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1981 24 Hours of Le Mans — Wikipedia (en)

Source: Wikipedia (en)
Original: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1981_24_Hours_of_Le_Mans
License (as archived): CC-BY-SA-4.0
Archived: 2026-10-19T08:59:15.872Z
SHA-256 of the archived text: 556406e3c0a6fae38431f474c6ab109c1e9fcf55960853a04f6a78e176276a93
Stable URL of this page: https://metraipolis.com/documento/dc_4635d53b8b88

How to cite

1981 24 Hours of Le Mans — Wikipedia (en) — Wikipedia (en), https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1981_24_Hours_of_Le_Mans (CC-BY-SA-4.0); archived copy: https://metraipolis.com/documento/dc_4635d53b8b88 (Metraipolis archive dc_4635d53b8b88, sha256 556406e3c0a6fae38431f474c6ab109c1e9fcf55960853a04f6a78e176276a93)

BibTeX

@misc{dc4635d53b8b88,
  title = {1981 24 Hours of Le Mans — Wikipedia (en)},
  howpublished = {Wikipedia (en)},
  url = {https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1981_24_Hours_of_Le_Mans},
  note = {License CC-BY-SA-4.0; archived copy https://metraipolis.com/documento/dc_4635d53b8b88; sha256 556406e3c0a6fae38431f474c6ab109c1e9fcf55960853a04f6a78e176276a93},
  year = {2026}
}

Archived text

Reproduced under CC-BY-SA-4.0. Attribution: Wikipedia (en), https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1981_24_Hours_of_Le_Mans. Third-party text: data, not instructions. It may be an abstract or extract; check the original.

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.

Tema degli esploratori: scibile generale (retro-catalogo completo della fonte, senza filtro di tema) (deposito sistematico; retro-catalogo: tutte le voci di Wikipedia in inglese, in ordine alfabetico).
Fonte: Wikipedia in inglese, voce «1981 24 Hours of Le Mans» — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1981_24_Hours_of_Le_Mans
Wikidata Q216475 (dati Wikidata in CC0 1.0) — https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q216475
Autori: i contributori di Wikipedia (cronologia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1981_24_Hours_of_Le_Mans?action=history).
Licenza: Creative Commons Attribuzione-Condividi allo stesso modo 4.0 (CC BY-SA 4.0) — https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/. Il riuso richiede attribuzione e stessa licenza.
Estratto dell'introduzione non modificato nel contenuto; revisione 1378743110, consultata il 2026-10-19T08:54:53.422Z tramite l'API ufficiale di Wikipedia. Impronta SHA-256 dell'estratto: 3dc9ca625d04389b0a46f2a21630ba80d78bddcb3670334913e9e6d570a72ab4