World Domination
So successful has the Stuttgart marque been at Le Mans over the last 40 years, it is easy to forget that there was a time when La Sarthe was something of a 'bogey' track for Porsche. Through the 1960s, a power struggle between Ford and Ferrari ebbed and flowed, the prancing horse dominating the first half of the decade, the blue oval stamping its authority on the latter half, with Porsche often playing the bridesmaid, as it did in 1969 when the 908 of Hans Herrmann and Gerard Larrousse finished second, only metres behind the winning JWA Ford. The veteran Herrmann returned in 1970, however, sharing one of no fewer than 7 flat-12 917s, with Richard Attwood. Run by the quasi-works Porsche Salzburg team, the distinctive red and white Porsche ran with clockwork regularity to take the first of Porsche's 16 wins at Le Mans. It is chased - through the section which would later become the Porsche Curves - by the 3-litre 908 of Rudi Lins and Dr Helmut Marko (now overseeing Red Bull's driver development programme) which would finish 3rd of only 7 finishers.
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