The 1980 24 Hours of Le Mans was the 48th Grand Prix of Endurance, and took place on 14 and 15 June 1980. It was the seventh round of both the World Championship for Makes and World Challenge for Endurance Drivers. With neither the Porsche nor Renault works teams contesting the big Group 6 sports-cars for outright victory, it left the prospects open for a privateer victory from Joest, Rondeau or De Cadenet, or from Group 5 again, if they were to fail. The wet weather throughout the race further added to the uncertainty, reducing the advantage of the more powerful cars.
The race started in a downpour and the rain continued off and on throughout the race. The first half of the race saw a number of the favoured teams hold the lead for extended periods, until one by one they suffered delays or mechanical issues. By dawn it was the Joest Porsche special (driven by Jacky Ickx with Reinhold Joest) that held a 2-lap lead over Jean Rondeau in his own car, and John Fitzpatrick in the Dick Barbour 935. But when Joest pitted at 10am having lost top gear, the half-hour stop cost four laps and put the Frenchmen into the lead. Hard driving by Ickx got him back onto the lead lap again. A sudden squall at 1pm sent both cars aquaplaning off at the fast Dunlop Curve, fortunately without doing any major damage to either. When another rain shower appeared in the last hour, Ickx dived for the pits to put on wet tyres, while Jaussaud bravely stayed out on his slicks. This time Ickx could not make up the lost time and the French took a significant victory: Jean Rondeau gained the unique achievement of winning Le Mans driving a car of his own manufacture, with his other team car coming in third.
Regulations The introduction of the new Group 5 and Group 6 categories in 1976 had not helped sports-car racing – it forced most manufacturers to choose between one or the other. The World Championship for Makes was stuttering and the small fields left the spectators disinterested which, in turn, dissuaded sponsors to invest. The strongest competition was found in the IMSA series in North America. After five years of going alone, the Automobile Club de l'Ouest (ACO) returned to the World Championship, becoming the series' premier race, and easily with its biggest field.Spurring 2012, p.18-9
True to its founding objective to stage a test of endurance and technical innovation, this year the ACO introduced a number of new regulations designed to encourage greater reliability and efficiency over raw speed. However, there were a few unforeseen repercussions that caused controversy. All cars were now limited to a maximum fuel tank volume of 120 litres, and refuelling would run at a fixed rate of 50 litres per minute. This meant that pitstops that used to take around 30–40 seconds would now take over 2 minutes.Clausager 1982, p.184Clarke 1997, p.114 Autosport Jun19 1980 Alternative fuel-types were also now permitted. A minimum distance of 25 laps had to be done between fuel and oil stops (effectively a fuel economy of 29 litres per 100 km, or 8mpg). A maximum of four pitcrew would be allowed to work on a car at a time.
This year, entries had to have either two or three drivers. Qualifying would be done by the average time of each car's drivers. The FIA qualifying rules were that each car had to be within 130% of the pole time and also within 110% of their class leader – although, the ACO allowed a team to drop their third driver for the race if they wanted a better grid position or, more importantly, were at risk of not qualifying. Formerly this was done on the Wednesday and Thursday however this year only a single, 5-hour session on Thursday would count toward qualification. The idea was to flush out amateur drivers who may be a liability to other drivers from being too slow. However, it did not take into account the vagaries of the weather and with constant rain on Thursday, it left only a very short window in the twilight for teams to get all their drivers qualified.Clarke 1997, p.110-1 Autosport Jun19 1980
The other significant change was the ban on replacing the major components after the start of Qualifying until the end of the race. This applied to engines and gearboxes, while allowing a single turbo replacement. This was put in to stop the use of fragile, high-powered "qualifying engines" to get a high grid spot then swapped out before the race. But again, this compromised the race for cars that might have unforeseen issues with their race-engine during practice.Clausager 1982, p.22Armstrong 1980, p.191Clarke 1997, p.104 Autosport Jun12 1980
Drivers were only allowed to drive for four hours at a time, with a minimum one-hour break between stints, and a 14-hour maximum drive overall. To be classified as a finisher, a car had to complete their final lap before 4.15pm and to have covered at least 70% of the winner's distance. Also, the ACO's hors course rules were now discarded, where cars were disqualified if they had fallen over 30% behind the leader at the 12-hour mark.
The Index of Energy Efficiency returned. This was the ratio of total fuel used versus a calculated target. It was designed to encourage development of more efficient engine technology and was measured as at the final pit-stop. The winner would receive 5000FF.Spurring 2012, p.8 This would be the last Le Mans overseen by Charles Deutsch as race director, retiring from the position he had held since 1969 after a career as a car-builder. Deutsch died only six months later.
Entries Despite now being a part of the World Championship again, the ACO still needed to open its entry list to the IMSA series to guarantee something approaching a reasonable line-up. As it was, this was one of the weakest entry lists for a decade with no manufacturer works cars in the main Group 6 class. Only Porsche, Lancia and BMW entered works teams, and none went head-to-head in the same class. From 87 applications, this year the ACO now accepted 70 to qualify for 50 starting spots. However, they later changed that to just accept 65 cars for scrutineering but kept the regular 55 starting spots.Spurring 2012, p.17 The largest category this year, by a clear margin, was the IMSA class with 22 applications, bolstered with a number of North American cars.
