1969 Targa Florio

The winning Porsche 908/02 #266. Porsche Museum, Stuttgart

The 53rd Targa Florio was a motor race which took place on 4 May 1969, on the Circuito Piccolo delle Madonie, Sicily (Italy). It was race 5 of the 1969 International Championship for Makes.

Race

Claudio Maglioli with the Lancia Fulvia HF F&M Special Spider. The newspaper sucked in front of the radiator eventually caused the engine to overheat and an early retirement during lap 4

For this event, Porsche deployed an unparalleled number of cars among the factory-backed ones, six new 908/02 and a special 911R; several others were entrusted to privateers, mainly 911 and older prototype-class cars such as the 910 and 907.
With Ferrari without suitable cars even for their most loyal teams (such as Scuderia Filipinetti, which was forced to use a cumbersome and outdated Lola T70), the only brand that could challenge Porsche was Alfa Romeo which deployed five Tipo 33/2 (including the one with enlarged 2.5L engine already driven by Nino Vaccarella in the 1968 event).

The event resulted in a one-sided race for the Porsche 908/02 which took first to fourth overall places, followed by an Alfa Romeo, and then by two 907. The local hero Vaccarella, teamed with Andrea de Adamich, had to retire during lap 6 for engine failure.

Official results

Pos	Class	No	Team	Drivers	Chassis	Laps
1	P 3.0	266	Porsche System Engineering	Gerhard Mitter Udo Schütz	Porsche 908/02	10
2	P 3.0	270	Porsche System Engineering	Vic Elford Umberto Maglioli	Porsche 908/02	10
3	P 3.0	274	Porsche System Engineering	Hans Herrmann Rolf Stommelen	Porsche 908/02	10
4	P 3.0	272	Porsche System Engineering	Willi Kauhsen Karl Freiherr von Wendt	Porsche 908/02	10