1982: The beginning of the 956 legend

Like the Ickx/Bell triumph last year, the victory was almost perfect, tarnished only by a puncture. The sister cars of Vern Schuppan/Jochen Mass and Hurley Haywood/AI Holbert/Jurgen Barth were briefly delayed, but no challenger remained to stop the trio of works Porsches from finishing the race in an impressive, humiliating line-astern.

Porsche System might have been struggling had the race been run at a fast pace, still marginal on fuel economy, but the anticipated rivalry from Ford, Rondeau and Lancia disappeared before half-distance. In a race of unusual attrition, which only 18 cars finished, there were no survivors either from Lola, Sauber, WM, March and the other C-car teams. IMSA GTX category Porsches backed up the works 956 cars with the next two places, with John Fitzpatrick/David Hobbs fourth overall.

It was a good 24 Hours for British drivers, who won four of the five classes which were represented at the end. Apart from Bell, Fitzpatrick and Hobbs, the class winners were John Cooper and Paul Smith (sharing their Porsche 935 with Claude Bourgoignie), who achieved a second successive Group 5 victory for Charles Ivey Racing, and Richard Cleare/Tony Dron/Richard Jones, the Group 4 winners with their Porsche 934. In fact, every category was won by a Porsche, for Jim Busby/Doc Bundy won IMSA GT with their 924 Carrera GTR. This was the first class victory for many years by a car fitted with road car tyres, the latest High-Tec radials from BF Goodrich.

In contrast with last year, there were few serious incidents, although a Porsche 935 was destroyed during qualifying, and the works Nimrod Aston Martin was wrecked after a rear end failure on the Mulsanne Straight. But there was good news for Nimrod, too: Viscount Downe's privately entered Pace entry claimed seventh position overall and was the best-placed stockblock Group C car.

Two of the private Rondeaus survived, protecting the French marque's World Endurance Championship lead, although Porsche are now challenging strongly.



As usual, the ACO laid on two four-hour qualifying sessions on the Wednesday and Thursday evenings, but a new departure was the provision of a 45-minute warm-up on race morning. The last half-hour of the second practice session was lost because of a spectacular electric storm which encircled the track for a while before unleashing a torrential downpour.

There was more than a touch of déjà vu about qualifying. Like last year, Jacky Ickx placed himself firmly on pole position early in the action. Like last year, a second factory Porsche joined the Ickx/Bell car at the front of the starting grid. Like last year, a Reinhold Joest-built privately entered Porsche lined up third fastest.

Unlike last year, Ickx had no need of Dunlop's qualifying tyres to gain his pole, which was a shade over a second better than his time from 1981, set with the similarly engined flat-bottom 936-81 on soft rubber. All doubts about the Mulsanne potential of the new wing-car were quickly dispelled, and Jacky was timed at 221mph through the speed trap, the revised bodywork doing the job perfectly, and 956-001 absolutely stable. Apart from a puncture, the 'Jacky and Derek Show' ran trouble free, although there was a little concern after qualifying had ended when a check on the engine revealed a loss of compression in one cylinder. The pole was set at an average of 146.27mph.

In chassis 003, Vern Schuppan had a lurid moment on the Mulsanne Straight when a tyre blew, and the bodywork was savaged before Vern could bring the 956 to a halt. Nevertheless, Mass also took the car round under Ickx's qualifying record. The third Rothmans-Porsche, however, was plagued throughout by braking problems. The team found dirt in the master cylinder after the first session and thought that the trouble had been identified, but it persisted on Thursday, so an entirely new braking system had to be installed.

The works team never did see the need to resort to qualifying rubber and, of the leading drivers, only Bob Wollek used the soft tyres, lapping the Belga spaceframe car within 1.5 secs of Jochen's time.

Yes, the works Lancia Group 6 cars did pose a threat, even here. They qualified ahead of all the Ford powered C-cars, fourth and fifth overall, although not without the myriad little problems which seem to characterise the team's qualifying sessions.

Riccardo Patrese, delayed on a flight from Venice, arrived at the track only an hour before the end of the second session, so he only had half an hour of real opportunity with the car before the rain effectively ended activities. However, Riccardo, having qualified himself within the 125% rule with only two laps to spare stayed out in the heavy rain to run Pirelli's wet weather tyres.

