www.porscheroadandrace.com 1971 Daytona 24 hours – Battle of the Giants Published: 25th June 2021 By: Martin Raffauf Online version: https://www.porscheroadandrace.com/1971-daytona-24-hours-battle-of-the-giants/ www.porscheroadandrace.com The Martini team run by Hans-Dieter Dechent had three cars, two to race, and one T- car. The #3 was driven by the two Austrians, Helmut Marko and Rudi Lins www.porscheroadandrace.com Some say this was the best Daytona 24 hour ever. It certainly was the closest finish up to that point in time. My friend Hal Crocker called this time in sports car racing, a battle of the giants. This was the last year of the 5.0-litre sports cars in the World Championship. The race would be between the 1970 Championship winning Porsche 917 and a bevy of privately entered Ferrari 512’s. These cars were quite amazing and exciting to watch. Daytona in 1971 had no chicane on the back straight, as it does today. These cars were reaching speeds near 220 mph by the time they got to the Daytona east banking. These were prototype sports cars with around 600 horsepower weighing less than 1900 pounds. Compared to the cars of today, these cars were rudimentary technology. The 917 chassis were in fact made completely out of aluminium tube structure. But yet, they were as fast, top speed wise, as anything running today. www.porscheroadandrace.com The cockpit of the #4 Martini car driven by Elford and van Lennep – it was pretty basic stuff compared to today’s cars Porsche entered four cars. The Gulf Wyer cars (2), along with the Martini 917 entries (2) www.porscheroadandrace.com were all Porsche Factory supported. Ferdinand Piëch, son of Ferry Porsche’s sister Louise, was running the 917 programs for the factory. And in fact, he had been the man behind the whole concept of the 917. Much to the chagrin of John Wyer (the great team manager of the Gulf cars), Piëch continued his practice of running a separate team against the main factory cars of Wyer. In 1970 it had been Porsche Salzburg, owned by his mother, Louise. In 1971 Porsche had sold three cars but they were still factory supported. (From L-R) Gijs van Lennep and Rudi Lins – unfortunately both Martini 917s would DNF www.porscheroadandrace.com For 1971 the second team was run by Hans-Dieter Dechent and sponsored by Martini & Rossi. The drivers in the two cars were Vic Elford with Gijs Van Lennep while Helmut Marko was paired with Rudi Lins. The Wyer cars were of course in the light blue and orange colours of the Gulf Oil company. They were driven by Jo Siffert and Derek Bell, with Pedro Rodriguez and Jackie Oliver in the other car. Both Porsche Teams utilised Firestone tyres. The Gulf cars had the 4.9-litre engine, the Martini cars the 4.5-litre engine. Piëch seemed to be covering all the bases. www.porscheroadandrace.com Pedro Rodriguez readies some of his kit out of the trunk of his car. There were no fancy driver motorhomes back www.porscheroadandrace.com then! Ferrari had taken a different approach. Knowing the rules would change into a 3.0-litre format in 1972, they were using the 1971 season to develop their 3.0-litre car, the 312P. Unfortunately, the car was destroyed in the fatal accident involving Ignacio Giunti at the Buenos Aires race a few weeks before, and a new one could not be prepared in time. So, the Ferrari effort was left in the hands of privateers. Three 512s and one 312P were entered by the North American distributor, Luigi Chinetti and his NART team. One was a 512S, two were the new 512M (the new upgraded model for 1971). Drivers in the 512S were Ronnie Bucknum with Tony Adamowicz. The 512Ms had Revson, Posey, Parsons and Chinetti Jr. in one, with Masten Gregory, Gregg Young and John Cannon in the second 512M. The 312P, which was not expected to compete with the 5.0-litre cars, was driven by Nestor Garcia- Viega, Chinetti Jr., and Alain De Cadanet. www.porscheroadandrace.com Nestor Garcia-Viega helps his mechanics push the NART 312P to the grid. The car would place fifth after gearbox issues, some 100 laps behind the winners www.porscheroadandrace.com NART mechanics take the Ferrari 512S to the grid for the start – it would eventually finish in second place. The NART team was owned and run by the famous Luigi Chinetti and his son www.porscheroadandrace.com Jose Juncadella entered an additional 512S for himself and Arturo Merzario. There was also a Belgian 512S entered by Jacques Swaters for Hughes de Fierlant and Gustave Gosselin. All the Ferrari 512s ran with the 