The car that gave Renault the Le Mans 24 Hours victory it so craved

Renault went big at the Le Mans 24 Hours in 1977. Four cars were entered with a roster of drivers incorporating the cream of French single-seater talent – those in Formula 1 or about to be. There was a new and updated version of its Alpine Group 6 prototype and no world championship sportscar campaign as a distraction. Its full focus was on June and the big one in France. It had the fastest car, yet none would make it to four o’clock on Sunday afternoon.

 Twelve months later, it was back, not so much bigger as better. The result: the win it so coveted in the world’s biggest endurance race. And a dominant one. Didier Pironi and Jean-Pierre Jaussaud claimed victory aboard their Alpine-Renault A442B by a healthy margin of five laps. 

It was the result of a redoubling of the efforts of a team run under the banner of Renault Sport. The failure of 1977 had hurt. No stone was left unturned in pursuit of a victory that would allow the French manufacturer to draw a line under a programme that dated back six years. Only then could the focus turn elsewhere. Just five weeks after Le Mans 1977, Renault had entered F1 with its RS01 at the British Grand Prix.

Gerard Larrousse had been given the target of winning the French enduro on his arrival at Renault in January 1976 as sporting director. To that effect, the first job of the two-time Le Mans winner was to draw the disparate elements together.

The chassis were developed at Alpine in Dieppe, while the engines were produced by Gordini at Viry-Chatillon in suburban Paris – Alpine and Gordini were two niche sportscar makers that had been brought under the ownership of Renault in the preceding years. To complicate things further was also a third motorsport department at Renault’s Parisian headquarters at Boulogne-Billancourt. 

Larrousse had been happy to accept the offer to take charge of motorsport at Renault, and not only because he understood that his driving career was coming to an end. “I was already thinking about what I was going to do next,” he remembers.

Solo 1976 entry took pole but was never built to last the distance for what was intended to be a fact-finding exercise

Photo by: Bernard Cahier / Getty Images

He was also acutely aware of the shortcomings of the Renault sportscar operations and thought he could make a difference. The Archambeaud team he ran out of a Mercedes dealership in Paris had fielded an Alpine-Renault, the normally aspirated A441, in the European Two-Litre Sportscar Championship in 1974. The next year, he joined the works squad run from Dieppe as a driver for its first season with the turbocharged A442. 

Renault had graduated to the World Sportscar Championship to race with the big boys: the 1.4 equivalence factor for forced-induction engines in sportscar racing put it in the top Group 6 class with the three-litre normally aspirated cars. “I really wasn’t happy with the organisation in 1975,” he recalls. “We’d won Mugello early in the season [Larrousse and Jean-Pierre Jabouille driving an interim turbo known as the A441T], but after that we didn’t win anything.” 

The creation of Renault Sport was crucial in the eventual Le Mans success, reckons long-time Renault Sport engine man Alain Marguet. “Before, when we had a problem, the Gordini people used to say it was the fault of Alpine people, and Alpine people said it was the fault of Gordini,” he says. “Once we were all part of Renault Sport, we won and lost together.”

“Before, when we had a problem, the Gordini people used to say it was the fault of Alpine people, and Alpine people said it was the fault of Gordini. Once we were all part of Renault Sport, we won and lost together” Alain Marguet

The new structure involved a lot of miles for Larrousse. He and Francois Castaing, who headed up the Viry facility, would travel north from Paris to the coast at least once a week. 

Larrousse’s recruitment was part of a slow but steady gearing up of Renault’s motorsport aspirations, which followed its decision to allow Gordini to develop the two-litre V6 to go in the back of an Alpine prototype known as the A440 for a European sportscar campaign in 1973.

The two marques had a long relationship in sportscar racing. Gordini had built the engines that powered a line of Alpine baby prototypes from 1963, culminating in 1968 with a V8 that was devised to give its partner a shot at outright victory. It proved a disaster and, when later that year Renault took a majority stake in Gordini, the project was axed. 

Failure of three works cars (plus one private entry) to finish in 1977 really stung and spurred Renault onwards

Photo by: Jean-Pierre Prevel and Gabriel Duval / AFP via Getty Images

Boardroom machinations also resulted in the revival of the partnership. When Matra was bought by Chrysler, it was forced to end its relationship with Elf courtesy of the US giant’s links with Shell. Elf had not only backed Matra’s F1 assaults up to the end of 1970, but also been instrumental in bringing a line of French talent up through the ranks.

Now, Elf threw its lot in with Renault. It was the oil company’s marketing boss, Francois Guiter, who helped get the sign-off of the 90-degree normally aspirated Gordini engine that would go on to carry Renault’s hopes in sportscars, F2 and finally F1. “Renault wasn’t sure,” says Marguet, “but Mr Guiter made it happen.”

