramas and made up ground when others dropped out to finish a fine third, ahead of the Alfa.

Surprise of the race was the performance of the new Duckhams-Ford 3-litre, driven by Chris Craft/Alain de Cadenet. Despite various teething problems (the car had only been tested briefly before the race), the oar held a tremendous fifth position and would certainly have finished fourth until within two hours of the finish, Craft slid off in the pouring rain when on dry tyres and caused frontal damage, which put the car in the pits for a long, long time. A great pity after such a fantastic performance by this British team.

Another fine performance was by the three Ford of Germany Capris, although they didn't run as trouble free as anticipated and the Mass/Stuck car retired with engine trouble. At the finish Gerry Birrell/Claude Bourgoignie won the Group 2 section and finished 12th overall.

The Group 4 class contained plenty of interest, being led by the Greenwood/Darniche/Cudini Corvette until starting problems dropped him well down the field, leaving battle between the Daytona Ferraris. At the finish five such Ferraris filled fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth and ninth places overall, led by the Andruet/Ballot-Lena car from Posey/Adamowicz, and the former's car won the Index of Energy. The de Tomasos never provided a challenge.

The crowd was as big as usual and apart from a few showers, some very heavy, the weather was quite reasonable. However heavy mist caused a problem on Sunday morning.

Whatever is right or wrong with the current 3-litre regulations governing Group 5 long distance racing, the ACO's annual June festivities will go on forever. Almost a quarter of a million people cluster around the circuit each year, and seemingly the absence of Ferrari and Mirage made little difference to this year's attendance.

But the attraction is not simply the fairground, the frites and the French love of le weekend, all of which are old cliches to account for the huge attendance. They are motor sporting enthusiasts, and more than one in two Le Mans visitors watches another motor sporting event each year; 26.8 per cent go up to three times each year. Fifty-five per cent have visited the race before, at an average of 5.8 times.

These figures emerge from an ACO crowd survey, which also reveals that only one in eight visitors comes from Le Mans, and that a quarter come from the Paris area. But to British race-goers, perhaps the most interesting aspect is that each person spends an average of approximately £7.25 when at the race - and that doesn't even include the cost of admission and car parking! Le Mans, indeed, is a real money-spinner which, it is alleged, occupies the entire staff of the ACO for some 364 days each year.

But even if the mystique of Le Mans is not changing, the circuit is physically. Even at the test weekend earlier this year the infamous White House section had gone, replaced by a sweeping, curvaceous section before the Ford chicane, which itself was introduced only in 1968. The new circuit is only marginally longer - 13.64 km compared with the old 13.459 km. But it is nowhere near as fast, and it would seem that the 1971 lap times will stand for ever. The golden age of 5-litres and the old circuit have gone, and we have only the 3m 13.9s lap done by Pedro Rodriguez in practice to remember them by. The best lap is now almost 30 s down and is likely to be even more in arrears when the new Mulsanne straight is completed in time for the 1974 test weekend.

The proposed new straight, built parallel to the old one on the inside of the circuit, will measure 4.575 km, compared with the existing 5.7 km. Tertre Rouge corner will remain in roughly the same place but a little nearer the esses and the main section has been lopped off at the Mulsanne corner end. The new section will cut through the country, and rejoin the existing circuit halfway between the present Mulsanne corner and Indianapolis. When it is completed the circuit will be, in the words of M. Joel le Theule, president of the association that is modernising the circuit, "wholly independent." The final stage of this development plan will come, hopefully, with a sports, research and leisure complex. The construction of this will depend on the success of the replanned track (and there should be no problems attracting the spectators) and the construction of a new motorway towards Rennes and Nantes, expected in 1976. If only it were that simple in Britain!



The anticipated Matra/Ferrari struggle was never really on. Having geared their racing programme to "sprint" races of 1000-km (and twice that distance at Sebring), Ferrari claimed that it was not possible to prepare adequately for a one-off 24-hours race. It couldn't have been for lack of capital, though, for the incredible Ferrari effort in winning eight out of eight championship races was not done on a shoe-string budget.

One gets the impression that, having won everything there was to win, including the manufacturers' championship, there was no point in taking on Matra on their home ground. After all, Matra had missed all the previous races to concentrate on this one 24-hours race. Matra had prepared for one long-distance event, Ferrari had prepared for the remaining, shorter events, and the two were never likely to meet, despite the fact that even until a couple of weeks before the event Ferrari personnel had been re-affirming the decision to go. But why should they? They could only lose, and the technical excuse of not having sufficient resources to cope with a race of this distance was the best to hand.

It is likely that the decision not to go was taken very early in the season, and those autostrada tests with long-tailed 312Ps probably confirmed the decision. The other notable absentees, Gulf Research Racing with their Mirage - actually Mirages because two had been entered - took the decision to forfeit the 24-hours before the Nurburgring 1000kms, which, ironically, provided them with their best result to date. Their reason for not going was given as the unavailability of a proven VI2 engine from Harry Weslake. The V8 Cosworth engine, designed in the first instance as a Formula 1 unit, has never lasted a 1000km race for the team. It was certainly never intended to use the V8 at Le Mans - that was for the V12 - and so Mirage were absent.

It meant that the actual line-up for Le Mans was a far different affair from that anticipated on the original entry list. That contained five Ferraris, three Lolas, four Matras, two Mirages and four Alfa Romeos. In reality we had those four Matras, but only three Alfas, two Lolas, no Mirages and no Ferraris. Instead of the Matra/Ferrari battle we were presented with a Matra/Alfa Romeo battle, with Lola as hopeful outsiders. The battle was joined by a good many old Porsches, which have proved themselves on reliability many times in the past.