His colleagues, who included Rolf Stommelen and Hans Heyer for this meeting, reaped the benefit of Pirelli's Q-tyres, which were given to the super-neat Michele Alboreto and the less smooth Piercarlo Ghinzani. At least the question was answered: the better Lancia went 201mph down Mulsanne.

The factory Ford C100s achieved a top speed of about 204mph down the straight on Wednesday, the cars achieving only 8400rpm. In the second session, the team flattened the cars and fitted longer gears, running up to 9000rpm. However, the drivers found the cars very nervous at speed, so the Zakspeed mechanics fitted small 'Gurney flaps' at the rear edge of the wings. Klaus Ludwig was again the fastest Ford driver, the cars qualifying sixth and 11th, without using Q-types.

Hans Stuck qualified both the Saubers into their starting positions. His own lost some time late in the first session due to a faulty battery, and the sister car was delayed in the Thursday session with a split water pipe. A more serious worry for the team, though, was a persistent recurrence of the starter motor problem which afflicted the car at Silverstone, caused by engine vibration putting the bendix into contact with the flywheel. The team was at a loss with the problem, but hoped that the 3.3 race engine on the Stuck car would not produce the same symptoms. With the qualifying 3.9, Hans-Joachim managed 203mph down Mulsanne.

For a first-time-out car, the Kremer-Porsche C-K5 was impressive in qualifying, stable and reaching 207mph down Mulsanne. The relatively well-tested Mirage ran 212mph, and Mario Andretti qualified it only a mite slower than Danny Ongais. On Wednesday, his son Mike put the car into the mother of all spins which ended in no contact with the barriers, gyrating wildly on the fast approach to the Ford chicanes. He missed out altogether on Thursday, for a failed CV joint ended the team's practice just after his parent had set the time.

Right on the pace down the straight, but still a little disappointing in the turns, the works Lola achieved a remarkable 220mph but lined up only 10th. You might think that the ground-effect venturi had been eased off to reduce drag in achieving this speed, but there was an incident in practice which showed that this was far from the case. Indeed, so effective were the air tunnels that at one point the low pressure deformed the pre-pregnated, single-piece undertray to such an extent that it broke up, causing an alarming moment for Rupert Keegan. This apart, there was a tendency for the car to wander on the straight; aerodyna-mic improvements during Friday produced an improvement in straight-line stability in the race day warm-up.

The Esso WM-Peugeot cars enjoyed a circumspect and reliable practice on the whole, the faster of the two cars reaching almost 216mph down the straight. The only sign of stress was a burst oil line on the Frequelin car in the second session when, like almost all the other teams, WM were running fuel consumption testing in race trim.

But what of Rondeau? The French team came to Le Mans for the seventh time with the deserved reputation of having the most reliable cars in the game - a reputation strongly enhanced by events earlier this season. What a time for the cars to let the team down!

In qualifying, Rondeau's enclave at the bottom of the paddock was nothing less than a disaster area, with all three of the full works cars in trouble. The least afflicted was the red and blue Malardeau 382, but even this was halted out on the track on three occasions in the Thursday session, before a busted electrical master switch was diagnosed. The Pescarolo Otis entry was afflicted throughout by an incomprehensible fuel pressure problem, achieving 8500rpm at best. It was Friday evening before the team found that the engine fuel pick-up transducer was overheating.

And the second Otis 382 spent all of practice with a similar fuel difficulty. Again, it was Friday before it was found that there was an obscure installation fault with the fuel pickup on the end of the camshaft, after the car had spent almost as much time on tests on the nearby airfield runway as it did on the track. The best Mulsanne speed listed for a Rondeau, for the record, was 206mph for the Pescarolo car.

Things looked bleaker yet for triple winner Pescarolo, the 1982 Drivers series leader, when the fuel system problem on his car persisted in the race day warm-up, and Jean Rondeau ordered a new motor to be installed. The job, which normally takes up to five hours, was finished in three, just 10 mins before the deadline. The Grid-Plaza suffered the same starter motor problems as Sauber, with its 3.9, and also had a fuel feed problem, so the team had to switch to the combination mechanical/electrical pump set-up. In the second session, the team also had to set up the car again after adjustments to the wings had destroyed the aerodynamic balance.

The Cooke Racing Lola also had practice problems resulting from Ralph Kent-Cooke's excursion into the barriers at the Ford chicane, on his first flying lap in his new car. Damage was confined to the left side bodywork. Although worried about the chances at Le Mans of an all-new car, Brian Redman found the T610 to be lighter and easier to drive, although the yellow car was 10mph slower down the straight than the longer-nosed works entry. The CR machine would have been higher than 18th, but the team was set to send out Brian for a time when the rain fell.

