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 teams, Porsche would have pulled out of the 1969 race entirely.