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“No time to catch our breath”

24. Aug 2022 
by Ziv Knoll
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The 1973 1000 km of Spa was marked by the fantastic duel between Matra and Ferrari but won by Gulf Mirage (thanks to better reliability) and Henri Pescarolo (picture above) set a record lap of 3.13.4 (only marginally beaten by Jacky Ickx during practice).

Since that day, his average speed of 262 km/h has never been bettered on any road course in the world. The four-time winner of the 24 Hours of Le Mans, who later became team owner, remembers:

Henri Pescarolo: “Given the length of the circuit (12km), you can only do a few laps in testing. We did not have much time to understand the behaviour of the car and make the appropriate changes. I always loved the fast corners… and the Matra 670B too. In the Burnenville curve, we passed 300 km/h on a rough surface, we were the kings… the chassis was incredible.”

“After the rise of Les Combes, we quickly reached the terrible sequence of turns – Burnenville, Masta, Stavelot. You might think that with the long straights, you could rest a little between two corners. Wrong: we did not have time to catch our breath. At 300 km/h, we knew that the slightest mistake could turn into disaster. It was a little crazy and so dangerous, but what a joy to drive!”

Source: DR

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