As hoped, the Dome turned out to be one of the very fastest down Mulsanne, at 214mph, among the top six cars. In the first practice, however, the new braking system did not work well, and the John Macdonald team reverted to the original set-up, also changing the gear set back to the test specification. Time was lost in the Thursday session with the 'box jammed in first gear, and in the end Chris Craft was happy enough to have narrowly qualified under the 110% rule. There was a worry about the Japanese Dunlops, which had tended to chunk on the rear, and the team was still debating whether to run European Dunlops on the back when the worry became an alarming reality in the race morning warm-up. The left rear let go altogether as Eliseo Salazar was tanking down Mulsanne, and the body and suspension was damaged before the shocked Chilean could bring the car to a standstill. Frantic work back in the paddock got the Dome onto the grid in the nick of time, albeit with a temporary repair.

The works Nimrod was set up for the straight, giving its drivers some white-knuckle work in the corners, and at 205mph went 16mph faster then the similar Pace entry. The latter, however, obviously found a better balance, and was almost 2secs quicker round the lap, much to the chagrin of the works team.

In contrast, although not without its practice imperfections, the works March 82G fared better than the private Michelob car, which got in very few laps. Having scrutineered on the Wednesday, the Garretson team arrived late for the session, and then lost out because of a leaking oil line. On Thursday, there was a gearbox lubrication problem, and Jim Trueman never got out. But an intervention by ACCUS persuaded the ACO to let him run, on the grounds that he is theoretically "graded", being a former 2-litre CanAm champion.

The URD ran reliably splitting the Nimrods and Marches. The Fitzpatrick 'Moby Dick' would have been much nearer the front, but the newly finished car had first session electrical fuel pump bothers, and the team opted to use Thursday for race spec testing.

At 201mph, the Cougar was on the pace for Mulsanne, although slower than the GTX Porsches of Fitzpatrick and Bob Akin. The event lost another of the potentially quick 935s when the unlucky Harald Grohs suffered his second massive accident in three weeks - and this time, he was very lucky to get out unhurt. Just after the kink on Mulsanne, at maybe 190mph, a tyre blew and sent the Vegla car into the barriers on both sides of the road, then into a series of rolls which took the helpless Grohs over the hump to the car's final resting place, 300 yards before Mulsanne Corner. Onlook-ers shuddered as the Porsche, its front end totally destroyed, caught fire, but there was great relief when, amazingly, Harald stepped out unharmed.

On this occasion, Billy Hagan's long wheelbase car qualified 33rd, an outstanding performance for an AAGT entry.

At the back of the field, there was more déjà vu, this time involving a disbelieving Richard Lloyd. In the first session, his normally reliable engine broke a piston. On Thursday morning, the team fitted another unit on loan from the factory, which had apparently done six hours on the bench. It blew a piston, too-and for the second year running, Lloyd was looking at a non-qualification. This was demonstrably unjust, since even with its dramas the Canon 924 (which was never driven by unlucky Jeff Allam) had qualified under both the 125% and 110% rules, unlike some entries among the fastest 55.

The BF Goodrich team's 924s were here to prove that a production road tyre (of the high-performance type which sell so well in the USA) could do a 24-hour race, but even so the team were compelled to use proper Dunlop com-petition rubber to get the cars into the race.

All the cars qualified under the 125% rule, but 12 of the 168 drivers here failed to do so. The ACO was persuaded to allow into the race Trueman, Alliot, Patrese, Ragnotti and ultimately (after an intervention from the RAC) Lovett, but among the unlucky ones were both Raymond Touroul's co-drivers and Richard Jones, who was the victim of a driveshaft failure in Richard Cleare's 934.



The 50th anniversary celebrations - including a historic car parade - and the fact that this was the first 24 hours to be run for the new C-cars gave an added sparkle to this great occasion, with glorious sunny weather helping to build the atmosphere of tension as the hands of the ACO's master clock edged towards 4.00pm.