In addition to this sports car class there was an excellent GT entry, which featured nine Ferrari Daytonas, five de Tomaso Panteras, five Chevrolet Corvette Stingrays and 10 Porsche 911S;s, a Ferrari Dino and a Datsun 240Z - believed to be the first Japanese car to compete at Le Mans. The organisers had also opened the doors for the first time to Group 2 saloon cars, and immediately received a works entry from Ford-Germany, who were anxious to prove the reliability of the "production saloon cars." Production saloon car the Capri 2600RS may be, but it is more shrewdly homologated than any of the GT cars which it was out to beat on the road.

Favourites, obviously, for outright victory would come from the Group 5 sports car class. And of these the most likely, not just by weight of numbers, was the Matra Simca Shell team. Their four cars arrived as promised, 1972 MS670s for Jean-Pierre Beltoise/ Chris Amon (450 bhp), Francois Cevert/Howden Ganley (435 bhp) and Henri Pescarolo/ Graham Hill (435 bhp), and an older MS660 (with the latest monocoque and cockpit modifications to comply with the regulations) for Jean-Pierre Jabouille/David Hobbs (420 bhp). As will be seen, there was one French driver per crew, which was considered necessary by the team. Each car was looked after by the maximum four mechanics and a technician and in total the French company had approximately 60 personnel present directly connected with the Le Mans effort.

As for all teams, Matra were faced with the question of finding the right compromise between outright speed and reliability. For long-distance racing they limited their V12s to only 10,500 rpm - as opposed to 12,000 for the Formula 1 - and it is in this set-up that the team have been doing their endurance testing at Ricard. Three times they attempted a 24-hours run, and only on the last attempt did they succeed with 28 hours trouble-free. All drivers except Hobbs took part in these trials, including reserve driver Bernard Fiorentino. For Ganley, it was his first race at Le Mans. No one at Matra was prepared to say how much their Le Mans effort cost except to record that it was "astronomical."

It must be said that Alfa Romeo's decision to race at Le Mans was a truly courageous one. After a successful 1971 season, in which they scored victories at Brands Hatch, Targa Florio and Watkins, Glen, their credibility has hit rock bottom in 1972. When they arrived at Le Mans they had allegedly done nothing to the engines of their T33 TTs to ensure they lasted the distance, and were trying only long-tailed bodywork.

This new bodywork gave the cars extra speed down the straight at the expense of stability in the corners. But by removing those spoilers and adjusting suspension settings it was decided to run the cars with their longer tails, which gave approximately 8900 rpm on the straights compared with the old bodywork's 8200 rpm. Driver pairings were Rolf Stommelen/Nanni Galli, Vic Elford/ Helmut Marko and Nino Vaccarella/Andrea de Adamich.

Jo Bonnier's Lola team, for their part, looked fresh and quietly confident with their two DFV-powered Lola T280s. Ecurie Bonnier has been running these cars in previous rounds on a comparatively limited budget, and since the last race in which they competed, the Nurburgring 1000-kms, the cars had undergone a complete change. Bonnier obtained sponsorship from the Swiss cheese organisation and 48,000 man-hours allegedly went into the preparation on these cars.

They underwent shake-down tests at the Dijon circuit, not to prove their reliability so much as to make sure all the modifications were working properly. These included the fitting of two extra headlights, bigger brakes and a new method of retaining the wheels. Previously the Lolas had used knock-off caps, but the new ones were the single-nut variety to be removed with compressed air guns.

As far as Lola were concerned, there were two areas of suspicion-the engine and the gearbox. The engines were kept down to 9400 rpm, which gave them 420 bhp. The gearbox used, like that on the Duckhams Special, was a Hewland DG300, a unit originally designed for Formula 1 use. Matra also use this gearbox for their "sprint" cars but for the 24-hours had chosen to use ZF 5DS25 equipment which was reckoned to be stronger.

The Lolas had three drivers each, which was allowable under the latest regulations. These were driven by Jo Bonnier/Gerard Larrousse/Gijs van Lennep and Jorge de Bagration/Hughes de Fierlandt/Mario Cabral. Van Lennep, winner last year, was able to substitute the injured Reine Wisell as he had no Mirage commitments.

But perhaps the greatest surprise of all could have come from Reinhold Joest's Porsche 908/3. Remember the stubby car in Gulf-style blue and orange at the BOAC? It has been back to the works and been completely transformed. The 908/3 was, of course, never really intended for this type of circuit: it was a Targa Florio and Nurburgring car. But the Porsche factory had completely stripped and reassembled the car and given it beautiful (and typically Porsche) long-tailed bodywork. Joest's Siffert ATE Racing team-mates were Michael Weber and Mario Casoni, and it must be said that certain Porsche employees from Stuttgart were "on holiday" at Le Mans.

The other Porsche 908/3 was the more conventional yellow and green Escuderia Montjuich car of Juan Fernandez/F. Torredemer/Eugenio Baturone. Older Porsche 908Ss featured well, obviously hoping for more reliability than their faster and more modern adversaries. These were driven by Hans-Dieter Weigel/Helmut Krause, Walter Roser/Otto Stuppacher, Christian Poirot/ Philippe Farjon and Jean-Claud Lagniez/Raymond Tourol. Even older Porsches were for "Novestille"/Louis Cosson/Jean-Louis Ravenel (2.4 910) and P. Mattli/Herve Bayard (2.0 907).