Class Large-engines >2.0L classes Medium-engines < 2.0L classes Turbo engines Group 6 S Sports 8 / 6 11 / 8 1 / 1 Group 5 SP Special Production 8 / 7 3 / 3 11 / 10 Group 4 GTS Special GT 5 / 5 - 5 / 5 GTP Le Mans GT Prototype 7 / 7 - 4 / 4 GTX Le Mans GT Experimental 1 / 1 - 0 IMSA GTX / GTO 21 / 17 - 8 / 7 Total Entries 50 / 43 14 / 11 20 Note: The first number is the number of arrivals, the second the number who started.
Group 6 and GTP Porsche had announced the end of its Group 6 program, and Mirage was not entered. This left the Group 6 class wide open to the gentleman-constructors. Le Mans local Jean Rondeau bought three cars. Using the same chassis as the previous year, they were fitted with longer bodyshells and new wings in sleek black livery. Swiss engine-specialist Heini Mader detuned the Ford-Cosworth DFV engines down to 460 bhp. One had ballast to make it up to the minimum weight required for the GTP class.Spurring 2012, p.20-1 As always, Rondeau would drive one of his cars, this year paired with 1978 winner (with Renault Alpine) Jean-Pierre Jaussaud. The second car had another Le Mans hero, Henri Pescarolo with rally specialist Jean Ragnotti. The GTP car was driven by Belgian endurance racers, brothers Jean-Michel and Philippe Martin who had won the 1979 Spa 24 Hours in a Ford Capri. With no sports-car experience they approached Englishman Gordon Spice as a co-driver (who had done the same things the year earlier). He brought the experienced Keith Greene (latterly of De Cadenet and Dome) as team manager.Spurring 2012, p.22
Alain de Cadenet had been bringing his own Lola-derived cars to Le Mans since 1973 and this year was a genuine contender after victories in the World Championship rounds at Monza and Silverstone. With a Cosworth DFV tuned by New Zealander John Nicholson it could reach 335 kp/h (210 mph). His co-drivers were François Migault and South African Desiré Wilson. Nick Faure entered the older De Cadenet he had recently bought off Peter Lovett.Spurring 2012, p.32 Ian Bracey returned after a one-year hiatus with his IBEC project. Originally based around a Hesketh Formula 1 chassis, it had been considerably reworked by ADA Engineering and using a Cosworth prepared by John Dunn at his Swindon workshop. The drivers would be Tony Trimmer and Tiff Needell.Spurring 2012, p.46Clarke 1997, p.112-3 Autosport Jun19 1980
The Japanese company Dome returned after an underwhelming debut the previous year. The new RL80 still had the distinctive low, wedge-shaped design of Masao Ono but was now 18" shorter and 3" wider. Improved suspension and aerodynamics made it one of the fastest Group 6 cars, getting up to 345 kp/h (215 mph). Regular team drivers Chris Craft and Bob Evans did an 18-hour trouble-free test at the Suzuka racetrack.Spurring 2012, p.39 André Chevalley had adapted the Lola T286 he had brought last year. Fitted with an aerodynamic shell designed by Swiss engineering students, it had another Cosworth engine tuned by Heini Mader that had qualified it on the front row at Silverstone. At Le Mans, it would be driven by Chevalley with Patrick Gaillard and François Trisconi.Spurring 2012, p.43
With Porsche officially pulling out of Group 6, it was Reinhold Joest who would take on the Cosworths. In 1972 he had asked the company to loan an old Porsche 908, and then had finished 3rd at Le Mans. At the end of 1979 he again approached the company to use a Porsche 936 for Le Mans. He was already running a turbo-charged 908/3 in the World Championship. Porsche declined but allowed him to make a replica. Fitted with panels of a 936/77 from Porsche, it had a 2.1-litre twin-turbo as used on the 1977 car, that could generate 550 bhp on race boost. Porsche also would not allow him to call it a '936' so it was entered as the "908/J80".Wimpffen 2007, p.348 With sponsorship from Martini & Rossi Joest was able to entice Jacky Ickx out of his retirement after winning the 1979 Can-Am championship. Their third driver was Michel Leclère.Spurring 2012, p.23Clausager 1982, p.185
Instead Porsche arrived with three cars in the GTP category. The 924 Carrera was not meant for contesting outright victory but as a preamble for Group 4 and customer sales. Until homologation came through, it had to compete in GTP – as a true GT prototype. This was a significant step for Porsche, as these were their first front-engined cars to compete at Le Mans. The 2-litre turbo engine produced 320 bhp but the heavier weight of the car only got it to 280 kp/h (175 mph). This could be compensated for, to an extent, by its excellent handling and good fuel economy (22 laps on a tank of fuel compared to just 12 laps for a 935).Clarke 1997, p.121 Road & Track Oct 1980 Unusual for the time, the cars were equipped with onboard pneumatic air-jacks. For the three markets, they were given German, British and American crews respectively: test driver Günther Steckkönig joined Jürgen Barth and Manfred Schurti in one; Andy Rouse/Tony Dron had the second while American endurance experts Peter Gregg/Al Holbert had the third.Spurring 2012, p.31Clarke 1997, p.108-9 Motor Jun21 1980