The 1972 24 Hours of Le Mans was a motor race staged at the Circuit de la Sarthe, Le Mans, France on 10 and 11 June 1972. It was the 40th running of the 24 Hours of Le Mans and the ninth race of the 1972 World Championship for Makes.
1972 marked the start of a new era with revised FIA regulations dictating the demise of the 5 Litre Group 5 Sports Car and the 3 Litre Group 6 Sports Prototype categories and their replacement by a new 3 Litre Group 5 Sports Car class. There was also a significant change to the track with the construction of the new technical section subsequently named the Porsche Curves bypassing the dangerous Maison Blanche corner, which had been the site of many serious accidents in the past.
Having already won the World Championship for Makes, Ferrari chose not to contest the race. Matra-Simca were strong favourites for the outright win after not running the other races to focus on its Le Mans preparation. Once the challenge from Alfa Romeo and Lola had dissipated overnight, Matra were able to ease off to secure a popular 1–2 victory for the home country – France's first since 1950. Henri Pescarolo and Graham Hill were the winners, with a comfortable 11-lap margin over teammates François Cevert and Howden Ganley.
However the race was marred by the death of veteran Formula One racer Jo Bonnier who died when his Lola prototype collided with a Ferrari GT and flew over the barriers into the trees on the Sunday morning.
Regulations Once again, the CSI (Commission Sportive Internationale - the FIA’s regulations body) overhauled its FIA Appendix J, redefining its motorsport categories. The former Group 6 Prototypes and Group 5 Sports categories were combined into a new, third-generation, Group 5 Sports Car class Appendix "J" to the International Sporting Code 1972, argent.fia.com Retrieved 30 November 2022 with a 3-litre engine limit (or 2142cc if turbo-powered, using the x1.4 equivalency)Spurring 2011, p.84 with a minimum weight of .Automobile Year 1972, p.144 There was also no minimum production required. Not for the last time, the FIA’s idea was to encourage manufacturers to build, develop and use engines based around the current Formula One 3.0-litre standard.
Recognising the growing interest in touring car racing, the Automobile Club de l'Ouest (ACO) opened the entry list to Group 2 Special Touring Cars, alongside the Group 4 Special GTs and the new Group 5. Entries for the Group 2 and 4 categories had a 2-litre minimum but no upper limit on engine size.Clausager 1982, p.164-5Moity 1974, p.134 They also revamped the minimum distance and speed requirements. No longer a set lap-time to qualify, all cars had to be within 140% of an average of the three best practice laps put up. Also the sliding scale of target distances was discarded. Now cars had to achieve at least 70% of its class winner to be classified.Clausager 1982, p.21 Therefore the Index of Performance, now redundant, was discontinued.Clausager 1982, p.22 Also, the Index of Thermal Efficiency now only applied to Group 2 and 4.
But the biggest change was to the track layout, with a new series of technical curves being built between Arnage and the Ford chicane bypassing the dangerously fast Maison Blanche section. Financed by Porsche, it therefore became known as the “Porsche curves”. The Ford chicane was also redesigned with a second chicane added just up the track to allow a dedicated pit-lane entrance lane to be built. This allowed cars to decelerate off the racing line and off the main track, greatly increasing safety. Although the modifications only added to the overall track length, there was a noticeable change in lap times slowing the prototypes' average speeds by 30 km/h (18 mph). The circuit still had cars using full throttle for over 65% of the lap however.
Prize money this year included FF80000 (£6400) for outright victory, and half that to the respective winners of the GT category and Index of Thermal Efficiency.Clarke 1997, p.137: Motor Jun24 1972
Entries With the new regulations there were 91 applications, and this led to a solid 66 arriving for practice and for the first time for a few years a full grid of 55 cars took the start.
Category Sports CarsGroup 5 Special GTGroups 4 Special TouringGroup 2 TotalEntries Large-engines >2.5L classes13 (+8 reserves)13 (+6 reserves)3 (+2 reserves)29 (+16 reserves) Medium-engines < 2.5L classes4 (+2 reserves)9 (+3 reserves)013 (+5 reserves) Total Cars17 (+11 reserves)22 (+9 reserves)3 (+2 reserves)42 (+22 reserves)
In a major surprise, after winning every round in the Championship to date, and dominating the timing in the Test Weekend in March, Ferrari withdrew its works team less than a fortnight before the race.Spurring 2011, p.86-7 Having just secured the World Championship title, it claimed the engines on the Group 5 312 PB were only good for the 1000 km races, and not 24 hours. This did not sound convincing however, since they had achieved a 1–2 victory at the 12 Hours of Sebring, but during a 24-hour simulation run the flat-12 engine in the Ferrari blew up during the 14th hour. Alfa Romeo had voiced the same concern about their engines’ durability but still showed up to Le Mans.Spurring 2011, p.83Clarke 1997, p.128: Autosport Jun8 1972 John Wyer also chose not to bring his team's Gulf-Mirages because their Weslake V12 engines were not ready and under-prepared.
