The 1981 24 Hours of Le Mans was the 49th Grand Prix of Endurance, and took place on 13 and 14 June 1981. It was also the eighth round of the World Endurance Championship of Drivers, and the fifth round of the World Championship for Makes.
Defending champions Rondeau entered a strong 5-car team. The Porsche works team challenged them with the final development of their 936, now fitted with the 2.65-litre turbo engine from the abandoned Indianapolis project. The prospect was sufficient to entice Jacky Ickx out of retirement again, teamed up with Derek Bell with whom he had already won the race in 1975. From the start, Ickx took the lead which he held until the first pit-stops. Soon after, the race was interrupted by two serious accidents on the Mulsanne Straight killing French driver Jean-Louis Lafosse and a track marshal. These events saw the first deployment at Le Mans of the pace-car system to slow the race, as repairs and medical attention were carried out.
When racing resumed Reinhold Joest's own 936 replica was now leading, but soon pitted with a cracked turbo-fan giving the lead to the 935 of the Kremer team. However, Bell soon overhauled it to re-take the lead that they would not relinquish for the rest of the race, as the car never missed a beat. The gap continued to grow through the night, eventually becoming 14 laps by the end – the largest winning margin in over a decade. The race had a surprising number of car problems in the first few hours for the leading teams, which strung out the field. The second Porsche had sparkplug issues as early as the first lap, but the pair ran 1-2 through the night, until its clutch failed at 7am. It fell to the two GTP-class Rondeau to mount the pursuit, finishing second and third. Fourth was the Charles Ivey team 935, winning the Group 5 class after the more fancied teams fell away, while the Charles Pozzi Ferrari 512 BB, finishing fifth, won the IMSA-GTX class and gave that marque its best result for eight years.
The win for Porsche made Ickx the first driver to achieve five outright victories and was a suitable finale to mark the last season of Group 6 racing.
Regulations The much-anticipated change of regulations to the new Group C was coming up in 1982 and meant there was little innovation. The significant change was in the qualifying system, which had proven so problematic for the previous year's race. The Automobile Club de l'Ouest (ACO) therefore reverted to its two days of qualifying, with four hours each on the Wednesday and Thursday. Engine changes were allowed again between qualifying and the race.
The class-by-class quota was also discarded so it would be the 55 fastest cars that would be on the grid and, finally, it would be each car's single fastest lap that would decide its grid position.Spurring 2012, p.56Clausager 1982, p.186 Every car had to qualify within 110% of the average of the times of the three fastest cars in their class. Each car, and every driver, also had to qualify within 130% of the average of the three fastest cars overall.
The circuit had been widened at the approach to the Esses, adding a grass runoff after the Dunlop Curve. With an eye on improving safety measures further, this year saw the introduction of Mercedes "safety cars". Following the process used in American racing, they would be introduced to gather the field to slow it down in the event of a serious event on the circuit. Owing to the length of the circuit, three would be used to keep the field spread more evenly.Clausager 1982, p.22Clarke 1997, p.126-7 Motor Jun20 1981Clarke 1997, p.132 Autosport Jun18 1981 The Le Mans Chamber of Commerce put up a fuel-efficiency award, co-sponsored by the Esso company.
With the retirement of Charles Deutsch as the Le Mans race director, the ACO appointed Marcel Martin to take his place.Spurring 2012, p.56 This year the race was rescheduled to 3pm, an hour earlier, to allow time on the Sunday afternoon for the French national elections.
Entries With declining fields, the FIA opened up the World Championship for Makes to allow Group 6 cars with engines greater than 3-litres, as well as Sports Prototypes of the pre-1976 Group 5 period. To get sufficient numbers for Le Mans, the ACO also broadened it criteria – accepting entries from 10 classes: Group 6 (and Gp 5/75) over and under 2-litre; Group 5 over and under 2-litre; Group 4; Le Mans GTP and from North America, the IMSA GTX (over/under 2-litre), GTO and GTU. They even accepted entries for the upcoming Group C.
Works entries came from Porsche, Lancia and Mazda (all competing in different classes), while specialist manufacturer Lola returned to the 2-litre class. The renewed interest with big-engine prototypes made the Group 6 class the best-supported with sixteen entries.
Class Large-engines >2.0L classes Medium-engines < 2.0L classes Turbo engines Group 6 S Sports 16 / 13 5 / 4 4 / 3 GTP GT Prototype 7 / 5 - 4 / 3 Group C 2 / 2 - 2 / 2 Group 5 SP Special Production 11 / 8 5 / 5 13 / 10 IMSA GTX 11 / 10 - 5 / 4 Group 4 GTS Special GT 6 / 4 - 4 / 2 IMSA GTO 4 / 4 - 1 / 1 IMSA GTU 1 / 0 - 0 Total Entries 61 / 46 10 / 9 33 / 25 Note: The first number is the number of arrivals, the second the number who started.