Turbocharging the new V6 was on the agenda almost from the get-go. Bernard Dudot, who moved from Alpine to Gordini on the Dieppe marque’s takeover by Renault in 1973, spent multiple months in the USA that year to learn about turbocharging. Marquet still has his report, dated December 1973. Utilising the lessons contained within wasn’t straightforward.

“The main problem was that there were no parts for turbocharged engines available,” recalls Marguet. “The first turbo we ran on the V6 came from a truck and we had to build a lot of parts ourselves.” 

The A440 had evolved into the A441, which won the European series with Alain Serpaggi in 1974. Designer Andre de Cortanze and aerodynamicist Marcel Hubert developed the original concept yet further when the turbocharged engine arrived the following year. A further upgrade of the A442 was taken to Le Mans in 1976 in the middle of a partial WSC campaign, though not with the expectation of winning.

Larrousse knew it had to learn the ropes before it could become a serious contender. It entered a solo car for Jabouille, Patrick Tambay and Jose Dolhem, though there was also a T-car that ran during practice and qualifying to double the learning. Jabouille took pole position, but he and his team-mates were out of the race on Saturday night. An ignition problem had delayed the car early doors, but it had fought its way back to third before a piston failure resulted in retirement.

1978’s winning A442B ran with new A443’s revised bodywork and cockpit bubble, with a hole cut in the top to circumvent the rules

“I received some criticism from the French press, saying the car was never going to finish,” recalls Larrousse. “I told them, ‘Yes, I know’. The car wasn’t built for 24 hours, it was built for much shorter races. But it was important for us to go to Le Mans to get some experience, to understand the circuit and the race, and what was required in terms of logistics.”

There was a major change in the programme for 1977 – no more world championship races, just a full focus on Le Mans. “Preparing for Le Mans was a big job,” says Larrousse. “Doing shorter races in the championship wasn’t our goal; our goal was to win over 24 hours.” Racing in the WSC was replaced by testing, then more testing. Renault put a figure of 11,000km (nearly 7000 miles) on its test schedule prior to the race. 

Derek Bell, Le Mans winner in 1975 with the JW Automotive Gulf-Mirage, had been brought into the driver line-up and remembers a vigorous testing schedule. “We’d decamp to Paul Ricard and be told to drive the hell out of the thing,” says the only non-Frenchman to race the A442 in the 24 Hours. “If the car broke, they’d put it right. And if we’d done 11 hours, we’d start out on another 24.”

“We’d decamp to Paul Ricard and be told to drive the hell out of the thing. If the car broke, they’d put it right. And if we’d done 11 hours, we’d start out on another 24” Derek Bell

Bell might have claimed win number two at Le Mans in the first of his two years with Renault. He and Jabouille in one of four A442s were nailed on at the head of the leaderboard for the first two thirds of the race. It wasn’t to be, however. A burnt-out piston, a recurrence of the problem that had also done for the other two works-run cars, put the car out in hour 17. “That car was beautiful to drive and we were just sailing along,” recalls Bell. 

Le Mans 1977 was, of course, the year of the greatest drive by a sportscar legend who would become inextricably linked with Bell. Jacky Ickx had been paired with him in the Cosworth-powered Mirage GR7 at Le Mans in 1975 and they would share another two Le Mans victories with Porsche in 1981 and 1982.

Ickx’s pursuit of the Alpines after switching from his own Porsche 936 to the car driven by Jurgen Barth and Hurley Haywood has been credited with breaking the Alpines as they pushed on to stay ahead. It adds to the romance of the story, of course, but there is more than circumstantial evidence to suggest that it’s true.

While a Renault led every hour of the 1978 race, the victorious machine was the only one to complete the distance without drama

Second place behind the Porsche was taken by a car powered by the Renault V6 turbo: the latest version of the Mirage, known as the M8 after JWA was sold to Harley Cluxton and his Grand Touring Cars Inc team. 

There are two theories as to why the engine in the best of its Mirages, in which Vern Schuppan and Jean-Pierre Jarier were paired, went the distance and those in the back of the Alpines didn’t. Both are linked to the car’s aerodynamics. The first suggests that the aero held the car back down the Mulsanne and meant the engine didn’t attain full revs. The other is that the airflow into the Mirage’s engine air inlet system was somehow compromised, resulting in the engine running rich. More fuel dumped into the cylinders cooled the pistons. 

The British media, Autosport included, reported on Renault’s failure to win Le Mans almost gleefully. It contrasted the big-money approach by the French manufacturer with Porsche’s “more thrifty” organisation. Renault Sport built an encampment in the paddock complete with its own restaurant and even a merchandise stall.