As ever at Le Mans, there were losers even before the 55-car field had moved away on its warming-up lap. The longest face for the rest of Saturday was Mario Andretti's, for the Mirage had been spotted by a passing scrutineer to have its gearbox oil cooler illegally mounted behind the line of the gearbox. Mario was understandably livid, since the Harley Cluxton entered car had earlier passed scrutineering in exactly the same spec, but there was to be no arguing with the ACO: rules are rules, even if there had been an oversight. The Lloyd/Rouse Porsche 924 was allowed onto the back of the field to make up the 55 cars, while the Mirage had to stay put, even though the mechanics had hastily repositioned the offending oil cooler.

Rothmans Porsches in the hands of Ickx and Mass headed the field to take one of the gentlest starts seen at Le Mans, their side-by-side width preventing Alboreto's Lancia from finding a way through on the inside at the Dunlop Curve. Mass was in front at the end of the lap from Ickx, Wollek, Winkelhock, Ludwig, Pignard, Edwards, Field, Holbert, Migault, Stuck, Dorchy, Alboreto, Cooper, de Villota, Fitzpatrick and Rondeau. Alboreto's Lancia was clearly in trouble, but worse still for Cesare Fiorio's team was the news that Ghinzani had pulled off at Tertre Rouge, Lancia had won two of the three Group C races so far held, but their hopes for Le Mans could not have been bleaker. It turned out that both were suffering a problem with their electric fuel pumps: Ghinzani suffered first, but Alboreto also stopped on the following lap out on the circuit. Tinkering got both cars back to the pits where the electric pumps could be by-passed, but by the end of the first hour the two Martini cars were placed an undignified 53rd and 54th.

Also in trouble on that first lap were Brun's Sauber, suffering a recurrence of its jammed starter motor, and Craft's Dome, which had gingerly taken the start but spent the next two hours completing the extensive repairs to rectify damage from the morning's warm-up incident. Redman's Lola was also in the pits, having been wheeled off the grid. "For reasons that can't be explained, it just failed to start," said Brian.

The first 10 laps provided a feast of place changes among the top 20, turning the lap chart almost into a collection of random numbers. The only constant seemed to be that there was always a Rothmans Porsche at the front, Mass holding that position until passed by Ickx on lap 8. The Belgian was his usual circumspect self during the opening laps, his position on successive laps being second at the start, then fourth, sixth, fifth, fourth, and back to second as he disposed of the brief usurping attempts of Pignard,Winkelhock,Ludwig and Field.

The speed of the WM's was striking, Pignard holding his second place for four laps and Dorchy moving up from 12th on the first lap to seventh on lap 10. Edwards was settling into his stride effectively, recording a time that was to remain the fastest lap for several hours and rising to a challenging third place by lap 10, again finding the Lola's Mulsanne speed exceptionally good.

By the end of those 10 laps, then, the order stood with Ickx leading from Mass, Edwards, Holbert, Pignard, Winkelhock, Dorchy, Migault, Ludwig, Wollek, Stuck, Rondeau, Field (having lost five places after a spin at Ford chicane), Lees, Wood, Mallock and Cooper in the first of the Porsche 935s. A sad retire-ment after only seven laps was the Grid-Plaza, the victim of piston failure. "I looked in the mirrors at the Mulsanne corner," explained de Villota, "and saw blue smoke, so I took it slowly back to the pits even though all the gauges were showing their normal readings. I didn't feel anything to suggest that a piston had gone." One of the Rondeaus, the Pescarolo car which had qualified so disappointingly, was also in the pits from the seventh lap for a 40mins stay to trace an obscure electrical problem which could only be cured eventually by two new batteries, and an alternator.

The first fuel stops came after just 43mins, the two Nimrod Astons and Cooper's Porsche first to stop a lap before all three works Porsches and the two Lola T610s after 47mins. All these stops seemed well ahead of the approximate 1 hour target allowed by the rules, but by taking the pace lap and natural early race caution into account nobody seemed to have much to worry about. No team but Porsche could cope with all three cars on the same lap, but after they had all departed, virtually in line astern, team manager Peter Falk allowed him-self a slight smile. His trio held first, second and fourth places, and he wasn't worried about their fuel consumption, the reduction to 1.1 bar of boost giving the cars long enough legs.

Positions at one hour showed that Cosworth engined cars drink less fuel, for Migault, Ludwig, Rondeau and Stuck were temporarily in the top four places, but their time came within five laps of the works Porsches, still split by the Lola until Keegan had to stop to have his door secured, losing three places.

