The 1988 Race
The 1988 Le Mans 24 Hours was an absolute classic. Porsche's dominance of the race was now under threat as had been demonstrated by Jaguar's strong showing at the circuit in 1987 and the fact that Jaguar were now the reigning World Champions. To add to the mix the Swiss Sauber Team, now officially backed by Mercedes, entered the 1988 race in confident mood after winning the first round of the Group C championship in Jerez and then pushing the Jaguars all the way for the rest of the season.
Unfortunately, the hotly anticipated three way battle was not to be. In qualifying a rear tyre overheated and blew out on one of the Saubers as it flew down the Mulsanne Straight at 224mph. Luckily the car was kept under control but as a similar tyre failure had occurred in earlier testing sessions both the Sauber-Mercedes cars were withdrawn from the race. It was now down to a straight fight between Jaguar and Porsche.
In a race of attrition Jaguar played the numbers game by entering five cars but the usual Porsche flood of 962Cs numbered 11 with three works cars taking the top three starting positions with the Porsche of Hans Stuck/Derek Bell/Klaus Ludwig on pole. The best placed Jaguar was the Jan Lammers/Johnny Dumfries/Andy Wallace car which was fourth.
On Saturday 11th June at precisely 3pm the 48 strong field rumbled over the start line for the 56th Vingt-Quatre Heures du Mans, by the end of the first lap the story of that years race had revealed itself with Hans Stuck in the works Porsche No.17 just ahead of Jan Lammers in the No.2 TWR Jaguar who had stormed ahead of the other two works Stuttgart machines. The next 24 hours would just be about these two cars with Stuck holding the upper hand until the sixth lap when Lammers slipped ahead to roars from the 50,000 British fans around the circuit.
After the first series of pitstops, in which all three Porsches managed to confusingly come in at the same time, the No.2 Jaguar was still in the lead, now with Dumfries at the wheel, the three Porsches still closely in pursuit. The rest of the Jaguars were filling the remaining top ten places with a privateer Porsche keeping them company.
The status quo remained through the next set of stops until Ludwig, in the second placed No.17 Porsche, nearly ran out of fuel by staying out one lap too many. The resulting coast back to the pits gave the leading Jaguar a commanding position but the No.18 Porsche of Bob Wolleck/Vern Schuppan/Sarel van der Merwe gradually wound it in until Wolleck pitted at 7pm now in the lead. Schuppan took over the car and held the lead whilst scrapping with Lammers until the TWR Jaguar had to head for a quick pitstop to fix it's tail after a minor collision with another car. A minute later the No.2 Jaguar charged out of the pits and eventually overtook the Wolleck Porsche just before midnight, with that car eventually going out of the race with a dead engine at 2:45 in the morning. With the third works Porsche of the Andretti family developing problems it was left to the Stuck car to challenge Lammer's Jaguar.
The No.17 car had been steadily clawing it's way back after it's earlier fuel problems and by halfway had unlapped itself and by 6:35am, when Lammers pulled in with a split windscreen, sensationally took the lead. Less than half an hour later however, it had to come in to replace the intercoler water pump which took 6mins and handed the lead back to the No.2 Jaguar. This should have been the end of the race but a mid morning rain shower let Stuck display his mastery of the conditions and he closed to within 100 seconds of the Lammers car, but, as the track dried out, the gap stabilized and at 3pm on the 12th June the Lammers/Dumfries/Wallace No.2 TWR Jaguar XJR9-LM glided across the finish line with the Porsche still only 2mins 36secs behind after 24 grueling hours of racing.
It was Jaguar's first victory at Le Mans for 31 years.
