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The 1982 24 Hours of Le Mans was the 50th Grand Prix of Endurance, which took place on 19 and 20 June 1982. It was also the fourth round of the 1982 World Endurance Championship. As well as a significant anniversary, this was a watershed year for Le Mans, with the highly anticipated advent of the FIA's Group C regulations, the essence of which was to allow an open engine formula but a minimum weight for safety and a proscribed fuel allocation.
Despite Rondeau leading the championship, the Porsche works team arrived as clear favourites with their new 956. Their top driver pairing were the 1981 winners Jacky Ickx and Derek Bell. The better fuel economy of the Cosworth-engined Rondeau and Ford gave them the lead in the early hours, but then serious vibration issues in that engine started afflicting most of the teams and by early evening, the Porsches were running 1–2, that they maintained throughout the night as the competition fell away.
By dawn, the Porsche special of Joest Racing was established in third, which they held until ninety minutes from the end when the engine packed up, stranding Bob Wollek out on the track. Ickx and Bell had moved into the lead soon after midnight and kept it for the rest of the race, winning by three laps over their team-mates Jochen Mass and Vern Schuppan. In a race of unusual attrition, only eighteen cars were classified from the original 55 starters
The win gave Ickx an unprecedented sixth outright victory, and Porsche had its most dominant race yet, sweeping the top five places, including a 1-2-3 for the works team.