LE MANS. 100 years ago on May 26, 1923, the first 24 Hours of Le Mans motor endurance race took place.
They were won by the French couple Andre Lagache and Rene Leonard from the Chenard-Walcker team, who completed 128 laps on their home circuit (17.26 km).
The race is currently the oldest endurance motorsport event in the world, this year’s edition is scheduled for June 10 and 11.
The race is organized by the Western Automobile Club (ACO) and takes place at the Circuit de la Sarthe. It consists partly of closed public roads and is currently 13.626 kilometers long.
Together with the Monaco Grand Prix and the Indy 500, the event forms the so-called Triple Crown, the only holder of which is Briton Graham Hill. He won the endurance race in 1972 together with Frenchman Henri Pescarol at Matre-Simca.
From 1952 to 1992, the “Twenty-four Hours” was part of the World Sports Car Championship. It has been held as part of the WEC endurance racing series since 2012.
The reigning winners are the Swiss Sebastien Buemi, Brendon Hartley from New Zealand and the Japanese Ryo Hirakawa – the trio won on a Toyota.
The first endurance race
The roots of the first edition go back to 1903. After the tragic race from Paris to Madrid, which was stopped by the police in Bordeaux, the idea of organizing a closed event came up. Among the seventeen proposals, the one in Le Mans was preferred.
By 1906, although the competent authorities did not have time to build a circuit, they closed more than 100 kilometers of roads. Hungarian driver Ferenc Szisz won the French Grand Prix at that time on a Renault.
He completed twelve laps on a 103.18 kilometer long route in the cradle of motorsport in 12:14:07.4 hours.
The event claimed only one serious injury and sent a signal about the safety of closed races. The next three editions took place between 1911-1913 and after the war the race was resumed in 1919.
The idea to hold a 24-hour endurance race came from the collaboration of Georges Durand, Secretary General of the ACO, and Charles Faroux, Editor-in-Chief of La Vie Automobile.
His readers demanded a competition between all the car manufacturers, and Durand proposed an endurance race to test reliability. 33 cars took part in them and only three did not finish the race.
The first disruption of the continuity of the event occurred in 1936, when civil unrest broke out in the country against the newly elected left-wing government of Leon Blum the day before the start.
The “Twenty-Four Hours” was subsequently not held in 1940 due to the Second World War, and it was revived only in 1949. At that time, car companies and the public showed more interest, which led to the building of better facilities at the venue.
It is interesting that the area around the ring road has not been completely demined since the end of the war. The 1949 edition was won by American Luigi Chinetti with Peter Mitchell-Thomson, Lord Selsdon, in a Ferrari.
In this year, a rear-engined car started the race for the first time. Specifically, it was a Renault 4CV private car, whose two-cylinder engine with a displacement of 745cc was built in Czechoslovakia.
The greatest tragedy in motorsport history
At the time, the race had six fatalities in its short history and the event’s deadliest event and one of the most tragic crashes in motorsport history was yet to come.
It happened in 1955, when the Frenchman Pierre Levegh (Mercedes) was thrown after a collision among the spectators, the vehicle exploded and caught fire.
The incident claimed more than 80 lives, including Levegh’s, around 200 people were injured. The race was watched live by more than 250,000 spectators – it was driven at a fast pace, records were broken and after 30 laps, Briton Mike Hawthorn (Jaguar) had an average speed of 190.46 km/h.
Hawthorn pitted, braked and crossed to the right side of the home straight. However, he crossed the path of compatriot Lance Macklin in a slower Austin-Healey. He had to pull the car to the left, it skidded and at a speed of 300 km/h Levegh rammed into it.
He left the driving direction and hit the embankment that separated the track from the spectator area. As a result of the impact, the front axle and engine of the Mercedes were torn off and flew to the grandstand located opposite the finish line and the pits.
The car itself also landed among the spectators and exploded. There was chaos among the people. In addition to dozens of spectators who were killed by the explosion and subsequent fire, several others were trampled by the panicked crowd.
However, the race continued. The organizers did not stop them so that the spectators would not make it impossible for the ambulances to arrive in the resulting confusion.