Guy Ligier had entered a couple of his Maserati V6-engined Ligier JS2-more like GT cars than sports cars-for himself and Jean-Francois Piot and Pierre Maublanc/J. H. Lafitte. Jean-Pierre Paoli was the third driver in each case. Claude .Laurant had a third car, privately entered, for himself and Delalande/Marche.

An interesting and ambitious British entry was Alain de Cadenet's Duckhams Special powered by a Ford V8 engine with transmission by a Hewland DG and a great deal of Brabham parts. De Cadenet was down to drive with Chris Craft, who finished fourth in this race last year. The only testing that the Duckhams had done prior to its arrival at Le Mans were a couple of sessions at Thruxton and Silverstone.

Guy Edwards' entry was taken over by Brian Robinson, who had nominated Jean Rondeau and Courage to drive his Caravan-sponsored Chevron B21 although F3 driver Stan Matthews was due to take over from Courage. The slightly older B19 was entered by Michel Dupont for himself and Jean-Pierre Bodin/P. E. Blancpain. There was the Kodak-sponsored Lola T290 of Barrie Smith/Rene Ligonnet, and the remaining two cars in this section were Veglia Grac Racing's Grac MT16 of Lionel Noghes/"Cyprien" and a very slow Taydec driven by Jakubowski/Schweitzer for Societe Darnval.

There were 30 runners in the GT class, five of which were brutish 7-litre Chevrolet Corvette Stingrays. There was NART's car for Bob Johnson/David Heinz and Greder Racing's entry for Henri Greder and Marie-Claude Beaumont, the lady driver who caused palpitations at the ACO last year when she said she wanted to race at Le Mans. Ecurie Leopard's was driven by Aubriet/"Depnic"/ "Sylvain." John Greenwood Racing had a couple of similar cars but had them shod with road-going BF Goodrich radial tyres. The cars were splendidly turned out in stars and stripes paintwork for Alain Cudini/Bernard Darniche and John Greenwood/Dick Smothers. Smothers is, of course, an American comedian, which must be the equivalent of having Ernie Wise going motor racing!

NART's Ferrari Dino was entrusted to two Volant Shell winners, Yves Forestier/ Gilles Doncieux. Motor Racing Facilities managed to obtain an entry for Rob Grant's Datsun 240Z which he was to share with Boss Mustang man Martin Birrane and Serge Trosch. The motor racing application was obviously an important design feature of the 5.7-litre Ford V8-engined de Tomaso Panteras, five of which were entered. The cars obviously have winning potential, although in reality they have so far achieved little. The cars were the Montjuich entries of Herbert Muller/Claude Kocher and F. de Baviera/Jose Juncadella. Franco Britannic's entry was to be driven by Guy Chasseuil/ Jean Vinatier, Brescia Corse's by "Pooky'/"Pam" and Calude Dubois by himself and Jean-Marie Jacquemin/Yves Deprez.

All of these, however, were overwhelmed numerically by the Ferrari Daytonas - nine in all - and the Porsche 911Ss, of which there were 10 entered. Of the Ferraris, there were three cars from NART for Jean-Pierre Jarier/ Pierre Laffeach Buchet, Luigi Chinetti Jnr/ Masten Gregory and Sam Posey/Tony Adamowicz. Filipinetti's two cars were driven by Michael Parkes/Jean-Louis Lafosse and Paul Cheneviere/Florian Vetsch and French importer Charles Pozzi had two cars for Jean-Claude Andruet/Claude Ballot-Lena and Daniel Rouveyran/Frangois Migault.

Ecurie Francorchamps entered one car for Derek Bell/Teddy Pilette/Richard Bond and Maranello Concessionaires' car was entered for Peter Westbury/John Hine/Mark Konig. Practically all of these cars had been prepared at the factory, and several, including the British-entered one, were very new and untried.

All the 911Ss were of approximately 2.5 litres and stood a firm chance of a good place if only on account of their numbers. The Porsche is a well raced and extremely proven car; unlike the Ferraris and Panteras, there was practically nothing new that could go wrong.
The Erwin Kremer/John Fitzpatrick entry was among the most fancied runners. Others were for Pierre Mauroy/Marcel Mignot, Sylvain Garant/Michel Keyser/Jurgen Barth, Claude Haldi/Paul Keller, "Gedehem"/J. Mesange/P. Boitier, Jean Sage/P. Greub/ Jean-Pierre Hanrioud, "Lee Banner/"Bardini"/Raymond Tourol, Georg Loos/Franz Pesch and Hermes Delbar/Roger Vanderschrick.

The new Group 2 class was dominated by the three works Capris of Dieter Glemser/ Alex Soler-Roig, Gerry Birrell/Claude Bourgoignie and Jochen Mass/Hans Stuck, none of whom had ever driven at Le Mans before. The Birrell/Bourgoignie car was all new and the other two had been raced before. Their special preparation for this race included lowering the compression ratio from 11.5:1 to 10.5:1, which partially accounted for the lower bhp figure-280 compared with 298. These Capris were not out to win their class - it was considered they had done that almost before they started - but to attack the GT section.

The fourth Capri was the Shark team's for Jean Claude Geurie/Jean Pierre Rouget/ Claude Grandet. Team Schnitzer Motul offered a slight challenge to the Ford weight in numbers by entering a BMW 2800CS for Hans Heyer/Rene Herzog. On the other hand, AGACI's entry of a Citroen SM for Guy Verrier/G. Foucault/F. Monath stood very little chance.