5.0-litre V12 engine. www.porscheroadandrace.com Tony Adamowicz driver of the second place Ferrari 512S with Ronnie Bucknum Vic Elford drove one of the Martini 917s. He would have a tyre fail during the night on the banking, wrecking the car However, the car everyone was watching was a 512M entered by Roger Penske and Kirk F. White which had been prepared by Penske Racing. This was actually an original 1970 512S that had been bought by White from Chris Cord and Steve Earle, and then upgraded by www.porscheroadandrace.com Penske and converted to M specification with some additional Penske tweaks. The engines were built by TRACO in Southern California, as opposed to Ferrari in Maranello. The car was sponsored by SUNOCO (Sun Oil Company) and was painted in their dark blue and yellow colours. It looked stunning, and in the hands of Mark Donohue and David Hobbs it was fast. The Penske and NART Ferraris all used Goodyear tyres. www.porscheroadandrace.com ‘The Captain’ as he became known. Roger Penske heads for the pits on Saturday morning Porsche had to be concerned as the 512M was a very good car. It was much improved, especially in aerodynamics over the 512S. At the last race of the 1970 season at Kyalami www.porscheroadandrace.com South Africa, the Porsches had been soundly thrashed by the factory 512M driven by Jacky Ickx and Ignacio Giunti. Ferrari then proceeded with their 312P development and sold “M” upgrade kits to their 512 customers. But Porsche knew the Penske car would only run four races, Daytona, Sebring, LeMans and Watkins Glen. Porsche would contest the whole schedule, so would be favoured to win the championship once again. They had in fact already won the first race a few weeks before in Argentina. Here one of the Martini 917s sits in the Daytona paddock in front of their garage The Daytona race would come down to a battle between the four 917s against the six 512s, with the 312P available as a backup if all the 5.0-litre cars failed. The grid was made up of the usual cars in the lower classes in the various GT categories. The FIA was very strict with www.porscheroadandrace.com the qualifications, in that many of the cars that practiced, did not start, as they were too slow. Mark Donohue captured pole position with a record lap of 1:42 (although some of this could be attributed to the repaving of the infield portion of the circuit) and took an immediate lead at the start. The Penske 512 led on and off for the first five hours or so until the taillights failed due to some alternator issues. Some twelve minutes were lost in the pits for repairs causing them to drop to third place. Wyer mechanics push the winning car to the grid. Probably Alan Hearn steering with Ermanno Cuoghi at left rear Several of the other main combatants also ran into early difficulties. The NART 512M of www.porscheroadandrace.com Masten Gregory only made 16 laps before it had an engine failure. The Siffert/Bell 917 was next to go with engine failure after 116 laps, followed soon after by the de Fierlant 512 and the Juncadella 512 both of which dropped out with fuel pump issues. The second NART 512M of Posey, Revson and Parsons was next to fail at 202 laps. Donohue and Hobbs meanwhile had been working hard and making up time on the lead 917, and near midnight were back in the hunt. Jackie Oliver (left) talks to David York (right), team manager of the John Wyer Racing Team Penske made up time on every pit stop, as they had installed a dry brake fuelling system on the car and were fuelling much faster than the Wyer 917s. www.porscheroadandrace.com The #4 Martini Porsche 917 of Vic Elford/Gijs van Lennep is being harried here by the #22 Ferrari 512M driven by Peter Revson/Sam Posey, one of three cars entered by US Ferrari importer, Luigi Chinetti Just before midnight, Vic Elford had a tyre blow on his Martini 917 in the east banking, hitting the wall, strewing debris everywhere, but emerging unhurt. Donohue, close behind, slowed to pick his way through the debris and was rammed from behind by a Porsche 911 GT car that had failed to slow. The 512 was badly damaged and required over an hour in the pits for repairs. Some of the suspension parts needed were taken off one of the other NART 512s that had already dropped out. They had a spare nose, but all the mounting brackets on the left side had been torn off. Chief Mechanic, Woody Woodward had to fashion a mount www.porscheroadandrace.com out of broom handles. Copious amounts of duct tape was needed to hold it all together.