Tearing up the rulebook: How Jaguar broke the Porsche monopoly at Le Mans

The tale of how Jaguar halted Porsche’s dominance at Le Mans is a crucial chapter in the story that puts TWR centre stage at the 84^th Members’ Meeting presented by Audrain Motorsport. We’ll celebrate the team's legacy with what is bound to be a memorable demonstration of Group C machinery, but to understand the scale of TWR Jaguar’s accomplishments, you have to look at the seemingly insurmountable obstacle that stood in Tom Walkinshaw's way: the dominance of Porsche and its 962.

To grasp the scale of the job, you have to go back to the early 1980s. When the Group C formula arrived in 1982, Porsche’s answer was the 956. It was the company’s first car built around a monocoque chassis, its first to use ground-effect aerodynamics, and it was ready only a few weeks before it raced in May 1982 at the 6 Hours of Silverstone, where it won on its debut. It then won the Le Mans 24 Hours on its second outing, locking out the podium places, and its successor the 962 would go on and win every running through to 1987.

In short, if you wanted to win at Le Mans, you had to beat Porsche, something no-one had managed since Jean Rondeau beat them home in 1980, but that didn’t stop Tom Walkinshaw from deciding to try.

After founding his own racing team and establishing his reputation in touring cars, he turned his attention to the singular goal of conquering the Le Mans 24 Hours. Walkinshaw set out to build a motorsport empire and cement his legacy in Europe's premier endurance race.

Walkinshaw made his name with Jaguar in the European Touring Car Championship with the XJ-S claiming four victories in its maiden season in 1982. The victories continued into 1983 with a further five victories and seven more the following year when Walkinshaw himself was crowned ETC Champion, in his V12 XJ-S. After all this success, winning as both the driver and the boss of his own racing outfit, the next target was obvious.

Jaguar had last won Le Mans in 1957, when the D-Type dominated to seal the marque’s fifth win in seven years. Three decades without a victory is a long time for a manufacturer that regarded the Circuit de la Sarthe as a second home, and Walkinshaw told the board it would take three years to put that right. His team wasn’t a glamorous operation. It was tightly run, relentlessly disciplined, and very good at what matters most in endurance racing, making sure the cars reach the finish.

In 1987, TWR Jaguar’s 7.0-litre V12-engined XJR-8 simply flattened the competition. Jaguar won eight of the ten World Championship rounds and Raul Boesel took the Drivers’ title, while team-mates Jan Lammers, John Watson and Eddie Cheever filled the next three places. Porsche had been soundly beaten in the Championship, but crucially for TWR, its run of victories at Le Mans continued

So in 1988 Walkinshaw returned with a fleet of five XJR-9LMs, low-drag versions of the upgraded XJR-9 built to reach mesmerising top speeds on the Mulsanne Straight. TWR Jaguar had pushed the boundaries with this new creation, and actually failed scrutineering after the rear wings on all five XJR-9LMs were found to be positioned illegally.

It was a simple enough fix for Jaguar to rectify the issue, but Porsche made an ominous start in qualifying as Hans-Joachim Stuck put in a blistering lap to lead a Porsche one-two-three on the grid, but Jaguar were poised to fight back in the race itself. Jan Lammers muscled into the lead in the early stages, and Jaguar looked to have the legs over Porsche in race conditions.

By the middle of the race, it had come down to a two-car fight. On one side was the #2 Jaguar of Lammers, ex-Lotus Formula 1 driver Johnny Dumfries and Le Mans rookie Andy Wallace, fresh out of British Formula 3. On the other was the #17 Porsche of Derek Bell, Klaus Ludwig and Hans-Joachim Stuck, three men with ten Le Mans victories between them. The sister Jaguar of Martin Brundle and John Nielsen had already retired.

It was a tense battle. Early on Sunday morning a bird strike forced a windscreen change on the Jaguar, which cost them the lead. Then Porsche slipped as Ludwig failed to pit at the right moment and later had to crawl back to the pits for fuel, costing the car around six minutes. Lammers’ early exploits had put Jaguar in a strong position overnight but the margin was rarely more than a lap, sometimes just a few seconds. Wallace’s inexperience was also critical as he battled with the challenges of Le Mans, and Lammers ended up driving 13 of the 24 hours, starting the race and finishing it.

Going into the last hour, the leading Jaguar had built a comfortable one-lap lead. Then came the clunk.

With 40-minutes left to run, Lammers felt the gearbox give way. He had been warned by teammate Boesel, who told him how a gearbox failure had ended his own race, and so he was familiar with this vibration and what it meant. At nearly 240mph on the Mulsanne Straight, he dropped the Jaguar into fourth gear and decided to never touch the lever again. Behind him, Jaguar’s bosses began to gather in the TWR pit. At the final pit stop he stayed in the car, because he wasn’t going to trust anybody else with it.

Behind him, Ludwig in the chasing Porsche was reeling the Jaguar in, cutting the gap to under a minute. Of course, he had no idea that the car ahead had only one gear.

But Lammers had done enough. After 394 laps and more than 5,300km, the #2 Jaguar crossed the line two minutes and 36.85 seconds ahead of the Porsche, and TWR orchestrated a formation finish with its three remaining cars to signal the beginning of a new era for endurance racing and the Le Mans 24 Hours.

Jaguar had won the Le Mans 24 Hours for the first time in 31 years. Porsche’s winning run was over, and the German manufacturer’s dominant 962 was no longer the benchmark. A win that the sceptics had dismissed as impossible had been claimed by a Scottish team boss with a three-year plan, and delivered with a gearbox on its last legs.

That triumph in 1988 remains one of the great Le Mans victories and it deserves celebrating. At the upcoming 84^th Members’ Meeting, we certainly look forward to celebrating this, and the many other remarkable stories that make up the TWR Jaguar legacy.

The 84th Members' Meeting takes place on 10th and 11th April 2027. Tickets will go on sale to GRRC Members at the early bird price on Monday 17th August 2026, and to GRRC Fellowship Members on Monday 24th August 2026. Sign up for ticket alerts to make sure you don't miss out. 

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