WM's hopes had dived shortly before this when Dorchy collided with Bussi's private Rondeau, putting both cars in the pits for more than half an hour, Bussi to have damaged bodywork repaired and Dorchy, more seriously, to have burst oil and Water radiators replaced. The sister WM, now in Raulet's hands, was holding sixth place behind the 1-2-3 Porsches, Spice (Rondeau) and Surer (Ford). A long way back but circulating quickly were the Redman Lola, twitchy on the straight but good in the corners, Rondeau's Rondeau and the two Lancias, both beginning to be affected by faltering electrics. Once again, the Italian team's Le Mans hopes seemed finished, but at least both cars were still on the track.

The new Group C fuel rules claimed their first victim just after the hour mark when Akin's 935 ran out of fuel - Panne d'essence would figure prominently on the retirements list - after a miscalculation by the team, while half an hour later Redman's Lola also stopped out on the circuit, out of gas after a storming recovery drive had consumed more than anticipated. C-cars falling by the wayside was to be expected, but not for such a simple reason. The Kremer Porsche was pushed away after an hour and a half with irrepairable damage to the cylinder head, but it had been a promising outing for this new car.

Ickx came in for his second fuel stop 51 mins after the first to hand over to Bell, the Englishman given instructions to cool things a little as the team would now have to aim for 15-16 laps between stops. Team-mates Mass and Holbert came in a lap later to make life a little easier for the mechanics and handed over to Schuppan and Haywood respectively.

While this German demonstration continued, others sat in the pits and waited. An impatient Bobby Rahal watched his 'lobster-claw' March's fuel problems worsen until a diagnosed split fuel cell spelt retirement. The other March 82G suffered clutch problems, and the British Lola slipped down to 32nd place after two separate starter motor problems caused long stops of 15mins apiece, but that fastest lap of 3m37.4s still stood as some consolation.

The staggering of fuel stops again promoted the Spice Rondeau, the only one of the three cars under Keith Greene's care to be running without any electrical faults after two hours, and the two Fords into the top three places, but as they stopped in turn the two quicker Porsches took over, Schuppan holding the lead for a while through the third hour before Bell regained the front. They remained on the same lap until the fourth hour, when Mass/Schuppan lost 3mins having the rev-limiter changed to cure a high-speed misfire. Quite how Mass discovered that misfire when driving increasingly economically is Porsche's business.

Apart from British drivers in foreign teams, the patriotic fervour among the thousands of Britons who had trekked to Le Mans centred its loyalty on the Nimrod Astons, which had moved up reliably to nudge the top 10 thanks to faultless running and excellent speed on the straight. At 19.35, however, the green and silver works car struck disaster just before the Mulsanne kink, Needell suffering a terrifying backwards collision with the barrier at over 200mph. "I'm not sure what happened," said Tiff, "but it must have been a blown tyre at the back or a breakage in the rear suspension." As at Silverstone, Aston Martin would have to rely on the Viscount Downe car to pick up World Championship points. The course car was brought out for the incident and stopped at the scene. The pit marshals mistook this for a pace car situation, causing an unnecessary 2-lap delay for Muller's Sauber, Stommelen's Lancia, Hobbs's 935 and the Cougar as they waited for the pit exit to be opened.

Positions at four hours: 1, Winkelhock/Niedz-wiedz, 61 laps; 2, Haywood/Holbert/Barth, 61 laps; 3, Ickx/Bell, 60 laps; 4, Migault Spice Lapeyre, 60 laps; 5, Ludwig/Surer, 60 laps; 6, Raulet/Pignard/Theys, 60 laps; 7, Stuck/Schlesser/Quester, 60 taps; 8, Martin/ Martin/Wollek, 60 laps; 9, Mass/Schuppan, 59 laps; 10, Mallock/Phillips/Salmon, 57 laps; etc.

Throughout the next four hours there was little to choose between the three Rothmans Porsches. Quicker pit stops and slightly more aggressive driving had brought the Haywood/Holbert/Barth car into the lead by a lap from Ickx/Bell, who were never more than a few minutes ahead of the Migault/Spice Rondeau which in turn was marginally ahead of the third works Porsche. It made for an interesting phase of the race, although the interest was more in anticipation of what might happen.

The only significant change among the leading 10 positions over the four hour spell was the quicker Sauber's slip down the order from fifth place after Schlesser came in to have the failing clutch bled, only to find that the starter motor had gone. The car was retired.

Theys' WM also lost five places with a stop to replace the alternator as darkness drew nearer, promoting the surviving Nimrod another place as it ran like clockwork to sixth place at the eight hour.

