The Story of 1966 Le Mans

1966 Le Mans is one of those Legendary races that gets discussed even decades after it happened. Most controversial part of the race was the finish. We will never truly know the full story of what happened behind the scenes during those final laps.

The story began when Ford tried to buy Ferrari. Ford's idea was that they would control the road-going department, but Ferrari still would control it's Motorsport arm. Ford invested a whole bunch of money to make this deal work, but Enzo Ferrari backed out the last minute, which resulted in a massive waste of money and time for Ford. Henry Ford II decided that he will have his revenge and no other place could provide Ford the pleasure as racetrack.

In 1964, Ford entered endurance racing with their now-legendary car, GT40. First two attempts at 24 Hours of Le Mans did not turn out the way Ford would have wanted. In 1964, not a single GT40 Mk.I managed to finish the race. Ferrari filled the whole podium with 1-2-3 finish. 1965 was also a big disappointment. Yet again, Ford failed to finish and Ferrari won. In 1966 however, things proved to be quite different. Carroll Shelby himself helped with the development of the new GT40 Mk.II. Ford tried to enter with as many cars possible, their desired number was 16, but only 8 were accepted. Ferrari responded with new 330s - a serious competition.

Nowadays, we are used to see sunny landscapes around the Circuit de la Sarthe, but 1966 wasn't the case. Whole weekend were surrounded by clouds, practice being damp, qualifying dry and the race rainy again. The race was a mix of rain showers and drying out track. Ferraris had an advantage over Fords in a rainy weather, as GT40s extremely powerful 7-litre engines became quite difficult to handle in wet. The race went as usual, many retirements and failures. Eventually, Ferraris suffered an unfortunate turn of events, as the cars started overheating. All Ferraris retired and that left Ford a big chance to finally pull of a Le Mans win.

In the morning, though, bad luck has struck Ford too. Leading GT40 Mk.II of Dan Gurney and Jerry Grant has suffered a blown headgasket and had to retire. That left only 3 GT40s running in the race, driven by Ken Miles/Denny Hulme, Chris Amon/Bruce McLaren and Ronnie Bucknum/Dick Hutcherson.

And this is when we need to start talking about behind the scenes. Ford was on the edge of retiring all their cars from the race in protest of organisers' decision of not letting Dick Thompson to drive after he hit his colleague in GT40 Richard Holquist. Thankfully, the whole argument was cooled down and race went on.

Other than that. Ford had to worry about their brakes, as GT40s were reaching speeds as high as 350km/h on the Mulsanne straight (back then it was a 6km long straight, with no chicanes to slow cars down) the forces needed to slow down a car at the end of it were so immense and so brakes suffered heavily.

But that didn't stop Ford to get until the end of the race. On the last lap, it was Ken Miles'/Denny Hulme's No. 1 GT40 in the lead, Kiwi No.2 of Chris Amon/Bruce McLaren in the second and No.5 GT40 of Ronnie Bucknum/Richard Hutcherson. And here's where the fun begins. At the time, team orders was a thing that no one has ever heard of. Before Miles and Amon got into their last stints, Ford told them to finish side by side. However, the organisers told Ford that the winner will be declared the car with the most distance covered, which was the No.2 GT40 Mk.II, as it started 15 metres behind.

Ford a second it looked like it will be a tie finish, as Miles slowed down to let McLaren catch up and pose for this Legendary Ford triumph. But at the last second, it seemed like Miles let off the pedal and let McLaren past. This event gets discussed over and over again, but you can't change the facts. It was Chris Amon/Bruce McLaren crowned Le Mans winner and Ford filled the whole podium, with an amazing 1-2-3 finish for the first time.

Ford broke a lot of records, such as the fastest race lap of Le Mans, at an average of 201.8km/h, the lap record posted by Dan Gurney in qualifying with an average speed of 229.9km/h and a greatest race distance, of 4 843.1 kilometres.

It wasn't luck that allowed Ford to win, as they won the event three more times in upcoming years.

At their 50th anniversary of the Legendary 1966 Le Mans win, Ford returned to Endurance Racing in GT category, to compete against their old-time rivals, Ferrari and Chevrolet.

Here is some shots of the legendary race:

Hoping that you have enjoyed the article and found out a thing or two about this historical race. If there is some incorrections, please leave a comment below and we'll get it fixed.

Follow us on Instagram - @elitracinglegends and subscribe to Elite Racing Legends for more stories like this!