1970 24 Hours of Le Mans

The 1970 24 Hours of Le Mans was a motor race staged on 13 and 14 June 1970 at the Circuit de la Sarthe in France. It was the eighth race of the 1970 International Championship for Makes and was the 38th running of the 24 Hours of Le Mans. The race was contested by Group 4 Special GT cars, Group 5 Sports Cars and Group 6 Prototypes.

Once again Porsche had a dominant year in the championship and arrived as strong favourites to take their first outright victory in the Le Mans race. Their main opposition would come from Ferrari, now competing with a newly-homologated 512S model. Nine 917s and eleven 512s from works-supported teams and privateers were entered. However heavy rain through most of the race neutralised much of their power and contributed to a number of serious accidents. In a race of heavy attrition where only seven cars were classified as finishers it was won by race veteran Hans Herrmann and co-driver Richard ‘Dickie’ Attwood.

For Herrmann, a veteran of 13 Le Mans, it was particularly sweet having lost by the narrowest margin the previous year. All Porsche's main challengers (Ferrari, Matra, Alfa Romeo) were beaten in the first half of the race. Porsche's dominance was complete – winning all three prizes and taking all the class-wins. The only dark spot was Ickx's accident at the Ford Chicane during the night which killed a track marshal.

This was the year that Hollywood came to Le Mans. The race provided the background for the Steve McQueen movie Le Mans. Some of the racing footage (mainly the first moments of the race) of the motion picture was taken from on board a competing car, as the #29 Porsche 908-022 entered by Solar Productions had been fitted with movie cameras but most of the on board footage was useless due to technical issues.^[1]