Le Mans 1969

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The Porsche 917 dominated the early running in 1969, but reliability problems forced them to retire.

The closest Le Mans of them all.

Thanks to the eponymous Steve McQueen movie, the 1970 running of the Le Mans 24 Hours is probably the best remembered race, but in actual fact the previous year's running featured the closest finish, with Jacky Ickx's aging Ford GT40 beating the Porsche 908 of Hans Hermann by a few seconds.

The race was also unfortunately marred by the fatal opening lap crash of John Wolfe in his Porsche 917. 

Here below is a documentary of the race, posted by Porsche911GT1 on youtube.

About Matthew Lange

A lifelong Ferrari fan, Matthew is Drive Cult's resident expert on the Prancing Horse and Grand Tourer cars. He has an encyclopaedic knowledge of sports cars and drives a 365 GTB/4 Daytona, the lucky sod.

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