1996 24 Hours of Le Mans
| 1996 24 Hours of Le Mans | |
| Previous: 1995 | Next: 1997 |
| Index: Races | Winners | |
The 1996 24 Hours of Le Mans was the 64th Grand Prix of Endurance, and took place on 15 and 16 June 1996. It was won by a Tom Walkinshaw-Porsche prototype run by Joest Racing with drivers Davy Jones, Manuel Reuter and Le Mans rookie Alexander Wurz completing 354 laps. While not being the fastest car on track, it hit the front in the first hour and aside from several pit-stop overlaps, was never headed as other teams hit mechanical troubles during the race. This was Reuter's second Le Mans victory, and the first for Jones (after finishing as runner-up in 1991 with Jaguar) and Wurz, who, at 22 years old, became the youngest ever Le Mans overall winner.
Still very satisfied with its equivalency formulae between the prototypes and GTs, the Automobile Club de l'Ouest (ACO) made only slight adjustments to its regulations, by including engine volume and turbo boost into its calculations. LMP1 and P2 got closer to the IMSA-WSC category with new, updated, bodywork dimensions.
The summary, as compared to the 1995 regulations was:
In GT1, major engine modifications were now allowed while GT2 still had to use series-production engines.
This year the ACO halved the number of automatic entries from 20 to 10. They received an initial 107 applications and accepted 66 for pre-Qualifying in April on top of the automatic-10, to pare down to 53 for race week (48 starters + 5 reserves). Still with no co-ordinated European sports car series there were only 14 prototypes, albeit of a high quality. Kremer and Courage returned, this time challenged by a new Porsche prototype developed by Joest Racing in conjunction with TWR Motorsport. The TWR-Porsche WSC-95 was born from the shell of a TWR-designed Jaguar XJR-14 racing car, modified to an open top design by Tom Walkinshaw Racing, and fitted with the Porsche 962 engine.
Three IMSA-WSC cars turned up: two Ferrari 333 SP's run by Scandia Racing versus the much-improved Riley & Scott (winner of the Daytona and Sebring enduros). In another small LM P2 field of four cars, Welter and Bonnet were joined by a Kudzu-Mazda stepping across from WSC and now run directly by the Mazdaspeed works team.
...
Wikipedia