Fifty years ago, Ford scored its greatest Le Mans victory

Back in 1969, Belgian’s Jacky Ickx  drove his Ford GT40 to one of the closest victories ever recorded at the Le Mans 24 Hour. This weekend the likes of Ford, Ferrari, Porsche and others are hoping to produce similar drama in the 87^th running of this French motor racing classic. The race will be screened live non-stop on DSTV.

Fifty years ago, Ford scored its greatest victory at the Le Mans 24 Hour, when Jacky Ickx drove an ageing Ford GT40 beat the Porsche 908 of Hans Hermann by less than 100 metres!

Ove the final hour of that event, run over the weekend of June 14 and 15, 1969, the young Belgian in the Ford and the veteran German in the Porsche had passed each other for the lead countless times. The Porsche was hampered by brake problems and the Ford had exhaust issues.

 When the chequered flag was hung out after 24 Hours, both cars had already crossed the start-finish line seconds before and so had to race each other for a final excruciating  lap.

After 24 Hours, the Porsche still loomed large in the Ford’s rear view mirrors!

By clever slipstreaming, Ickx managed to grab the lead under braking into the final corner at the end of the Mulsanne straight, and stay ahead over the line after 24 hours of racing,  with the Porsche still looming large in his rear view mirrors.

That victory was notable for a number of reasons. Firstly, Jack Ickx had been last away at the start, which in that year was still conducted where the drivers lined up to run across the track to their cars parked at an angle facing the first corner.

At the start, Ickx walked to his car while the others sprinted

 Ickx felt that this traditional Le Mans start was dangerous as drivers leapt into their cars and roared off without doing up their seats belts. At the previous year’s race Ickx’s Belgian friend Willy Mairesse had been badly injured in an accident caused by the door of his car flying open after he had rushed away from the Le Mans start. Thus in 1969, Ickx walked to his car, closed the door of the GT40 and calmly did up his safety belts properly. He was stone last, but he had made his point about safety.

Gentleman racer killed on the first lap

Ickx’s protest was proved to be prophetic on the very first lap of that fraught 1969 race. British “gentleman racer” John Woolfe had taken delivery of one of the brand new Porsche 917s just before the race. The new 4,5-litre 917 was the fastest car ever seen at Le Mans, but scared even the world’s best drivers because of its aerodynamic problems in that first year of competition.

Woolfe, inexperienced in such a powerful car,  had failed to do up his seat belts after the start, and on the first lap lost control of his privately-entered  917, the resultant crash killing him instantly. As was common practise in those days, the race simply continued, even after a fatal crash.

Down the straight, all the Porsche driver could see in his mirrors “ was the sky”.

The two remaining  Porsche 917s in the hands of the factory drivers led that year’s race and with three hours to go it looked as if the monster Porsche  would have its first victory. This was despite driver Richard Atwood’s reporting that rear end lift at 350 km/h on the straight was so bad that if he looked in the rear view mirrors “ all I could see was the sky”!

But the unproven 4,5-litre long-tailed Porsche 917 failed with gearbox problems and so the scene was set for that final epic confrontation between the ageing Ford GT40 and the new,  but well-sorted three-litre Porsche 908.

The very  same car that won in 1969 had also won in 1968

The 1969  victory awarded to Jacky Ickx and Jacky Oliver (both top-tier Formula One drivers of that period) was remarkable for one more reason. The previous year, the very same car, GT40 chassis number 1075, had won the race in the hands of Pedro Rodriguez and Lucien Bianchi.

Thus ended a four-year domination of Le Mans by Ford in the 1960s that had its seeds sewn  in 1964 when the first so-called Ford GTs were entered, and ended with four victories, in 1966, 1967, 1968 and 1969. Porsche would dominate the event in 1970 and 1971 with the short-tailed  917s (with much improved aerodynamics), before rule changes outlawed that awe-inspiring car.

For more reading on the incredible two-time-winning  Ford GT40 chassis no 1075, click here.

Fast Forward to 2016

The modern Ford GT challenge at Le Mans has seen Ford re-enter the fray with factory-backed race teams running  new Ford GTs. The first year of Ford’s return was 2016.

Ford had stated it had a four year mission to repeat that 1969 triumph, but in the very first year of its return to Le Mans, this time to contest the brilliantly competitive GTE Pro and GTE Am classes for modified versions of road-going supercars, Ford won the class against stiff opposition from Porsche and Ferrari.

In subsequent races in 2017 and 2017 Ford’s GT has again been right in the mix for victory in this most competitive of Le Mans classes, and to date, since its return, Ford has scored one victory and two podiums.

This year it’s Ford versus Ferrari, Porsche, BMW and Aston Martin

This year Ford will be competing against the world’s top marques in this race-within-a-race, including Ferrari, Porsche, BMW, Aston Martin and Chevrolet Corvette. For 2019 Ford will have five factory-backed Ford GTs running in the final year of its four-year race program, and it wants it go out on a high, the way it did with the original Ford GT40, way back in 1969. With a win!

*SuperSport Channel  5  on DSTV will provide non-stop television coverage of the  2019 Le Mans 24 Hour, starting at 2.30 pm on Saturday, June 15. In the top LMP1 class, Toyota will be going for its second win in a row after its maiden success at the event last year.

Unfortunately there will be no full factory-backed  teams racing the Toyota LMP1 cars for outright victory this year, so a lot of the interest in the event will centre on the GTE classes. In the GTE Pro and GTE Am classes, the racing cars in this category are based on real production cars that you can buy and drive on the streets.