Although everyone had been outclassed by the Porsche 917s in 1971, Alfa Romeo had proven the most competitive, even getting three wins that season. For 1972 they had developed the latest iteration of the Tipo 33, the open-top T33/3. Designer Carlo Chiti used a tubular chassis rather than a full monocoque making them narrower and 50 kg lighter. The 3-litre V8 developed 445 bhp. The team picked up a number of ex-Porsche drivers for the three cars entered: Vic Elford/Helmut Marko, Rolf Stommelen/”Nanni” Galli and Nino Vaccarella/Andrea de Adamich.Spurring 2011, p.94
Matra, like Jaguar in the 1950s, chose to concentrate its efforts for the prestige of a Le Mans victory. The latest version of the 660, the MS660C had been over a second slower than Ickx's Ferrari at the test weekend. But a new model, the MS670 was entered for the race. The 3-litre V12 was detuned for the race down to 450 bhp, pushing it to 310 kp/h (195 mph) on the Mulsanne Straight. With the French media stirring up a patriotic fervour, team director Gérard Ducarouge took no chances and bought 4 cars and 60 crew. Aerodynamic long-tail versions were prepared for Jean-Pierre Beltoise/Chris Amon and François Cevert/Howden Ganley while Henri Pescarolo/Graham Hill (back at Le Mans for the first time since 1966) had a short-tail version. The fourth car was the reliable 660C, given to Jean-Pierre Jabouille/ David Hobbs.Clarke 1997, p.129-131: Road & Track Oct 1972
Porsche was now focussing its efforts on its 917 Can-Am project. However, Reinhold Joest got considerable unofficial factory assistance with his 908 LH entry, and sponsored by ATE. The three-year old car had been owned by Jo Siffert who had been killed less than a year ago, and was loaned from the Schlumpf Collection. It was refitted by Porsche with a new 3-litre engine capable of 360 bhp.Spurring 2011, p.91 Other customer teams brought Porsche Group 5 cars: the Spanish Escuderia Montjuich had a 908/03, André Wicky’s Swiss team had one of several 908/02s as well as an older 907.Spurring 2011, p.93
Jo Bonnier, Lola’s European agent, convinced Eric Broadley to develop a 3-litre version of its successful T210. Designed by Patrick Head and John Barnard, the new T280 used the Cosworth DFV engine. It was very fast and had easily won the four-hour race at the Test Weekend. With works-support, Bonnier entered two cars: one for himself and 1971 winner Gijs van Lennep (released from Mirage for the race)Clarke 1997, p.132-3: Motor Jun17 1972 and the other for Gérard Larrousse/Hughes de Fierlandt.Spurring 2011, p.88-9 Sponsored by Swiss cheese, they were this year’s art-cars painted up with gruyere cheese-holes.Laban 2001, p.172 There were also a pair of privateer entries.
After a positive first run at Le Mans the previous year, Brit Alain de Cadenet decided to build his own car to race. He employed Brabham designer Gordon Murray to build a car around the Cosworth DFV (developing 390 bhp) and Brabham BT33 suspension.Automobile Year 1972, p.171 The lightest of the 3-litre prototypes, De Cadenet got sponsorship from Duckhams Oil and the car was just ready in time for the race.Spurring 2011, p.96 Guy Ligier, keen to progress his JS-2 GT racecar, approached Citroën about getting a Maserati engine – whom they had bought out three years previously. They obliged and three 3-litre V6 JS-2s were present. Because insufficient numbers had been produced it had to run in the Group 5 category.
Ferrari had not released its Group 5 car to its customer teams yet, but had been able to homologate the 365 GTB/4 “Daytona” as a GT car, and nine of those cars were entered by the Ferrari agents of six different countries. These comprised Luigi Chinetti’s North American Racing Team (NART), Jacques Swaters’ Ecurie Francorchamps, Georges Filipinetti's Swiss team, Colonel Ronnie Hoare's Maranello Concessionaires from London and Charles Pozzi’s Paris-based team.Spurring 2011, p.90
Chevrolet had five entries this year to take on the Ferrari challenge. The French teams of Henri Greder (once again with Marie-Claude Beaumont as his co-driver) and the Ecurie Léopard returned. American John Greenwood also brought a pair of specially lightened Corvettes that proved to be very fast, reaching 330 kp/h (210 mph) on the Mulsanne Straight.Spurring 2011, p.98 They ran on standard BF Goodrich radial road-tyres. Their competitor, Goodyear tyres, had run successfully with the Florida-based English Racing Team winning the GT division at Daytona and Sebring. They asked NART if they could use an entry to get to Le Mans, who agreed as long as the car displayed the Ferrari motif on the side of the car.Spurring 2011, p.99
A new manufacturer for Le Mans was the Italian De Tomaso company. The newly homologated Pantera had a Ford 5.3-litre V8, pushing out 330 bhp was less powerful than the Ferrari and Chevrolet competition. Four cars were entered and the Spanish Escuderia Montjuich ones had strong works support.Spurring 2011, p.105
In the smaller GT-category, there were seven Porsche 911s from privateer teams.Spurring 2011, p.102 This year NART ran a Dino 246 on behalf of Ferrari to contest the 2.5-litre class. Once again, NART offered its junior car to winners of the Trofeo Chinetti - a competition for young drivers.
The European Touring Car Championship (ETCC) was proving popular with manufacturers and spectators. When the ACO opened the entry list to Group 2 cars, the Ford-Germany works team calculated that their pace in winning the Spa 24 Hours could get them into the top-10 overall at Le Mans. Three cars were prepared: the Capri RS2600 was refitted with a 2.9-litre V6 that could put out almost 300 bhp. Its drivers were all Le Mans debutants: current ETCC champion Dieter Glemser with Alex Soler-Roig, Jochen Mass/Hans-Joachim Stuck and Birrell/Bourgoignie.Spurring 2011, p.101 Their opposition in the ETCC was the Schnitzer Motorsport team running a BMW 2800 CS. Although BMW had recently head-hunted Jochen Neerpasch from Ford-Germany to set up BMW Motorsport, this was essentially a privateer effort for the company's first post-war entry. Despite the BMW's 3-litre engine putting out 340 bhp, the car was 250 kg heavier. The other entry was a British entry of an ex-rally Datsun 240Z.
Practice