The leader of the Mercedes-Benz team, in agreement with the parent company, recalled the remaining two cars, which at the time were in first and second place, from the race after the rescue operation. Hawthorn eventually won the race.
After the tragedy, the safety rules were tightened, one of the biggest changes was the addition of barriers and other protective elements between the circuit and the spectators. Until then, fans could stand right next to the road in many places.
After the accident, Mercedes-Benz withdrew from all subsequent races and did not return to the circuits until 1987. Switzerland banned the organization of any car races on its territory, the ban was lifted in June 2007.
Ford vs. Ferrari
The 1960s brought one of the greatest rivalries in motorsport. Ford decided to enter the game with almost zero motorsport experience.
At that time, Ferrari dominated the race and had four consecutive triumphs with five drivers. Belgian Olivier Gendebien was in three winning pairs, twice with American Phil Hill.
Italian Lorenzo Bandini and Austrian Jochen Rindt – the only posthumous Formula 1 champion (1970) – were also important pilots of the “prancing horse”.
Ford set a very ambitious goal – to dethrone Maranello. It premiered in 1964 and did not even finish the first two editions.
However, Bruce McLaren-Chris Amon, Ken Miles-Denny Hulme and Ronnie Bucknum-Dick Hutcherson took the podium in the third place. Their dominance did not end until 1970, when Porsche, composed of Hans Herrmann and Richard Attwood, won.
This year there was also a big security change regarding the start of the race. The drivers initially faced their cars and started the race with a short sprint to their car, which had its engine turned off.
Competitors introduced a fixed position start as a result of an incident in 1968. Belgian Willy Mairesse did not close the door of his Ford GT40 properly in a hurry and it broke away during the first lap.
The pilot fell out of the car, suffered multiple injuries and fell into a two-week coma. In 1972 came the rolling start, which lasted until the present day.
Celebrity v Le Mans
The track has undergone many changes over half a century, the most significant of which came in 1974. The modification brought closed, more technical sections at the end of the circuit, which led along public roads.
This period also saw the start of several celebrities – the most notable is the participation of American actor Paul Newman, who won in 1979 with a Porsche in his IMSA GTX category and finished second overall.
He shared the car with compatriot Dick Barbour and Rolf Stommelen from Germany. Nick Mason, drummer and founding member of the musical group Pink Floyd, started at the event five times during the 70s and 80s.
Around the same time, Mark Thatcher, the son of the former British Prime Minister Margaret, and Eddie Jordan, the founder of the “efunitary” Jordan team, also took part.
In 2014, the Frenchman Fabien Barthez, former soccer goalkeeper, world champion (1998), European champion (2000) and winner of the Champions League with the Olympique Marseille team (1992/93) also tried the race. The six is completed by American actor Patrick Dempsey (2009, 2013-14).
Four participations of ARC Bratislava
At the end of the 1980s, the race was revived by the arrival of Peugeot, which entered with the aim of breaking the historical speed record.
In 1988, he did it with the WM P87 car, with which Roger Dorchy reached a speed of 407 km/h.
He succeeded on the five-kilometer Mulsanne Straight, to which chicanes were added during the reconstruction in the 90s.
At that time, the most successful and consistent driver in the history of the twenty-four hour race came onto the scene.
The Dane Tom Kristensen won the race at the first attempt, in 1997 he triumphed in a Porsche together with the Italian veteran Michele Alboret and the Swede Stefan Johansson.
Over the next eight years, he won six times (5x with Audi, 1x with Bentley). He added another triumph in 2008 and the final ninth in 2013 at the age of 45.
He was thus part of the dominance of German motorcyclists – between 2006 and 2017 they missed only one triumph (Peugeot – 2009). The remaining eleven were shared by Audi (2006-2008, 2010-2014) and Porsche (2015-2017).
The previous five races were won by Toyota as the only factory team in the top LMP1/Hypercar category.
In the course of the previous six years, the Slovak team ARC Bratislava also started four times in the second highest category LMP2.
He achieved his best result in 2021, when he took 15th place in his category and 24th position overall.
The three competitors were team owner Miro Konôpka together with his son Matej and British pilot Oliver Webb. This year’s race is the 91st in a row and will start on Saturday, June 10 at 16.00 CEST.
2023-05-25 22:00:18
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