At scrutineering, every car was officially weighed and some interesting comparisons were drawn. Of the leading 3-litre contenders, the weight minimum was 650 kgs and most of the Matras, Alfas and Lolas weighed around the 720 kg mark. Lightest was the Stommelen/Galli Alfa at 714 kg while all of the Matras bar the Pescarolo car weighed 718 kg. Bonnier's Lola weighed 720 kg while The Duckhams-Ford was much lighter at 687 kg. However the 2 litre Group 5s were naturally much lighter. The Dupont Chevron B19 weighed 580 kg, 10 kg lighter than Robinson's B21, while most of the 3 litre Porsches weighed around the 660 kg, that is apart from the rebodied Joest car which weighed 713 kg.

In the Group 4 category the lightest Daytona was that of Parkes/Lafosse at 1365 kg, although most of the Daytonas were around that mark. Their main opposition came from the Goodrich Corvette at 1356 kg, and the de Tomasos at 1240 kg. Naturally the BMW (1243 kg) was much heavier than the works Capris in the Group 2 class, the Fords weighing around the 990 kg mark.

In fact there were going to be several cars which would not make it into the race, either through crashes, mechanical failure or just plain slowness. Indeed, the regulation which demanded that all drivers had to qualify within 133 per cent of the average times of the first three cars was causing considerable headaches for several teams. In future races the qualifying time is going to be the slightly harder 130 per cent.

Another new regulation for sports car racing next year declares that cars must be fitted with leak-proof fuel fillers. Such devices have been in operation on aeroplanes for some time, and at this year's Le Mans race the Matras, Alfas and Corvettes were fitted with these new nozzles made by the Rellumix company.



Practice for a race such as Le Mans is extremely important for the teams but it is impossible to read too much significance into individual times. It is a time for setting the car up, selecting the gear ratios - as is any practice - and making sure the lights shine in the right direction. There is a certain amount of prestige to be gained by being quickest overall, or quickest in a class, but it is only the foolhardy young bloods who try for demon (times.
Practice, held in light and darkness on the nights of Wednesday and Thursday, set the scene for the whole weekend. It seemed as if the whole of the Sarthe had turned up to watch. They were not disappointed, for on the first night poor Lionel Noghes had one gigantic accident. It was about 8 pm. Dave Heinz had just nerfed the metal barriers at Dunlop curve when a few minutes later Noghes' Grac appeared on the scene. It is not really known whether something broke or the driver lost it, but the little car bounced between the barriers like a billiard ball.

Everything but the cockpit area of the monocoque was totally destroyed. Noghes received only slight burns to the face, but there was a big outcry in the French Press when it was discovered that the race director was not alerted until 7 minutes after the accident and that alt was 11 minutes before a fire appliance arrived on the scene. And all this only a few hundred metres from the main pits area!

Some 90 minutes in total was lost before practice re-started. Earlier the track had been wet but during the enforced delay had dried. But by that time it was dark and there were obviously going to be no really good times that night.

Indeed, during the whole of practice no one was able to approach the times set by Jacky Ickx (3m 40.4s), Clay Regazzoni (3m 41.1s) and Cevert (3m 41.5s) during the March test weekend. Best in the abbreviated Wednesday sessions was Stommelen's Alfa Romeo in 3 m 50.6 s from Larrousse (3m 53.8s), Pescarolo (3m 55.0s), Elford (3m 57.3s), Galli (4m 0.1s) and Cevert (4m 1.0s). Then there was a 10s gap before anyone else.

An incredible 11th quickest overall was Stuck's Capri (4m 25.9s), which was in advance of the quickest GT cars, the Ferrari of Migault (4m 26.8s). At this stage the Daytonas had the GT section well in hand, three of the Panteras suffering broken engines of various sorts. Muller's broke a piston, the other Montjuich car cooked its engine and the Brescia Corse car holed a piston, and was out altogether. The two Montjuich cars had their 500 bhp engines replaced by less stressed 440 bhp units. The Daytonas, being such heavy cars, were in braking troubles, which were later rectified.

Fastest speed recorded at Hunaudieres along the Mulsanne straight was credited to Joest's Porsche 908/3 at 320 kph, about 200 mph. That special bodywork was obviously working! Next best was the quicker Lola (316 kph), while the fastest Matra was the Beltoise/Amon car at 312 and the best Alfa that of Stommelen/Galli. The Daytonas were quickest of the GTs, several recording speeds of 275 kph (about 170 mph). All Capri speeds were in the order of 255 kph (about 160 mph).

By the second day of practice Matras had sorted their problems, Alfas had had their engines changed and there was a change in the grid order. The three latest Matras took their places at the head of the grid - Cevert (3m 42.2s), Pescarolo (3m 44.9s) and Beltoise (3m 46.0s). Stommelen's was still the best Alfa, having done 3m 47.9s, which took it to the second row on the two-two grid. Bonnter's Lola was fifth quickest (3m 50s), just 0.2s quicker than Elford's Alfa. How long is it since a British car started so high on a Le Mans grid? Identical times of 3m 52.6s by Vaccarella's Alfa and Jabouille's Matra put them on to the fourth row. The only other car to crack the 4 minute bracket was the second Bonnier Lola.

There was a real turn-up in the GT section, in which the Greenwood/Darniche/Cudini Corvette managed a late 4m 18.8s lap, 16th best overall and ahead of all the Daytonas! The best of these was the Rouveyran/Migault car on 4m 21.7s. All other similar cars were at least 2s in arrears, and there certainly wasn't another Corvette that could touch any of the Daytonas. Quite a rivalry developed in this section between the two US teams - John Greenward's " southerners " and NART, playing the part of the Yankees.

