Word: p3
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...eighth hour, a Matra-B.R.M. and a C.D.-Peugeot collided in the tight Tertre-Rouge turn directly in front of Ludovico Scarfiotti's speeding Ferrari P3. Scratch one P3. The second P3 went out with a broken gearbox after only ten hours, and the last of the Ferrari factory prototypes ground to a stop six hours later with a blown head gasket. With Fords running one-two-three and no more challengers in sight, Team Manager Carroll Shelby ordered a slowdown. Then Beebe got an inspiration. To make the inevitable Ford victory all the more impressive, he decided...
Beebe heeded his master's voice. Pre-race speed trials proved that the Fords were far faster than the three lighter but less powerful (by 70 h.p.) P3 prototypes entered by Ferrari. California's Dan Gurney set an unofficial lap record of 142.9 m.p.h. in a Mark II, and Fords won the first four places on the starting grid. That made it easy for Beebe. Start in front, he ordered his drivers, stay in front, force the Ferraris to press, and wait for them to break down. It worked. Pouring on the gas, nudging 210 m.p.h...
...Ferrari, whose high-whining, finely tuned cars had dominated Sebring for a decade, winning seven times in all, was so pessimistic about his chances of stopping Ford's "steamroller" this year that he bothered to enter only one prototype in the race. Of course, the new Ferrari 330 P3 was quite a car: developed specifically to compete with Ford, it harbors beneath its streamlined, electric-red shell a massive 12-cylinder fuel-injection engine that generated 420 h.p., powered the 3-ft.-high machine to a record average of 106.1 m.p.h. in a casual qualifying...
...tragedies took the bloom off what otherwise would have been a glorious victory for Ford. One by one, the miles and minutes took their toll of Ford's main competitors: the two Chaparrals were both out of the race by the second hour, and the Ferrari 330 P3 retired to the pits on the 172nd lap with a frozen gearbox. Andretti's accident took care of the rest; he was running third behind two Fords at the time of the crash, and the Porsche was in fourth place. The finish was a parade-Ford, Ford, Ford, Ford...