A very happy birthday to Philippe Alliot. The Frenchman struggled in F1, but flew for Peugeot in its fearsome 905 Group C car – the subject of today's Great Read. As the category climaxed with its 3.5-litre regulations in the early '90s, Peugeot developed a prototype so extreme, yet so reliable, that it could race for 24 hours at Formula 1 speeds. Gary Watkins tells the story:
Take out of the equation those pedal-to-metal laps around the old eight-mile Spa-Francorchamps or the pre-Hella Licht-S Osterreichring, and a Porsche 917 couldn't live with a Formula One car in 1970 or 71. At Brands Hatch, Monza or just about anywhere else, the machine often regarded as the ultimate sportscar and its great rival, Ferrari's 512, were barely fast enough to have scraped onto a grand prix grid of their time.
Vic Elford's pole in his 917K at the Monza 1000Km in April 1970 would not even have got him onto the grid for that year's Italian Grand Prix. But fast forward 20 years, and there is an oft-overlooked sports-prototype that would have had no problem qualifying in the middle of the Formula One pack week in, week out. Step forward the Peugeot 905 Evo 1 bis, the fastest sports car of all time...
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