The works Capri's were predictably best in the Group 2 section, Mass doing 4m 25.9s, Glemser 4 m 26.5 s and Birrell 4m 28.9 s. Practice was, of course, not just a matter of finding who was quickest, it was also a matter of finding the slowest, and out went the British-entered Datsun 240Z, the Group 2 Citroen and the Taydec.



The locals were quietly confident about a Matra victory. "Matra-this year or never," ran the headline in the well-informed French sports paper, L'Equipe. It was certainly very fine timing on the part of the French president, Georges Pompidou, to decide to start the race. There were even more policemen and officials milling about as the president was introduced to a select bunch that included Beltoise, Ligier, Larrousse, Cevert, Hill, de Adamich, Stommelen, de Fierlandt, de Bagration, van Lennep, Bonnier and Mme Beaumont.

But on with the serious business, and it was an extremely ragged field which accelerated away from the Ford chicane after the pace lap. Best away was Pescarolo followed by team-mates Cevert and Beltoise, Bonnier, Jabouille, Stommelen, Elford, de Adamich, de Fierlandt, Joest, Craft, Weigel, Touroul and the first of the GTs, the Corvette of Greenwood.

It was a similar story on the next lap - until the leaders came past the pits. Beltoise's Matra, lying in third place, stuttered and was left behind. He continued up through Dunlop curve, where a holed piston caused his retirement.

The car also caught fire which was quickly extinguished, but one of the French hopes was gone. They also took a tumble on the next lap when Bonnier came round in the lead, followed by Cevert, Pescarolo and Jabouille. There was then a slight gap to the first of the Alfas, Stommelen's, which was followed closely by de Fierlandt but was pulling away from de Adamich and Elford. There was an even greater gap to Joest's Porsche, which was making ground on the Duckhams Special and the Weigel Porsche.

Meanwhile the Greenwood Corvette led a string of Daytonas, Rouveyran, Posey, Ballot-Lena, Jarier. After half an hour the Capris had got the better of the BMW, and were running line ahead in the order Glemser, Mass, Birrell.

But Bonnier's turn in the lead lasted only a short time, and he was demoted a place by Cevert on lap five. Thus they remained for another three laps, when Bonnier went ahead once more. Then, surprise, surprise, on lap 9 the race lead was taken over by de Fierlandt, who had jumped up from fifth place and by the Matras and team-mate Bonnier. But by this time the track was wet from a shower of rain, and most drivers were taking things more steadily.

De Fierlandt actually retained his lead and after a dozen laps had a lead of over half a minute on Cevert. But by this time the first pitstops were coming up, and when de Fierlandt took his he dropped to fifth behind Cevert, Pescarolo, Jabouille and Stommelen, all of whom were about to make their (brief) pit stops.

Once these drivers had made their stops we were treated to several laps' worth of superb motor racing. Pescarolo, Cevert and Stommelen were circulating in very close company, dicing as if in a sprint race. It was great stuff, and after about 1 1/2 hours they had doubled seventh man Elford, who was not going in the manner which we have come to expect of him. Jabouille, de Adamich and Bonnier were fourth, fifth and sixth behind the flat out threesome. Indeed, at the height of this battle Pescarolo turned in a 3min 49.2sec lap, a new record at the Dime, and only Stommelen was able to stay with him, Cevert dropping back slightly.

While de Fierlandt's Lola was going very well in fifth place after a couple of hours, team-leader Bonnier had had considerable trouble with his car. He had lost about 5 min with various gearbox problems around the hour - the troubles were later rectified - but he was in again about 20 min later with broken rear bodywork. The Lola, using bigger Goodyears than it had in practice, got well sideways along the Mulsanne kink when a rear tyre threw a tread and damaged the rear bodywork. At a later stage when van Lennep was driving the new rear body section started to break up, which accounted for the team's last section of rear glassfibre. Any further similar problems, and it could be real trouble for the Swiss team.

Just before one hour's racing was up the Greenwood Corvette, just leading the GT section, came into the pits and lost about 11 min. After all the routine work had been done the starter connector broke, which gave the class lead to Rouveyran's Daytona from Posey, Jarier, Ballot-Lena and Bell. The pit stop was to cost the Corvette team dearly but drivers Greenwood, Cudini and Darniche set about the almost impossible task of picking up about 20 places in the class. Meanwhile, another fancied GT runner was out, Chasseuil having retired his de Tomaso after only 16 min racing with a blown head gasket. Another early retirement had been Stuppacher, whose 908 was graunched under the Dunlop bridge.

After two hours of racing Pescarolo held a half a second lead over Stommelen, who was harrying him all the way. Cevert, Jabouille, Larrousse (who had joined the race in de Fierlandt's car) and de Adamich were on the same lap, with Elford and Weber (who had taken over from Joest) a lap down. The Weigel/Krause Porsche and the Duckhams Special, still going strong, were a further lap in arrears.

In the Group 4 class Daytonas held the first four places, driven by Andruet/Ballot-Lene, Posey/Adamowicz, Jarier/Laffeach and Bell/Pilette. Meanwhile, the old class leaders, Rouveyran/Migault, had retired their car with clutch failure, and the Greenwood Racing Corvette was out of the running but trying hard. Fifth in class was held by the Kramer/ Fitzpatrick Porsche, but this car hadn't much longer to run. The German Capris were having little trouble in their class, although Birrell's car lost about 6min during that early rain shower having the windscreen wipers repaired.