Porsche versus Ford was how the race had been billed, and for four hours there was little to choose between them. As darkness approached, however, both Fords hit troubles which would see them out of the race before seven hours were up. Shortly after one-sixth distance, the dutch on Winkelhock's car started to give trouble. A stop to repair a broken input shaft dropped it down the order until the Cosworth finally blew, leaving the C100 stranded on the circuit. Surer's car, meanwhile, was in trouble with shaky electrics and within 40mins his car was also a retirement. The handsome Fords had performed well, but the Erich Zakowski run team, like Rondeau, is having problems with its 3.9-litre DFL engines.

There were some British disappointments as two private entries were forced out. The chubby De Cadenet of Wilds/Duret/Harrower had been suffering fuel pressure maladies for several hours and finally stopped by the Mulsanne signall-ing pits unable to pick up any more fuel, while the Birrane/Sheldon/Crang Chev-ron ended its race after less than five hours with a broken gearbox. Soon after, the Edwards/Keegan Lola, which had proved fast, was ultimately fragile, succumbing to a blown head gasket.

The Lancias, still at the back of the field, were having a dreadful time with constant stops, the Patrese/Heyer/Ghinzani car needing a new intercooler to cure a turbo leak and the sister car suffering continual electrical problems. The other disappointing works team was the Rondeau equipe. All the cars kept going, but the two blue Otis-backed cars were in and out of the pits with a succession of fuel and electrical problems; the Spice/Migault car in third place kept the French flag flying high. "We're having a miser-able time," confessed Keith Greene, "but at least this car is running faultless-ly." Its only problem was caused by the vibration common to all the DFL-engined cars, the Rellumit seal for the refuelling assembly having shaken itself apart. Rather than waste 20mins chang-ing the whole coupling, a plastic plug was used to make good the seal, and only a few minutes were lost.

Positions at eight hours: 1, Haywood/Holbertf Barth, 121 laps; 2, Ickx/Bell, 120 laps; 3, Migault/ Spice/Lapeyre, 120 laps; 4, Mass/Schuppan, 120 laps; 5, Martin/Martin/Wollek, 119 laps; 6, Mallock/ Phillips/Salmon, 114 laps; 7, Cooper/Smith/Bourgoig-nie, 113 laps; 8. Rondeau/Ragnotti/Alliot, 112 laps; 9, Cudini/Morton/Paul, 112 laps; 10, Fitzpatrick/Hobbs, 111 laps; etc.

As half distance approached, the race moved into a significant new phase. The Porsche armoury showed a couple of hairline cracks but otherwise remained intact, while all the remaining serious rivals to the Rothmans equipe fell by the wayside. For Rondeau, the disappointments so far paled into insignificance as all three works cars had retired by half distance. By 4.00am the Rondeau pits were silent and the huge entourage of mechanics and drivers were on their way back to their farmhouse HQ to catch up on lost sleep.

The first to go, shortly after midnight, was the Pescarolo/Jaussaud car with a blown engine, due either to piston or oil pump failure. They didn't really care: it was almost a relief to be shot of the troublesome machine!

Shortly before 3.00am, Lapeyre parked the third-placed car at Arnage with distributor failure, only to be joined just 5mins later by the other Otis car, with Ragnotti driving. This was the car which had suffered the worst fuel system problems in practice, and after the Saturday morning engine change, evidently a fuel line had not been tightened home. It was this that had worked loose, leaving the car stranded and Rondeau's last hope dashed. Two private Rondeaus remained, but the Candy/Poulain/Haran car was very soon retired with engine failure after a valve had dropped. It was a sad end for the team carrying the hopes of all of France, but one felt that it had been on the cards: the pressure of Porsche's opposition perhaps forcing the drivers to press on harder than in years past.

Porsche maintained their 1-2 throughout the night, Ickx/Bell pulling out a lap over Mass/Schuppan when the second car made an unscheduled stop to fix a temperamental fuel metering unit. The third Porsche slipped back to fifth place, but lost eventually 20 laps with two problems. First, the driver's door flew off, and then a rear wheel bearing broke, necessitating suspension repairs. When somebody fails to shut the door properly, there's not much that Porsche's fine engineering and superb team-work can do about it...

