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The whole 917 program, which almost bankrupted Porsche, was all Ferdinand Piëch. Everything that was happening with it, he was right on top of it all the time - which was why he appeared at the test in Daytona in 1969. I was not in attendance for that testing. However, during that test, David Hobbs lost the drive because he missed a gear.
Then of course the first race for the new team of John Wyer Porsche was at Daytona in 1970. Piëch was there because he had his Porsche Austria Salzburg car there. That was a big shock to Gulf’s John Wyer, David Yorke, and John Horsman. They weren’t expecting another factory Porsche to be running against them.