«I said yeah, yeah, yeah, and carried on driving it as 24-hour race,not a sprint. With three hours to go we were six laps in the lead when the gearbox broke. Six laps is a lot so speed-wise we had no problem. I do believe that if I had been driving with a more considerate driver it would have been an easy race to win.» |
«After the race we had a de-brief. We told them about the aerodynamics and everything and they said 'OK, we will make the car better'. They ran through most of the changes we wanted and eventually in both the wet and the dry it was a fantastic car. They switched from a five to four-speed gearbox in an effort to prevent engine damage during missed changes up into fifth. Although computer designed in the end it was trial and error that sorted it out.» |
«I said I wanted a short-tail car and asked if I could drive with Hans Herrmann. Hans was about ten years older than me and a steady guy. By the time of the race in June of course the 5-litre was a stonking engine, there were no more gearbox problem. But we had the 4.5-litre engine and out of the slow corners at Arnage and Mulsanne it was not beefy enough. We could only use second, third and fourth so we were losing six to eight seconds a lap because we didn't have the bigger engine and couldn't use first gear. We ended up 15th or 16th on the grid because most of the others had 5-litres and the Ferrari 512's were going well too.» |
«I said we can forget this race because we have got too many cars in front of us and they are not surely all going to have trouble. I was resigned to the fact I had made the biggest mistake of my life. That year there was rain, there was a lot of competition between Ferrari and Porsche and the first few hours of the race were like a Grand Prix I remember one particular accident - two of the Ferrari 512's collided when one of them spun at White House, I think. Derek Bell drove through the carnage in the third Ferrari but dipped the clutch and over-revved the engine. Three potential winners were out.» |
«I saw and incident where Siffert was impatient to get by three or four cars and they were all racing alongside each other. Coming right up the pit lane - there was no wall then - to pass all these cars in one go, he went from third gear to fourth, missed it, and the engine was gone. There were so many things like that happening it was just ridiculous and after ten hours we were in the lead. I could hardly believe it. We then had to defend the lead. to the end, which we dit without difficulty. I really think that if Hans Herrmann had been with me the year before we would have won that as well.» |
(Grã-Bretanha) 