Just after this period the race between Pescarolo and Stommelen came to a close as the Matra slipped into the pits. It was a long one, about 2min, which gave the German the lead, even though his stop was to come. When Hill rejoined in Pescarolo's car, he was down to fourth behind Galli's Alfa, Ganley and Jabouille.

At 6.20 pm Jabouille's Matra went missing. It had stopped several hundred metres before the Ford chicane out of petrol. It eventually arrived at the pits some 15 min later, whereupon it was replenished and Hobbs rejoined the race, several laps down. But it was not just drama in the Matra pit. At 6.30 pm Galli's leading car arrived in the pits. The plugs were changed and the trouble was later traced to a broken metering unit, which lost the car its lead and about 10 min. Ganley held the lead, but was being caught by Hill, and around the 3 hrs mark the Londoner was at the head.

Several cars had abandoned by the three-hour mark, including Guy Ligier's JS2 with a blown head gasket (6.30 pm), the Bodin Chevron B19 which stopped at the exit to the pits with a broken gearbox (6.35 pm), the Muller/Kocher Pantera with engine troubles (7 pm) and the similar car of de Baviera/ Juncadella with lack of oil pressure a few minutes later. Then, just after 7 pm Kremer brought in his 91 IS. Fitz was ready to take it out, but Kremer reported a fault. After 15 min the mechanics stopped working on it and it was announced that the car had a broken crank.

Two more Porsches went out within five minutes of each other shortly before 8 pm. They were the Mauroy/Mazzia car with a broken engine and the Delbard/Vanderschrick car with a broken gearbox. There was also trouble for Brian Robinson's Chevron. It arrived in the pits at 7.45 for a long stop. It did a further few laps in the hands of Rondeau, but was soon in again. The cylinder head gasket has broken, and the head had warped and No 2 piston was out of action. They managed to carry on slowly later on, hoping to finish, tout the car was abandoned on Sunday morning.

Positions at four hours (one-sixth distance) therefore were: 1. Pescarolo/Hill, 59 laps; 2, Cevert/Ganley, 59; 3, de Pierlandt/Larrousse, 50; 4, de Adamich/Vaccarella, 58; 5, Elford/Marko, 57; 6, Joest/Casoni/Weber, 56; 7, Stommelen/Galli, 55; 8, Craft/de Cadenet, 54; 9, Jabouille/ Hobbs, 54; 10, Lagniez/Touroul, 54; 11, Weigel/Krausw, 54; 12, Andruet/Ballot-Lena, 52.

The leading GT drivers, Ballot-Lena/ Andruet, had a lap in hand over the next two cars, those of Chinetti/Gregory and Posey/Adamowicz. The Glemser/Soler Roig, in the best Capri, was already an incredible 15th overall.

The Bonnier team suffered another drama at about 8.25 pm when de Fierlandt, who had been going very quickly, lost 11 min in the pits with front brake problems. It had been third, and began a gradual drop down the field. The other Ford V8-engined car which few people expected to last was also going reasonably well. The Duckhams had been up to eighth place when it visited the pits at 8.30 With a multitude of problems, including a sticking throttle, bad front brakes and the fitting of a rear light. At about the same time the Greenwood/Darniche Corvette was delayed some 18 m having, among other things, the front brake pads changed. Its sister car, driven by Smothers, which was never so fast, lost about 35m having lights, plugs, carburetor checked over.

Shortly after 9 pm Rondeau handed the B21 over to Robinson. But it was not for a further 40 m that it got back into the fray while a head gasket was changed. Robinson had a further 10 m (racing before returning to the stands with lack of coolant. The stop cost the team a further 25 m, and it was plain that car would not last. The other British 2-litre, the Smith/Ligonnet Lola, on the other hand, was going very reliably and holding a steady 21st overall.

While the lower orders were suffering dramas of various sorts, it was time for the Matras to assent their authority. By half distance Cevert and Ganley and Pescarolo and Hill had pulled out a three laps on the third and fourth place Alfa Romeos, driven by de Adamich/Vaccarella and Stommelen/Galli Meanwhile, the Group 4 class saw eight Daytonas in the lead, headed by Pozzi's Ballot-Lena/Andruet entry and NART's Posey/ Adamowicz, bath of which had completed 77 laps. In the Group 2 section Glemser/Soler-Roig and Mass/Stuck (76) had three laps advantage over Birrell/Bourgoignie. The BMW was fourth, but the private Capri of Geurie/ Rouget had gone out long before with lack of oil pressure.

Positions at quarter distance were : 1, Cevert/Ganley, 89 laps; 2, Pescarolo/Hill, 89; 3, de Adamich/Vaccarella, 86; 4, Stommelen/Galti 86; 5, Elford/Marko, B5; 6, Joest/Weber/Casoni, 84; 7, Jabouille/ Hobbs, 83; 8, Weigl/Krause. 80; 9, Cosson/Ravenel, 78; 10, de Cadenet/Craft, 77; 11, Amuruet/Ballot-Lena, 77; 12, Posey/Adamowicz, 77.

As darkness set in and the fairground got into full swing, the song of the Matras was taking them further and further away from the Alfa Romeos. By midnight the Cevert/ Ganley car had a lap in hand over the, Pescarolo/Hill car and three on the best of the Alfa Romeos, that of de Adamich/ Vaccarella. Hobbs, having just taken over from Jabouille, had moved up a place to sixth at the expense of the long-tailed 908/3. By midnight the French cars had completed 118 laps apiece, and still had that three-lap advantage on their nearest rival.

