Porsche at Le Mans Part IV: 1972 to 1981
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www.porscheroadandrace.com Porsche at Le Mans Part IV: 1972 to 1981 Published: 9th February 2018 By: Glen Smale Online version: https://www.porscheroadandrace.com/porsche-at-le-mans-part-iv-1972-to-1981/ #5 Porsche 908/3 – Juan Fernandez/Francesco Torredemer/Eugenio Baturone – NRF The 1972 season broke, ushering in with it a new era of racing. The Porsche 917 had reigned supreme for two years, but the race authorities (read FIA) had had their fill of Porsche interpreting the rules their way, and for 1972 a 3-litre engine limit had been applied. This capacity limitation was also introduced in an effort to slow the cars down but this ruling played neatly into the hands of the French manufacturer, Matra, who had been developing their MS670. Ferrari, for the first time, withdrew from the 24 Hours of Le Mans, citing the fact that their 3-litre V12 engine would not last the distance. Matra occupied first www.porscheroadandrace.com and second places on the starting grid, and that is how they finished 24 hours later. Porsche at Le Mans Part IV basically takes a look at the decade of the ‘70s, up until the start of Group C in 1982. Porsche at Le Mans 1972 – June 10/11 Porsche was represented by a band of six 908s, the best of the bunch being the #60 driven by Reinhold Joest, Mario Casoni and Michel Weber. The Porsche 908 was still powered by its evergreen 2997cc flat-eight which was a more than capable combination. The 908s were joined by a pair of 907s and a lone 910, plus no less than seven 911 S. The ACO was making it clear that they favoured GT cars, and so Porsche did not feel the need to develop any new hardware for that season. This situation was no doubt influenced by the fact that the Porsche family were in the process of vacating their management roles within the company, and this was thought not to be the best time to commit to any new race car or engine development. www.porscheroadandrace.com #45 Porsche 911 S – Fernand Sarapoulos/Dominique Bardini/Raymond Tourol – DNF; #41 Porsche 911 S – Michael Keyser/Juergen Barth/Sylvain Garant – 13th overall As it happened, the Joest 908 LH put in an excellent performance, finishing third behind the two Matras. On the GT front, although Ferrari was not present with an official works team, they did support their customers and the five V12 Daytonas occupied positions five through nine. The only 911 to finish was the #41 2.5-litre S/T driven by Juergen Barth, Michael Keyser and Sylvain Garant, crossing the line in 13th place overall and sixth in the Grand Touring class, where it was up against the 5-litre Daytonas. www.porscheroadandrace.com #60 Porsche 908 L – Reinhold Joest/Michel Weber/Mario Casoni – 3rd overall Porsche at Le Mans 1973 – June 9/10 This year is widely considered the year in which the 911 came into its own as a fully-fledged, highly capable race car. Although turbocharging was still a year away from being unleashed on the race tracks of the world, the naturally aspirated 911 RSR was a formidable competitor on any stage. www.porscheroadandrace.com #46 Porsche 911 Carrera RSR – Herbert Mueller/Gijs van Lennep – 4th overall; #47 Porsche 911 Carrera RSR – Reinhold Joest/Claude Haldi – DNF In 1973, the 911 Carrera RS 2.7 was introduced as a high-performance road car, and it was this model on which the 2.8 RSR and the 3.0 RSR were homologated. The bigger engined version was used by both private teams and the factory, but in an effort not to compete head-on with their customers, the factory cars were entered in the Prototype class. Although out-classed by the true Prototypes, this move allowed Porsche to experiment with improvements or modifications, something that was not possible in the GT class. www.porscheroadandrace.com #3 Porsche 908/3 – Juan Fernandez/Bernard Cheneviere/Francesco Torredemer – 5th overall The 1973 RSR is recognisable by the inclusion of what became known as the ‘Mary Stuart collar’ – a form of wrap-around rear wing. This was basically the standard Carrera rear wing mounted on the engine cover, with extensions that came around to meet the rear fender, forming what looked like a continuous wing. For Le Mans, the factory entered three cars, two of which were the Martini RSRs to run in the Sports Prototype 3000 class, while a ‘standard’ RSR was entered in the GT class. The #46 RSR driven by Gijs van Lennep and Herbert Muller finished a very credible fourth overall behind two works Matras and a Ferrari 312PB, all thoroughbred prototypes. The other Martini RSR failed to finish, retiring with just 65 laps completed with fuel