Jaguar takes one of the great Le Mans wins - the race's best moments
From the first race in 1923 to the battles of today, we count down the greatest moments in Le Mans history - with a new entry every day
A popular winner: the Jaguar XJR9 ended Porsche's winning streak
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Le Mans is unlike any other race. Run continuously since 1923, it has produced moments of genius, heartbreak and sheer improbability that no other event in motor sport can match – a century of stories that refuse to be forgotten.
Ahead of this year’s 94th running, we are recalling some of the most memorable episodes the race has seen. Today, we look back to the moment the flag dropped on the 1969 race.
1988
Jaguar rides its luck
The factory Porsche team is not an organisation for which one tends to feel too sorry, but there was one moment at Le Mans in 1988 when those watching could be forgiven for extending a little sympathy. With the race just four hours old, the lead Porsche was coming down the pitlane, powered not by its 800bhp, water-cooled, twin turbo, flat six engine, but by its starter motor and half the Porsche pitcrew. There was a huge cheer from the crowd.
Such a display of schadenfreude is perhaps more understandable when you consider Porsche was gunning for its eighth victory in a row and, to that end, had built a car full of trick bits and lightweight parts and crewed by its best drivers – Hans Stuck, Derek Bell and Klaus Ludwig – solely for that purpose. Jaguar, aiming for its first win in over three decades and which had walked the previous year’s championship but still managed to trip over its own shoelaces at Le Mans, now looked on for one of its five XJR-9LMs to prevail over the Porsches.
Winning Jaguar of Lammers, Andy Wallace and Johnny Dumfries fights the 962Cs
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The source of the Porsche’s problem has been debated ever since. In its original race report, this magazine stated that “the reserve fuel pump failed to work properly”, but team boss Norbert Singer blamed the error on “Ludwig’s mistake of running out of fuel”. Bell is equally clear, not to mention rather more pithy: “The reserve? Well it worked perfectly well for the rest of the race…”
Porsche’s problem was not any lack of raw pace with which to recover the deficit, but a lack of fuel under the Group C regulations. But then on Sunday afternoon it started to rain and, left out on slicks when everyone else dived for wets, Stuck put on a masterclass of wet-weather driving those who saw it would never forget. Soon he was back on the lead lap and even hit the front when the Jaguar driven by Jan Lammers stopped for a new windscreen. Had the rain stayed Stuck might even have won. In the event, it dried up, and Lammers nursed a Jag suffering severe gearbox trouble to take one of the great Le Mans wins. Had the Porsche not run out of fuel? Who knows – the history of racing is written in ‘what if’ stories. But in the end it was Jaguar that ran out a worthy winner, breaking the distance record in the process and Porsche, just for once, was left wondering what might have been.
Le Mans: over a century of triumph, tragedy and endurance
Other events may offer sharper competition over their duration, more concentrated drama in a shorter window of time, but none can match the breadth and weight of history that the Circuit de la Sarthe has accumulated across a century of racing.
Since André Lagache and René Léonard nursed their Chenard-Walcker to victory in the inaugural running of 1923, the Grand Prix de Vitesse et d’Endurance has been the stage for some of the most extraordinary stories the sport has ever produced.
They are stories of ambition and heartbreak, of manufacturers spending fortunes in pursuit of glory only to find the 24 hours utterly indifferent to their investment.
They are stories of individual brilliance stretched to its limit, of mechanics working through the night against the clock, of racing cars pushed to – and sometimes beyond – the edge of what engineering should permit.
The race has witnessed the very worst that motor sport can produce, and has also given us moments of such beauty and improbability that they have never been forgotten.
Motor Sport has been covering Le Mans for over a century, and over the years we have built an archive that spans virtually every chapter of its history.
To celebrate that legacy, we have compiled 100 of the moments that have shaped the race – the defining scenes, the forgotten footnotes, the controversies, the catastrophes and the victories that made Le Mans what it is.