Group 6, GTP and Group C
This year the Porsche works team returned with its last development of the 936. It was fitted with the 2.65-litre turbo engine from the abandoned Indianapolis project. Built in conjunction with Ted Field's Interscope team, it had been banned in America, but the removal of the 3-litre upper-limit in the WCM made it eligible to be used at Le Mans. Converted to run on petrol instead of methanol and wound down in boost, it still generated 620 bhp at a canter and blasted the car down the Mulsanne straight at 355 kp/h (220 mph). The team also replaced the troublesome 5-speed gearbox with the old, race-proven 4-speed version from their 917/30 CanAm of the early '70s, that had been built to handle up to 1000 bhp.Spurring 2012, p.58-9Clarke 1997, p.136 Autocar Jun20 1981 One chassis was pulled out of the Porsche museum and revamped.Armstrong 1981, p.207 The preparation and prospects were sufficient to entice Jacky Ickx out of retirement once again, lured by the opportunity to become the first driver to achieve five Le Mans victories. He asked to have Derek Bell as his co-driver, with whom he had already shared one of his races win, in 1975 with Mirage. The second car would be driven by works driver Jochen Mass and Hurley Haywood. American Rick Mears was to have been the third driver, but the burns he received from the Indianapolis 500 had not healed sufficiently. His seat was taken by Australian Vern Schuppan who had finished third in the same race.Clarke 1997, p.128-9 Autosport Jun18 1981
In 1980, Le Mans local Jean Rondeau had become the first driver-constructor winner of the race. Sponsorship was not a problem this year and he was able to return in force with five cars (three in Group 6 and two in Le Mans GTP). All were the new M379C version, which had revised aerodynamics and an updated braking system. Two of the Group 6 cars were running the new 3.3-litre 530 bhp Cosworth DFL engine, a special endurance version of the Cosworth DFV. Those cars were run by Rondeau with Jean-Pierre Jaussaud (his winning co-driver) again, and Henri Pescarolo this time with French F1 driver Patrick Tambay. The third Group 6 car had Jean Ragnotti, who had won the year's Monte Carlo Rally, with Jean-Louis Lafosse.Spurring 2012, p.60Clarke 1997, p.130-1 Autosport Jun18 1981Clarke 1997, p.137 Autocar Jun20 1981 The two GTP entries were 60 kg heavier, with shorter windscreens and heavier wings. Their drivers were Le Mans local François Migault (in the race-winning chassis from the previous year), and Gordon Spice (despite him suffering a serious road-accident less than a month earlier) in one,Clarke 1997, p.124-5 Motor Jun20 1981 and Jean-Louis Schlesser/Philippe Streiff/Jacky Haran in the other. Once again, Keith Greene (formerly of De Cadenet and Dome) was the team manager, while the engines were again tuned by Swiss engine-specialist Heini Mader.
Reinhold Joest entered his 540 bhp Porsche 936 replica again, that had finished second the year before. With his regular co-driver in the championship, Jochen Mass, driving for the Porsche works team, it was only in race-week itself that Joest announced his co-drivers: young German DRM driver Klaus Niedzwiedz and American Dale Whittington, youngest of the three brothers.Spurring 2012, p.67 One of the more unusual entries this year was from the Kremer brothers. With big engines again eligible in Group 6, they looked back to a decade earlier when the Porsche 917 was the fastest car on the track. They reasoned that with the current advances in engineering they could make it even better. They loaned an ex-Pedro Rodriguez model from the Midlands Motor Museum in England and fashioned a copy. Along with the 4.5-litre flat-12 engine, it was fitted with extra strengthening, revised suspension for modern tyres and adjusted aerodynamics. The team got a very experienced crew to drive it: Bob Wollek, Xavier Lapeyre and Guy Chasseuil.Spurring 2012, p.63
In 1980, Porsche had entered three of its new 924 model, as true GT Prototypes. This year the company repeated the experiment with its next development of the model, the Porsche 944, potentially for the new Group B regulations coming in 1982. A new 2.5-litre, 16-valve twin-cam engine was fitted with a single turbo and could put out up to 410 bhp. But several engine failures during testing meant it was detuned down to 370 bhp for the race. Despite that, with the latest aerodynamic kit, the car could reach 305 kp/h (190 mph). Works driver Jürgen Barth was partnered with current World Rally Champion Walter Röhrl. Having achieved homologation, the works team also entered a 924 Carrera GTR in the IMSA GTO class, to be driven by Andy Rouse and Manfred Schurti.Spurring 2012, p.65
Alain de Cadenet had plans this year to bring the new Ford C100 to Le Mans but it was still well short of being ready. So instead he entered his own Lola-derived model from the previous year, but fitted with the new 3.3-litre Cosworth DFL designed for the new Ford. This year his co-drivers were the Belgian Martin brothers, and De Cadenet gave up his usual British racing green for their red and white Belga tobacco sponsorship. After the debacle in qualifying, Nick Faure sold his De Cadenet LM76 to Tony Birchenough's Dorset Racing Associates. Nick was invited to join Irishmen Martin Birrane and Vivian Candy with the driving duties.Spurring 2012, p.73Armstrong 1981, p.211 Also disgruntled after the previous year's qualifying, Ian Bracey returned with his IBEC project. More refinement to the chassis and body had lightened it by 23 kg meaning it could reach 320 kp/h (200 mph). Once again, the drivers would be Tony Trimmer and Tiff Needell.Spurring 2012, p.82
This year, the WM team got greater support from Peugeot. The three P79/80 cars were prepared for the GTP class while a new P81 was designed around the upcoming Group C regulations. A late decision by the team then converted one of the GTP cars to P81 specification. All were fitted with Peugeot's 2.7-litre V6 engine with the twin KKK (Kühnle, Kopp & Kausch) turbos. Peugeot had uprated them with four valves per cylinder and they now put out over 500 bhp to give excellent top-end speed, reaching almost 360 kp/h (225 mph) on the Mulsanne. After its success the previous year, a camera was once again mounted in the Dorchy/Fréquelin WM.Spurring 2012, p.66-7