problems. www.porscheroadandrace.com The third 911 RSR, driven by Peter Gregg and Guy Chasseuil, finished in fourteenth place overall and third in the GT 3000 class. #45 Porsche 911 Carrera RSR – Paul Keller/Erwin Kremer/Clemens Schickentanz – 8th overall Six 911 RSRs finished in the running in 1973, highlighting the endurance characteristics of the immensely flexible and strong 6-cylinder boxer engine. The 911 had made its mark! Porsche at Le Mans 1974 – June 15/16 If the previous year had witnessed the arrival of the 911 as a durable GT racer, 1974 saw the model firmly establish itself as a very serious player, capable of embarrassing even cars in the Prototype class. Turbocharging lessons learned from the 917/10 and 917/30 racers, www.porscheroadandrace.com played a big part in the development of the 911 Carrera RSR Turbo, a 2.1-litre engined 500bhp ‘giant killer.’ With a top speed of 300km/h, this car threatened to take the lead from the Matra MS670B prototype, but a gearbox repair prevented this embarrassing outcome. The #22 Martini Carrera RSR Turbo did however beat the sister Matra, forcing it into third place, as Gijs van Lennep and Herbert Muller brought the little Porsche home in second place overall. #22 Porsche Carrera RSR Turbo – Herbert Mueller/Gijs van Lennep – 2nd overall While the normally aspirated Carrera RSR 3.0 was making waves in the GT 3000 class, the Carrera RSR Turbo was a purpose-built car, aimed at the ‘silhouette’ series that was to start in 1975. The car obviously proved to be a great success, as described above, but the Group 5 ‘silhouette’ series was postponed a year and so Porsche dropped the model after just one year. In the 1974 Le Mans race, seven of the top twenty finishers were 911 Carrera RSR www.porscheroadandrace.com models, one Turbo and six naturally aspirated cars. #65 Porsche 908/2 – Christian Poirot/Jean Rondeau – 19th overall Porsche at Le Mans 1975 – June 14/15 With the ACO’s plans for introducing radical fuel saving measures, most of the big-name manufacturers such as Matra, Alpine, Ferrari and Alfa Romeo all stayed away. Porsche too did not attend with an official works team, leaving it up to the privateers to carry the company’s flag. www.porscheroadandrace.com #69 Porsche 911 Carrera RSR – Nick Faure/Jean Blaton/John Cooper – 6th overall With so many Prototype competitors absent, this played into the hands of the GT teams, which led to 27 Porsche cars on the grid of varying description. There were three rather old 908s, thirteen N/A 911 Carrera RSRs, ten Carrera RSs, and a single 911 S on the starting grid. Fifteen of the top 25 finishers that year were Porsche cars! The reason for Porsche staying away in 1975 was because they had their hands full with the development and production of their new 911 Turbo road car. With all hands busy with this project, there certainly wasn’t much spare cash or spare hands to divert towards the racing department, and so the bulk of the private entries at Le Mans consisted of the 911 Carrera RSR. www.porscheroadandrace.com #58 Porsche 911 Carrera RSR – John Fitzpatrick/Toine Hezemans/Gijs van Lennep – 5th overall; #16 Porsche 911 Carrera RSR – Clemens Schickentanz/Hartwig Bertrams/Egon Evertz – DNF Reinhold Joest, Mario Casoni and Juergen Barth finished top of the Porsches in a 908/03, coming home in fourth place. Places five through to nine, were occupied by Carrera RSRs while tenth and eleventh places were filled by a pair of Carrera RSs. Even though Porsche was relatively far from the top spot, the media focus on Porsche’s accomplishments that year was almost unavoidable. This is exactly what Ferry Porsche had intended from as early as the company’s first race at Le Mans back in 1951, claiming that as they didn’t have the marketing budgets of the bigger players, the media would instead do that for them through their race reporting. www.porscheroadandrace.com #15 Porsche 908/3 – Reinhold Joest/Mario Casoni/Juergen Barth – 4th overall Porsche at Le Mans 1976 – June 12/13 Following the FIA’s decision to push out the introduction of the Group 5 ‘silhouette’ class, Porsche had ceased development of the Carrera RSR Turbo. But this had not slowed down Norbert Singer’s quest to develop the ultimate 911 turbocharged racer, and this newcomer, the 935, burst onto the world stage in 1976. In fact, Singer had developed two 911s at pretty much the same time, these being the 934 which was eligible for the Group 4 class, and the 935 for the Group 5 class. Although the two race cars came from the same stable, their engines had quite different configurations with the power output of the 935 being substantially higher.