1986 Le Mans 24 Hours : 9 Porsches in the top 10

1,2,3,4,5,6,7,9,10 victory for Porsche at the 1986 Le Mans 24 Hours

Porsche has been dominating the Le Mans 24H in the early and mid-eigthies as never seen before. Back in 1983, it already scored an almost perfect result with 9 out of 10 Porsches finishing in the top 10. That was unseen before and led back then to the iconic and collectible poster “Porsche : nobody’s perfect”. Even though Porsche celebrated convincing victories after 1983 too, the next close-to-perfect result in the Le Mans 24 Hours was in 1986.

The race was rather early at the year, with the start on Saturday May 31st. The trio Bob Wollek / Jochen Mass / Vern Schuppan started in pole-position in the factory Porsche 962C ,followed by the other Porsche factory Porsche 962C with Hans-Joachim Stuck / Derek Bell / Al Holbert at the wheel. 3rd on the start grid was a Porsche 956 of the Joest Racing Team, driven by Klaus Ludwig / Paolo Barilla / John Winter.

Derek Bell, Hans-Joahim Stuck and Al Holbert win the 1986 Le Mans 24 Hours in a Porsche 962C

In the end, the result was overwhelming for Porsche with no less than 9 cars in the first 10.

Results of the 1986 Le Mans 24 Hours

Pos.	No.	Drivers	Car	Entrant	Laps	Distance	Km/h	Pos.	Gr.
1^st	1	Stuck / Bell / Holbert	Porsche 962 C	Rothmans Porsche	368	4972.731 kms	207.197	1^st	C1
2^nd	17	Larrauri / Pareja / Gouhier	Porsche 962 C	Brun Motorsport	360	4856.731 kms	202.363	2^nd	C1
3^rd	8	Follmer / Morton / Miller	Porsche 956	Joest Racing	355	4796.734 kms	199.863	3^rd	C1
4^th	33	de Villota / Velez / Fouché	Porsche 956B	Danone Porsche Espana	349	4720.555 kms	196.689	4^th	C1
5^th	9	Lässig / Ballabio / Wood	Porsche 956	Obermaier Racing	345	4658.297 kms	194.095	5^th	C1
6^th	63	Brunn / Schuster / Seher	Porsche 936C	Ernst Schuster	344	4641.672 kms	193.403	6^th	C1
7^th	180	Ballot-Léna / Metge	Porsche 961	Porsche AG	321	4335.983 kms	180.665	1^st	GTX
8^th	75	Clements / Dodd-Noble / Harrower	Gebhardt JC843 Ford	ADA Engineering	318	4295.236 kms	179.968	1^st	C2
9^th	14	Baldi / Cobb / Dyson	Porsche 956 GTi	Liqui Moly	318	4286.802 kms	178.741	7^th	C1
10^th	55	Alliot / Romero / Trollé	Porsche 962 C	John Fitzpatrick Racing	312	4220.321 kms	175.846	8^th	C1
11^th	90	Mercer / Winther / Jensen	URD C83 BMW	Jens Winther	310	4186.799 kms	174.449	2^nd	C2
12^th	100	Haldi / Pessiot / Dorchy	WM P83B Peugeot	WM Secateva	301	4070.801 kms	169.616	3^rd	C2
13^th	47	Menant / Grand / Goudchaux	Rondeau M482 Ford	Graff Racing	299	4043.613 kms	168.483	9^th	C1
14^th	21	Robert / Newsum / Cleare	March 85G Porsche	Richard Cleare Racing	299	4040.834 kms	168.359	1^st	GTP
15^th	78	Delano / Petery / Hotchkis	Ecosse C285 Ford	Ecurie Ecosse	293	3961.575 kms	165.065	4^th	C2
16^th	32	Weaver / Hasemi / Wada / Suzuki	Nissan R85V	Nissan Motorsport	285	3850.511 kms	160.437	10^th	C1
17^th	102	del Bello / Sotty / Rossiaud	Rondeau M379C Ford	Lucien Rossiaud	278	3751.832 kms	156.326	5^th	C2
18^th	13	Raphanel / De Cadenet / Courage	Cougar C12 Porsche	Primagaz Team Cougar	267	3599.712 kms	149.988	11^th	C1
19^th	70	Bellm / Martin / Spice	Spice SE86C Ford	Spice Engineering	258	3485.328 kms	145.222	6^th	C2

Death of Jo Gartner overshadows race and results

The Porsche 962C of the Porsche Kremer Racing Team that started in 15th position went of the road at the Mulsanne straight at 3am in the morning. The car caught fire and the unlucky driver Jo Gartner paid the highest price and lost his life. During later research on the wrecked Porsche 962C, one learned that a mechanical failure was the cause of the fatal accident. The sole remaining Porsche 962C of the Porsche Kremer Racing Team left the race.

Pictures courtesy Porsche AG and unknown