The Martin brothers and Wollek held a secure third place only four laps behind the leaders, the Joest built Porsche having run with customary reliability. "We have no problems," explained the brilliant Bob, "apart from the factory cars. They are so much quicker on Mulsanne than we are."

Behind them the amazing private Nimrod Aston was beginning to look capable of great things. A totally reliable run had hauled it gradually up to sixth place, all three drivers keeping their fingers crossed that their good luck would continue.

Fitzpatrick's Porsche was also running cleanly to hold sixth and the IMSA GTX class lead ahead one of the two surviving Ferrari 512 BBs, that of Cudini/Morton/Paul. Morton was especially pleased to be doing so well, but like everyone else he was anxious about the dawn: "We musn't count our chickens before they're hatch-ed." Further down the order, O'Rourke/Down/Mason had hauled their BMW M1 up to 11th despite a stop to change a crankshaft damper (a familiar M1 problem), while further weight from the British contingent came from the Walkinshaw/Lovett/Nicholson Mazda in 12th and the Cleare/Dron/Jones Porsche 934 in 18th, despite an alarming moment for Jones when first one and then the other headlight failed.

British retirements during this phase included the Dome, wheeled away with a chassis failure after a hopeless race, and the Lloyd/Rouse 924, which had done well to continue after running out of fuel on Saturday evening but finally suffered a broken driveshaft. Also out were both WMs, Frequelin/Dorchy/Couderc after another accident (the car caught fire) and Pignard/Theys/Raulet with a broken gearbox.

Positions at 12 hours: 1, Ickx/Bell, 180 laps; 2, Mass/Schuppan. 179 laps; 3, Martin/Martin/Wollek, 176 laps; 4, Mallock/Phillips/Salmon, 171 laps; 5, Haywood/Holbert/Barth, 169 laps; 6, Fitzpatrick/Hobbs, 169 laps; 7, Cudini/Morton/Paul, 168 laps; 8, Cooper/Smith/Bourgoignie, 167 laps, 9, Snobeck/Servanin/Metge, 164 laps; 10, Yver/Sotty/Guitteny 159 laps; etc.

Porsche marched on. As dawn began to break, the situation was much the same as when the sun had set. The race's pattern was established, and there was no way that Ickx/Bell or Mass/Schuppan were going to break it. This was getting boring... and that was the drivers' view! All through the race the leading two cars had been lapping at more than 30secs off their practice pace, and with no challengers in sight were more than capable of reaching the stringent fuel consumption requirement which had been a source of worry before the race. They were all happy to be doing so well, but as Bell said, "It's just not very exciting is it?" The leading car still continued without any delay, its only quirk being a shift in the mixture setting which had caused a slight misfire, but richening the fuel cured this.

The Joest Porsche hung on in third, its drivers striving not to let the deficit to the works cars become too great, while the dependable Ferrari moved up to fourth place after a hiccough in the Aston's progress. The nip in the air at dawn had caused a front brake disc to crack as it heated up from cold under braking for Mulsanne Corner, and by the time the air had warmed up the team had again suffered the same problem, despite feathering the brakes well before that heavy braking zone to warm the dies gradually.

Still running like a dream, the Charles Ivey 935 was beginning to encourage hopes in the team that they might achieve a result as good as last year's fourth place, that position only three laps away from them. The Fitzpatrick car had been the only 935 ahead of it, but a blown cylinder head gasket stopped its progress just when it had hauled in the Ferrari for fourth place. The crew disconnected the injector from the offending cylinder, and Fitz carried on at a pace reduced by 15secs a lap.

The British BMW was beginning to show signs of clutch trouble, and several bleeds suggested that a change might soon be necessary, while the steady run of the Cleare Porsche was interrupted by two driveshaft breakages within two laps of each other while its owner was driving. And the British Mazda also began to falter, Lovett finally having to park on the Mulsanne when the engine went.

Positions at 16 hours: 1, Ickx/Bell, 240 laps; 2, Mass/Schuppan, 236 laps; 3, Martin/Martin/Wollek, 234 laps; 4, Cudini/Morton/Paul, 225 laps; 5, Mallock/ Phillips/Salmon 223 laps; 6, Cooper/Smith/Bourgoig-nie, 222 laps; 7, Fitzpatrtck/Hobbs, 222 laps; 8, Snobeck/Servanin/Metge, 220 laps; 9. Haywood/ Holbert/Barth.220 laps; 10, Yver/Scotty/Guitteny, 214 laps; etc.