There were several retirements among the GT runners and saloons at this point. Herzog's BMW ran its bearings shortly after quarter distance, which left the Capris with the class to themselves. But they were not just after the G2 section, and all Ford personnel were pleased to see that at midnight the cars were lying 15th, 16th and 24th overall, ahead of all the Porsche 911Ss and with only the Andruet/Ballot-Lena and Posey/Adamowicz Daytonas ahead of them from the Group 4 section.

Among those out of the hunt before midnight was the de Fierlandt/Larrousse Lola. De Fierlandt had driven very quickly but went off into the sand at Mulsanne and could not restart, having no clutch.

The other retirements came when Lagniez/Touroul's Porsche 910 went out, the Sage/Grueb 911S broke its engine (11.35 pm), Darniche finally retired the troublesome Greenwood Racing Corvette and Westbury came into the pits with a holed piston in the Maranello Concessionaires' Daytona. Main interest on the leader board as the Matras raced into Sunday morning was the progress of the Hobbs/Jabouille car which was catching the trio of Alfa Romeos hand over fist. It had of course been delayed earlier when Jabouille ran out of petrol, but by 1 am it was sixth on the road and only a lap down on the fifth place Alfa Romeo.

After Beltoise's bad luck, Matra needed a lift, and it came as the Italian cars began to run into minor (but delaying) problems as the race approached half distance. The best Alfa, that of Vaccarella, lost 10 min just before the 12-hrs mark when the clutch (which had been giving trouble for some time) was checked. But there was nothing wrong with Jabouille's car, and he took advantage of the longer pit stops by the Autodelta team to press home his advantage. In those four hours up to 4am he and Hobbs pulled back their lost three laps and that meant that at half distance the three Matras led the three Alfa Romeos.

A creditable, and totally predictable, seventh was Joest's works prepared 908/3. It was 11 laps down on the leaders but seemed to have little mechanical trouble. Eighth place at 4 am was held by Larrousse's Lola.

The race was running fairly well to form at this stage. The Matras had disappeared into the distance, although they had had their problems, and the Alfa Romeos, also with niggling problems, were hanging on well, obviously not as fast but hoping far some retirements by the French cars. The Lola, considered an outsider, was extremely fast when it was going properly, but the most encouraging effort of all was that by Chris Craft and Alain de Cadenet. Their all-new Duckhams Special had had its fair share of problems - 15 min, for instance, were lost around 1.30 am in changing the rear brake pads - but it was in an encouraging 10th place behind the Weigel/Krause Porsche 908/2. Craft was patently the quicker driver but de Cadenet was by no means slaw.

The big, heavy Daytonas continued to dominate the Group 4 class, which saw seven in the first seven places. Easily quickest of these were the Andruet/Ballot-Lena and Posey/Adamowicz cars in 14th and 15th places overall. Thanks to fewer brake problems, they had three laps in hand before the next in class, the Bell/Pilette/Bond car, and four over Parkes/Lafosse/Cochet and five over Jarier/Buchet, Cheneviere/Vetsch and Chinetti/Gregory, who had suffered a lengthy 9min stop to have pads changed. The Smothers/Greenwood Corvette, never a real force in the class, was retired late on Saturday evening with broken pistons. Just turned midnight Rondeau finally gave up the unequal struggle with Robinson's sick Chevron.

Capri fortunes, too, took a turn for the worse on Sunday morning. At 1.45 am Glemser brought his car, lying 16th overall, in for a change of oil pump drive. Then at 2.20 am another visit was required, this time to change the rear axle which occupied 28 min-a good effort but a serious blow to Ford. More was to come as the dawn began 3 rise.

Perhaps the most serious blow to Autodelta efforts came around half distance. Their fading car, driven at the time by Vaccarella, visited the pits three times before it was decided to change the defunct clutch. This occupied almost about an hour in all and dropped the car to seventh overall behind le three Matras, his two team-mates and Joest/Casoni/Weber Porsche. That meant that the leading Alfa was that of Stommielen/Galli, but their car was not right and was losing a lot of water. More serious was the fifth place Alfa, which also required a new clutch soon after the sun rose. The other problems in his car afflicted Elford, who was so ill that he had to hand over to team-mate Marko earlier than scheduled. After Elford had spun at Tertre Rouge unaccountably he decided he was in no condition to continue without rest, and had to be assisted from his car.

The remaining 3-litre Lola, in which van Lennep set fastest lap, was delayed for half an hour with brake problems. The pads were changed, but dirt got into the system, which had to be bled.

The second Ford blow came when Mass's car, in front of the others, stopped on the Mulsanne straight at about 4.30 am. It was not known what had broken - the driver who returned on foot thought a connecting rod had broken. Just over an hour later Glemser had a routine stop which called for a replacement battery, losing another 5 min. Around 6.15 am there were a couple of incidents affecting Porsches. The " Lee Banner "/Bardini US blew its engine in front of the stands and was out, and at approximately the same time at Arnage Krause spun the eighth place Porsche, losing some time while the bodywork was repaired in the pits. A quarter of an hour later the Ligonnet/Smith Lola, which had been going extremely well, required some 25 min to have a routine stop and change some brake pads.

As the cars motored on into the Le Mans looming mist, the drama in the Alfa Romeo camps ensued that the home team were in an even stronger position. At 15 hrs Cevert/Ganley and Pescarolo/Hill were on 238 laps, even more than Jabouille/Hobbs. At the same time the best Alfa, that of Stommelen/ Galli, had done 227, and their team-mates had slipped to 200 (Vaccarella/de Adamich in ninth) and 216 (Elford/Marko in sixth), Joest's Porsche (224) was fifth and the Duckhams was seventh (211) ahead of Jo Bonnier's Lola (210). Daytonas were still well to the fore, and led by the Andruet/ Ballot-Lena (207) and Posey/Adamowicz 206).

