4. This year the Automobile Club de l'Ouest (ACO) brought the start-time forward to 2pm, to allow time for the largely French crowd to still be able to get to vote in the Presidential Elections on the Sunday afternoon. New Armco crash barriers were installed around the circuit, including on the Mulsanne Straight, where there was previously no protection from the trees, houses and embankments in the event of a car leaving the track. Sandbanks were replaced by barriers. Entries Into the second year of the new 3-litre regulations, the initial entries closed with 109 applications – the biggest number in the past decade. However, after the requisite culling 60 cars were accepted, but a number of withdrawals meant only 51 practiced with non-starters reducing the final grid to only 45, the smallest field in the decade. After a dominant season to date, Porsche had already won the Sportscar Championship, and arrived with easily the biggest representation with 16 cars, a third of the field. Porsche had already wrapped up the championship after the seven races to date. Starting in July 1968, Porsche made a surprising and very expensive effort to conceive, design and build a whole new car for the Group 4 Sport category with one underlying goal: to win its first overall victory at Le Mans. In only ten months, the first Porsche 917 prototype was developed with a fibreglass body and Porsche's first 12-cylinder engine. Bored out to 4.5-litres, made from titanium, magnesium and exotic alloys, it produced a mighty 520 bhp. The 917 included another feature which would prove to be controversial in the week leading up to the race: movable aerodynamic wings linked to the suspension. These were banned by the CSI (Commission Sportive Internationale – the FIA's regulatory body) at the Monaco GP in May as dangerous. Porsche team manager, Rico Steinemann, protested that their test-sessions had shown the car was inherently unstable without them and that the cars had been homologated for Group 4 with the flaps. A last-minute decision the day before Le Mans by the FISA allowed them to race, although the 908s had to lose the flaps as they had previously run without them. Team Matra was particularly upset by this decision, but in a statement said they did not intend to protest. It was widely believed that if the ban was again reinstated because of a protest by other