Porsche, meanwhile, was still paddocking its cars in the small town of Teloche in the days when each pitbox was just that, a small room behind an old-fashioned pit counter. 

But Renault’s approach showed how keen it was to win Le Mans. “They put us up in a chateau and on the morning of the race we had a police escort to get us to the track,” remembers Bell. “They had that village at the bottom of the paddock, and I remember thinking, ‘This is how you go motor racing.’”

The same attention to detail was taken when the Alpines went testing. Paul Ricard was arguably the first modern race circuit yet, for the endurance simulations, Renault recreated the cramped conditions of the Le Mans pits. “Everything was in the same position as it would be at Le Mans; the tools and the tyres,” says Marguet. 

Job done: 1978 Le Mans victory followed by full transfer of effort and resource to Renault F1 project

Photo by: Jean-Pierre Prevel and Gabriel Duval / AFP via Getty Images

Ricard remained the centre of Renault’s Le Mans preparations for 1978, though there was also a trip to North America to replicate the sustained high-speed running down the Mulsanne Straight. It was one of the developments that Larrousse credits for the Le Mans success.

“We increased the testing programme in two key directions,” he says. “The first was going to America to test the car at high speed in real conditions. We were testing at the Transportation Research Center in the middle of nowhere in Ohio. It meant we could drive in fifth gear at full throttle for as long as we wanted. The other one was the new ‘test bunk’ in Viry. For the first time we had a dyno where it was possible to drive the engine and gearbox exactly as you would at Le Mans.”

The TRC test took place in November over Thanksgiving weekend. That was the only time that Renault could get on the track, “while everyone else in America was filling their faces with turkey”, reckons Bell. 

With the arrival of the ‘test bunk’, Renault was able to replicate a full Le Mans distance at Viry. Responsibility for ‘driving’ the complete powertrain fell not to the pilots it employed for the race but to the engineers

With the arrival of the ‘test bunk’, Renault was able to replicate a full Le Mans distance at Viry. Responsibility for ‘driving’ the complete powertrain fell not to the pilots it employed for the race but to the engineers. Dudot and Marguet were among those who would take turns at the controls.

“The good thing was that we could sleep in our own beds,” remembers Marguet. “I would do two hours, another engineer would take over and then I would call Mr Dudot at home to tell him it was time to come back to the factory.”

Renault built a new car for 1978, the A443, for a larger-capacity engine. A 2.1-litre version of the V6 meant more power, requiring revised aero, which explained the longer wheelbase. The A443 also incorporated a Perspex bubble over the cockpit. Group 6 regulations forbade coupes, but Alpine circumvented the rules by cutting a hole in the top. The development yielded a significant increase in straightline speed on the Mulsanne. The winning A442 was also fitted with the revised bodywork and the bubble, gaining the ‘B’ suffix as a result. 

Youth and experience paired perfectly with the 1978 winners Pironi and Jaussaud

Photo by: Henri Bureau / Sygma / Corbis / VCG via Getty Images

Renault only took the wraps off the new car a month before the race when it launched its 1978 Le Mans assault. But all was not well behind the scenes. Larrousse remembers testing on the ‘bunk’ throwing up an issue with top gear in the five-speed Hewland TL200 transmission.

“We had to change the fifth gear ratio just before Le Mans,” he says. The differential had also proved problematic. Marguet recalls the cars in 1978 running two final drive ratios as Renault looked to play the percentages across its four entries. 

Jabouille missed out on a third straight pole, Ickx taking qualifying honours for Porsche. But Renault topped the leaderboard for each of the 24 hours. Pironi and Jaussaud led the way for the first quarter, before Jabouille and Patrick Depailler, sans bubble because it made them feel claustrophobic, topped the leaderboard through to hour 19.

Engine failure put them out, allowing the A442B to take the victory. It did run the bubble, though holes were cut in the cockpit to increase ventilation.  

The winning car was the only Alpine to make it through the race without drama. The regular A442 that Bell shared with Jarier went out in the night with gearbox failure, while the second-string A-spec A442 shared by Dolhem, Guy Frequelin and Jean Ragnotti ended up 11 laps down in fourth after losing half an hour to transmission repairs. 

Mission accomplished, Renault immediately announced that it would not be defending its crown the following year. Now, the full resources of Renault Sport would be directed at F1. Come 1979, it had expanded to two cars and had a dedicated test team for the first time.

There is a ‘what if’, however. Had Renault not won Le Mans in 1978, would it still have parked its Alpine prototypes? Larrousse thinks not. “We would have gone back in 1979, I really think that,” he says. “Le Mans was our first goal – we had to do it.”

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If the A442B had not won in 1978, Larrousse believes Renault would have had to return to Le Mans to achieve its goal