THE CROWD FIGURES FOR THE 1972 Le Mans 24 Hours vary, but we can safely assume two things: firstly, that it was north of 150,000 strong; and second, that few of them realised the exact measure of the piece of history they were witnessing unfold before them.
Graham Hill – already twice a Formula 1 world champion, five times a victor at the Monaco Grand Prix and winner of the 1966 Indianapolis 500 – became the first, and only driver, to complete the ‘Triple Crown’ by adding his name to the Le Mans roll of honour. Of course, he didn’t do it alone, sharing the No15 Matra-Simca MS670 with a 30-year-old Henri Pescarolo. And the win made history for more than just Hill’s achievement.
Without a French winner since 1964 (or since 1950 if you were talking about the constructor) Pescarolo and Matra’s victory broke the Anglo-Italian-German stranglehold that had lasted over two decades at La Sarthe. It also wrote the first chapter in Pescarolo’s stunning career in the race. With 1972 being his sixth attempt at Le Mans, Pescarolo would go on to rack up a record 33 starts before his retirement after the 1999 edition, celebrating four wins along the way.
This was a race of huge significance for both British and French interests, especially with the Ferrari factory team opting to skip the event having already won the World Sportscar Championship, leaving Matra as the firm favourite. But the result so nearly didn’t come to fruition. Pescarolo, who had been a keystone to Matra’s Formula 1 activities in the 1960s, suddenly found himself frozen out and was due to race an Alfa Romeo instead. He was only called back
