Thirty-one years after the victory of the D Type of Ron Flockhart and Ivor Bueb, Jaguar put an end to the reign of Porsche that began in 1982. The return of the marque began in 1985, when Group 44, the American team of Bob Tullius came to La Sarthe with XJR prototypes running in the IMSA class, the forerunner of today's American Le Mans Series. Tom Walkinshaw and the British team TWR took over with the XJR 6 (1986), XJR 8 LM (1987). It was the XJR 9 LM that finally won in 1988 to the delight of British race fans. In 1990 the XJR 12 took Jaguar's total to to seven Le Mans wins. After the domination of the Porsche 956 and 962 C, the Jaguar vs Porsche battle restarted the tradition of the great duels of the 60's (Ferrari vs Ford) and 70's (Porsche vs Ferrari, Matra, Ferrari, Porsche and Renault), and more recently the confrontations of Audi with Peugeot and Toyota.

Year : 56th edition of the 24 Hours of Le Mans (11th & 12th June 1988)
Number of cars entered : Five
Technical Information :
7 litre V12 atmospheric
Drivers :
John Nielsen-Martin Brundle (n°1)
Jan Lammers-Johnny Dumfries-Andy Wallace (n°2)
John Watson-Henri Pescarolo-Raul Boesel (n°3)
Davy Jones-Danny Sullivan-Price Cobb (n°21)
Kevin Cogan-Derek Daly-Larry Perkins (n°22)
Results :
1st (Jan Lammers-Johnny Dumfries-Andy Wallace)
4th (Kevin Cogan-Derek Daly-Larry Perkins)
16th (Davy Jones-Danny Sullivan-Price Cobb)
Retired (John Nielsen-Martin Brundle, John Watson-Henri Pescarolo-Raul Boesel)