The Mk II entered by Holman-Moody of Ronnie Bucknum and Dick Hutcherson was a distant third. With six grueling hours to go, the Shelby American Fords of Miles/Denny Hulme and Bruce McLaren/Chris Amon ran a relatively close first and second.
With no threat from Ferrari after the retirement of the P3s, four of the eight Mk IIs entered were running like a train at the front of the field at the end of the 18th hour when the leading car of Dan Gurney and Jerry Grant retired due to a radiator hose that came unclamped. As things turned out, Scarfiotti would crash his P3 and Surtees would leave Ferrari’s F1 team in favor of Cooper.įerrari was no match for the Ford of Bruce McLaren and Chris Amon on this day. His team manager, Eugenio Dragoni, compounded the dearth of entries versus a phalanx of eight Mk IIs by not using a “hare” strategy of pushing the pace with one car and allowing the other two P3s to lag for the sake of endurance.Īnd finally, both Ferrari and Dragoni participated in intramural politics during which John Surtees, Ferrari’s number one driver in F1, was told to give way to reserve driver Ludovico Scarfiotti. The Ford GT40 Mk II entries dominated the race, in part due to the mistakes of Enzo Ferrari, who entered just three Ferrari P3 chassis, none of which finished. Phipps likened the Ford effort to a “steamroller at work” and noted the “confusion at the finish when the two remaining Shelby American cars crossed the line almost side by side.” But the final hour “left the race blighted with mysterious anti-climax and corporate confusion.” The winning assault of the Ford camp was “as classically executed as a von Clausewitz campaign,” according to Yates, citing the Prussian military man.
Miles, in the eyes of many, had a win stolen from him that year. Ken Miles, left, talks with Carroll Shelby during the 24 Hours of Le Mans in 1966.
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