PORSCHE 935 Gr.5 1977

Cette collection est une adaptation de Porsche Racing collection - Éditeur : Centauria Editore s.r.l.

For 1977, Porsche prepares a dozen 935s for private racing teams. At le mans, one of them finishes third overall and first in group 5.

As in the previous year, Porsche could hope for an outright victory at the 1977 Le Mans 24 Hours with the Group 6 prototypes (the 936 was the reigning champion) or in Group 5 (reserved for cars in the Special Production category, a derivative of the series but with greater freedom to modify than in Group 4). With the elimination of the BMW CSL, Group 5 became the exclusive domain of the Zuffenhausen-based company. Initially, in addition to the 911 Carrera, RSR and 934, there were four 935s (plus a Kremer variant, a model developed for Group 5 in 1976: an ‘official’ Porsche 935/77 with more advanced aerodynamics and mechanics), as well as three private models based on 1976 specifications.

The first Daytona 24 Hours race of 1977 was a battle between the 935s. The No. 1, one of two original 1976 cars entered by Jacky Ickx and Jochen Mass, was the first to retire after an accident. © IXO Collections SAS - Tous droits réservés.

Most of the 935s Model 76 that raced in 1977 were part of a batch of 13 units built by Porsche for private teams. They were identical to the official 935s of 1976, except for a more efficient heat exchanger. Some of these cars made their debut in the World Championship for Makes, which had been reserved for groups 5 and 4 since 1976 (prototypes from group 6 competed in the World Championship for Sports cars). They achieved their best results with a victory at Zolder and one at the 1000 km of the Nürburgring, while the official 935/77 won the Silverstone race.

The prospects for the Le Mans 24 Hours, which had not appeared on the championship calendar since 1975, were therefore good. The most experienced 935 on paper was that of the official Martini Racing team, with Ralf Stommelen and Manfred Schurti at the wheel, and the two cars of Gelo Racing competing with numbers 38 and 39 respectively. But the most successful car was the fourth 935 to start, number 40, owned by French team JSM Racing and prepared by ASA Cachia.

Le Mans 1977: the Porsche 936/77 of Barth, Haywood and Ickx, the winner of the race, held off the Renault Alpine A442 of Tambay and Jaussaud, followed by one of the two 935s from the private Gelo team of George. © IXO Collections SAS - Tous droits réservés.

A new challenge between the 935s at the Nürburgring Bilstein Supersprint in October 1977: the Jägermeister of Manfred Schurti was ahead of the Loos of Rolf Stommelen and the Kremer K2 Vaillant of Bob Wollek. © IXO Collections SAS - Tous droits réservés.

AND ONLY ONE TO FINISH

This car, driven on its first official appearance by Claude Balllot-Léna and Peter Gregg, qualified only 16th and stayed well back for at least 3/4 of the race.

That changed when the duel between the Renault Alpine A442s and the Porsche 936s began to take its toll and the other 935s, which were experiencing technical problems, pulled out. The French-American team finished in style with third place overall and first in Group 5, just behind the 936/77 of Barth, Haywood and Ickx and the Mirage M8 of Schuppan-Jarier. In doing so, the team grabbed the podium finish with a few hundred metres ahead of the two other prototypes, the Inaltera LM77 and the De Cadenet-Lola, both powered by Ford-Cosworth engines, and completing 315 laps.

[ LATE, THE 935 JSM BOUNCED BACK TO FINISH AN ABSOLUTE THIRD].

The 935 did not return to Le Mans and a number of other official events until 1978, with a new ASA Cachia team and a new livery, when it participated in the 6 Hours of Silverstone, where it was forced to retire due to the loss of a wheel, and then again at Le Mans, where it finished seventh. After competing in the 200 miles of the Norisring, it again took part in the 1979 Le Mans 24 Hours, where it finished fifteenth with the team of Jacques Guérin, Frédéric Alliot and Chanaud, initially including future Paris-Dakar champion and two-time world sports champion Jean-Louis Schlesser. The car was subsequently sold to Christian Bussi's team, competing in a number of World Championship events in the category, but always finishing well off the podium.

CLAUDE BALLOT-LÉNA AND PETER GRE

For both drivers who led the Porsche 935 to victory in Group 5, success in this category remained the best result of their participations at Le Mans. For Parisian Claude Ballot-Léna, who started 24 times at the Sarthe circuit, 22 in a row between 1965 and 1986, the 1977 success followed victories in the GT category between 1970 and 1973, to which he added three more between 1981 and 1986. His record also included outright victories at Spa in 1969 and Daytona in 1983. The same was true for Peter Gregg, who took only one victory at Le Mans, but ended his career with four wins at Daytona and one at the 12 Hours of Sebring between 1973 and 1978.