After dropping down to ninth place, the third works Porsche driven by Haywood/Holbert/Barth began to work its way back up the order as the day brightened. By 11.00am it was back into fourth place, nine laps adrift of the Joest Porsche in third place, but gaining appreciably. Shortly before this, however, at 10.40am, Ickx and Bell devotees held their breath as the Belgian limped round the circuit with a punctured tyre. He got to the pits for a replacement, losing three of his five laps lead over Mass/Schuppan. This was the only delay yet to break the regularity of the leading car's 15 lap stints between refuelling stops.

The optimism of the surviving Pace Nimrod team took a dive at 10.30am when Mallock brought their car in with a serious misfire, traced to a broken carbon bush in the distributor. This was the first hint of deeper problems as traces of blue smoke began to signal a suspected valve problem, but still the car kept going to the rapturous cheers of the Union Jack waving Britons on the Dunlop Curve. Despite all the delays, Viscount Downe's car dropped only a few places to eighth by mid-day.

An unscheduled stop around the same time broke the rhythm of the Charles Ivey team, Cooper finding that the 935 would not pull properly on the straight. The loss of power was traced to a leak from the intercooler, but three stops later after the loss of 18 laps, they were back on the road with the help of borrowed bits for a replacement turbo unit.

The British disappointments did not end there, for the Mason/O'Rourke/Jones BMW's anticipated clutch change had to be carried out, the car losing nearly an hour but only one place on the road. Further traumas for BMW came with a long unscheduled halt for the Ennequin/Gabriel/Gasparetti car which defied all attempts to remove the transmission casing when the gearbox seized. The Perrier/Salam/Guidici Lancia Beta Montecarlo was also lost from the race through its exclusion because the team changed the gearbox, which the ACO does not allow.

Positions at 20 hours: 1, Ickx Bell. 299 laps; 2, Mass/Schuppan, 296 laps; 3, Martin/Martin/Wollek, 288 laps; 4, Haywood/Holbert/Barth, 280 laps; 5, Cudini/Morton/Paul, 276 laps; 6, Fitzpatrick/Hobbs, 276 laps; 7, Snobeck/Servanin/Metge, 274 laps; 8, Mallock/Phillips/Salmon, 274 laps; 9, Yver/Sotty/ Guitteny, 269 laps; 10, DieudonmVBaird/Libert, 267 laps; etc.

The third of the Rothmans Porsches steadily made up ground on the third-placed Joest car, which had had a steadily worsening misfire since dawn, but then the Belga backed Porsche stopped on the circuit with two hours remaining and it was left only for the might of Porsche System to maintain their 1-2-3 to the finish.

That they did with ease, the three blue and white Porsches forming up in numerical and race order with half an hour left. It was a mightily impressive display, taking the top three places with three brand new cars, and one which goes to show that the Porsche System works. And in 1982 it worked better than ever to give Porsche their most convincing victory in all their years of coming to Le Mans, bringing Jacky Ickx his sixth win in this classic race and Derek Bell his third.

Porsches, in fact, took the top five places. The Fitzpatrick 935 survived on five cylinders to finish fourth, four laps ahead of the reliable (but also on fewer than its usual six cylinders) 935 of Snobeck/Servanin/Metge. Ferrari took sixth place, Dieudonne/Baird/Libert moving up after the challenge of the rival Cudini/Morton/Paul Boxer faded in the closing hours.

The chances of the Nimrod Aston had looked perilous at times during the early afternoon, its misfire and oil smoke all the time looking ominous. On top of that, a fuel pressure problem had been growing for several hours, and at 1.30pm it came close to letting Mallock down. On the Mulsanne Straight, taking care to treat the car gently, he found that his fuel pressure was reading zero. "I stopped, fiddled about a bit and finally got enough pressure back to get back to the pits," explained Ray. They had to get that car to the finish, even if it meant "carrying it across the line". Despite the problems, seventh place was the result.

Next came the Ivey 935, the team pleased to make the finish after their turbo problems, while the Cleare/Dron/ Jones 934 finished 13th despite losing first and third gears for the final hours.

The O'Rourke/Down/Mason BMW limped through past midday only to have a long stop for a new exhaust system. With two and a half hours to go, a sudden oil leak drained the engine, forcing poor O'Rourke to stop on the Mulsanne Straight.

That was a disappointing conclusion for one British team, but there were still British drivers in the first, fourth, seventh, and eighth cars.