Their cars were extremely well matched, and were hardly more than a lap apart throughout the whole race. Next best in the class was the Parkes/Lafosse entry on 202 laps. The Capris had become more split up and the best was Birrell/Bourgoignie's in 19th place. In addition to their team-mates' problems, Birrell had the oil pump drive break and the brakes changed.

Then not long after 8 am came the worst possible news. Jo Bonnier's Lola and Florian Vetsch's Daytona had collided going into Indianapolis corner. The little Lola was cannoned over the metal barriers into the trees and the Ferrari slammed into the Armco and caught fire. Elford, who was following, stopped to see if he could do anything but carried on until his illness took him into the pits. Bonnier, the champion of safety on motor racing circuits, died on the way to hospital in a helicopter, Vetsch received minor burns but was otherwise uninjured. As is common with such events, it was a long time before the public was informed, but there were some long faces among the press members and the pit crews, who could "feel" the fateful news in the air. The whole circuit area was quickly cordoned off by police.

Other retirements came shortly afterwards for Haldi's Porsche, which blew a gasket; the Laurant/Delalande (Ligier) with lack of oil pressure; the Elford/Marko Alfa Romeo which finally succumbed to clutch failure ; and Weigel's Porsche which was spun at Dunlop. The Heinz/Johnson Corvette had lost 20 m having the electrics replaced and the Bayard/Brun Porsche 910 had gearbox trouble.

At around 10 am the best placed Alfa Romeo lost its fourth when the final drive went. The Duckhams was going incredibly well, and everyone was keen to see it finish. It was up to fifth by midday following the Alfa dramas.

At 11.20 am Ganley pitted the leading car with water in the electrics. It had rained briefly earlier, and then began to fall quite heavily in the Mulsanne area - but not in the pits area. Ganley didn't make it back into the race until after Graham Hill had taken the lead with his similar, short-tailed car. The two then became involved in quite a serious dispute for the lead, which went in Hill's favour after Ganley had drama.

In the pouring rain, Marie Claude Beaumont's Corvette hit the Ganley Matra in the rear and sent them both spinning off the track into the guardrails. The Corvette was out but the Matra managed to limp slowly back to the pits with rear suspension and rear bodywork damage. All three leading cars were on dry weather tyres, and Hill and Hobbs came in to report Ganley's accident and to change to more suitable tyre wear. Cevert took over from Ganley and sped away again after 10 m with a new rear body section.

Most cars by this time had changed to wet weather tyres but the fifth place Duckhams Special suffered a cruelly long stay in the pits. The tyres were changed but there was apparently a great deal of trouble fixing the rear bodywork. At midday it had done 261 laps-compared with the leaders' 293 - and it was two laps in advance of the Sole remaining Alfa Romeo of de Adamich/Vaccarella. But the Alfa, having had its front disc brakes swapped, was going quite well and by 1 pm it was on the same lap At about 1.30 pm de Adamich swept by for fifth place but had completed only a few laps in front when he spun at Dunlop Curve. It was raining heavily by this time, and most drivers were on dry or intermediate tyres. Craft had taken over from de Cadenet in an effort to pull back the lap, and had turned in only a couple of laps when he went missing - at the same time as the Alfa Romeo, and indeed at the same place, for he had aquaplaned off at Dunlop and smote the barrier.

De Adamich was tine first to reappear, and spent 20 min in the pits before he got away again, in fifth place. In the meantime Craft had joined him in the pits minus front bodywork, but remained there while mechanics tried to repair the front steering and suspension.

Then, at 2.35 pm the third place Matra, being driven by Jabouille stopped out on the circuit with gearbox trouble. That made Pescarolo in the lead from team-mate Ganley, followed by the long-tailed 908/3 of Joest/ Weber/Casoni. It also meant that, with the dramas which had occurred to the Matra, Alfa Romeo and Duckhams, the Ferrari Daytona, which had been held in seventh place by Andruet/Baillot-Lena, suddenly found itself in an incredible fifth place.

It was a strange atmosphere as the handful of remaining cars circulated at slow speed on the soaking wet track, and there were long periods of absolute silence as the drivers pussy-footed round in the treacherous conditions.

And so the race settled down into its closing minutes with Pescarolo and Cevert naturally doing the final stints in Matra's finest hour at Le Mans. The two cars crossed the line together to tremendous cheers from the patriotic crowd with Pescarolo 10 laps ahead of Cevert. After a remarkably trouble-free and steady performance, Joest/Weber/Casoni were rewarded with an excellent third overall, 18 laps to the good of the sole remaining Alfa.

After such a tremendous achievement, it was terribly disappointing to see the Duckhams stranded in the pits for much of the final hour and its excellent position gradually weakened as the Ferrari Daytonas' consistency took them ahead. The Duckhams did manage to come out at the end to come home 12th, a position which certainly did not do credit to its remarkable performance.

Therefore fifth place overall went to the first of five Daytonas which filled sixth, seventh, eighth and ninth places as well. Andruet and Ballot-Lena managed to pull away from Posey/Adamowicz in the latter part of the race after a close battle until half-distance. The Pozzi-entered car also won the Index of Energy as well as the Group 4 category and were two laps ahead of the Americans.