The 1988 24 Hours of Le Mans was the 56th Grand Prix of Endurance as well as the fifth round of the 1988 World Sports-Prototype Championship. It took place at the Circuit de la Sarthe, France, on the 11 and 12 June 1988. At their third attempt, Jaguar arrived with five cars to take on the strong Porsche works team of three cars, in their only race for the Championship season. The other potential rival was Sauber, now formally backed by Mercedes-Benz, but after a major high-speed tyre-blowout in practice, their two-car team was withdrawn.
From the start, it was a close duel between the two works teams. Even though Hans-Joachim Stuck had put in a blazing qualifying lap to lead a 1-2-3 grid for Porsche, it was Jan Lammers in his Jaguar who muscled his way up to the front. A blocked fuel-filter cost Klaus Ludwig two laps in the pole-sitting Porsche. Thereafter the chase was picked up by his teammate Bob Wollek, and he took the lead in the fourth hour. Along with the third works car run by the Andretti family and the Joest Porsche, these four cars continued dicing well into the night, constantly swapping positions.However, this year the usual Porsche reliability was missing: the Andretti car lost three laps repairing their water pump, then Wollek's car retired just before half-distance with engine failure. Jaguar did not have easy sailing either, as Boesel had retired at midnight with a broken gearbox. Meanwhile, hard driving by Stuck, Ludwig and van der Merwe had them back into the race, and the second half would be a duel between them and the Jaguar of Lammers, Dumfries and Wallace. A light shower late in the morning just added to the tension with Stuck, a wet-weather master, getting ever closer.
