Hmmm I'm not very good about car's story and my English is crappy
All that I know it is that after the victory of John Wyer's Mirage driven by Ickx/Bell in 1975, the management of Porsche says " if you can't beat an enemy, make him an ally " and Jacky Ickx was engaged by Porsche for the season 1976. Jacky won 7 races at the wheel of the 935 and 936 including Le Mans which was his 3rd victory and Porsche won the World Championship that year. The picture of the Porsche 936 that Dr Austin showed in the previous thread is the one who won le Mans in 1977.
At the start of the race Ickx was not part of the drivers that should drive the number 4. He was driving the 936/77 number 3 with Pescarolo.
Unfortunatly the number 3 broke its engine quit early.
The number 4 was also having lot of trouble and when it restarted it was at the 49th position, several laps behind the leader. So chances of a victory faced to Renault armada were zero.
Then Porsche's team manager asked Ickx to join Barth and Haywood at the wheel of the #4. It was raining all night long and Ickx drove the maximum time allowed by rules.
Jacky used to say about this race: "I have push it to the limit, I was driving in a state of divine grace ( which means he was driving like nothing could stop him, protected by the Lord), this nightwas really magic for me. The team which was psychologically annulled also began again to believe in it, according to our ascent in the classification. Finally, everybody gave the best of himself.
When I was telling my engineer, during a pitstop, that I was going to stay at the wheel, he was saying "I can't believe it...".
At the sunrise I was exhausted. We were come back at the second place keeping a big pressure on the Renault of Jabouille/Bell which didn't last longer before giving up. Even us, we finished the race with a dead engine running on 5 cylinders. Like the car I couldn't give anything more but it was a fantastic moment."
Now try to understand my Chinese LoL
Julien