After 1967 regulations capped prototype engines at 3 litres — a limit F1 engines could not sustain across 24 hours — Ferrari boycotted 1968, leaving the John Wyer team's Gulf-liveried Ford GT40 to win. For 1969 the FIA reduced the minimum Group 4 production requirement from 50 to 25 cars. Porsche exploited this immediately and dramatically: Ferdinand Piech authorised construction of 25 examples of the new 917, with its 4.5-litre flat-twelve producing 520 bhp. The required cars were shown to the FIA in April 1969, just weeks before Le Mans. Porsche also brought its race-proven 908/02 Spyder, which had dominated the championship season.
The 917s had shown frightening high-speed instability at the Le Mans test weekend, made worse by the CSI banning aerodynamic wings after Formula 1 accidents. A last-minute ruling the day before the race allowed Porsche to race with the suspension-linked flaps that had been approved at homologation, though the 908s had to remove theirs.
A single privately purchased 917 was entered by British gentleman driver John Woolfe.
The 1969 race was the last to use the traditional Le Mans-style start, in which drivers ran across the track to their cars. Jacky Ickx, mindful of the career-ending first-lap crash that had befallen his former teammate Willy Mairesse the previous year while trying to close a door at speed, staged a one-man protest: he walked slowly across the track, took his time fastening his seatbelts, and joined the field from last position.
Within metres of the start, John Woolfe lost control of his 917 approaching Maison Blanche, flipped, was ejected from the car before his belts were fastened, and was killed. Burning fuel from Woolfe's car landed beneath Chris Amon's Ferrari, igniting it and forcing retirement within the opening lap.
The ACO's response was to abolish the Le Mans start permanently. From 1970 onwards the race began with a rolling start.
Porsche ran 1-2-3-4-5 in the opening hours but reliability problems consumed each car in turn. The works 917 of Vic Elford and Richard Attwood led for 90 percent of the race before a gearbox failure at 11 am on Sunday removed it. Siffert and Redman's 908 had retired from the lead early with an oil-gearbox leak. Mitra Schütz and Kauhsen's 908, running second, collided with a teammate in the night. When the Lins/Kauhsen car stopped on the Mulsanne with a broken clutch and then the Elford/Attwood 917 expired, Ickx and Jackie Oliver in the John Wyer Gulf Ford GT40, chassis 1075, found themselves in the lead with under three hours remaining.
Hans Herrmann and Gerard Larrousse in a works 908 had been charging through the field and were close behind. The final three hours became a race-within-a-race. Both cars had running issues — Herrmann's 908 had fading brakes and an engine 400 rpm down; Ickx's GT40 was on its last permissible fuel load with an extra lap required. Ickx and Herrmann traded the lead multiple times in the closing stages. On the final lap Ickx intentionally let Herrmann lead onto the Mulsanne Straight to use his slipstream, then repassed him before the corner, and managed to hold on.
The Ford took the chequered flag a distance of approximately 120 metres — about two car lengths — ahead of the Porsche, after 24 hours of racing at 208.25 km/h average. Chassis 1075 had also won the previous year, making it only the second car in history to win Le Mans in successive years, after a Bentley Speed Six in 1929 and 1930.
Third place went to the second Wyer Ford of David Hobbs and Mike Hailwood, four laps down. The Matra of Jean-Pierre Beltoise and Piers Courage was fourth. Of the eight Alpines entered, only the 1-litre A210 of Serpaggi and Ethuin finished, in twelfth, winning the Index of Performance.
It was the first of six Le Mans victories for Jacky Ickx, a record that stood until Tom Kristensen surpassed it in 2005. The ACO confirmed the abolition of the Le Mans start for all future editions. Ironically, Ickx had a road accident near Chartres driving home on Monday morning, but walked away unhurt. The race marked the return to competition of Henri Pescarolo, who had covered the race by radio from his hospital bed after a testing accident in the Matra 640, and who would go on to become the event's all-time record holder for starts.
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