[svandamme]

917 at 69 Le Mans was just it's 3rd entry in any real competition, they weren't fully ready yet. But it lead for most of the race till they dropped out with issues.

The performance was there for Le Mans, handling was not yet fully developed, reliability not yet either.
The GT40's were instantly obsolete so were the Ferrari's of those days., only reason the GT40's still won is that reliability issues on the 917's.
Ford gave up trying for Le Mans after 1969 , they had their issues with the MkIV, ran it in Canam but it just didn't work anymore, it wasn't competitive.

The 917's performance at Le Mans prompted Enzo to sell half his stock to Fiat just to build 25 512's in response..

The 917 really was a game changer on all levels.