2023-06-10 12:07:21
The poster announces the color: it will be midnight blue, but punctured by the yellow of the headlights. The drawing by illustrator HA Volodimer clearly emphasizes the specificity of this first edition of the “Rudge-Whitworth Cup 24-hour Endurance Grand Prix” in 1923, revealing a racing car hurtling through the twilight under the bewildered gaze of an owl perched in a tree. Driving during the day on a circuit, but also all night, nice oddity. Which however does not come from a diseased brain.
Originally a lighthouse contest
Because if the Le Mans race is celebrating its centenary today, it is because of a bright idea. That of Georges Durand, the general secretary of the Automobile Club de l’Ouest (ACO), satisfying the desire of one of the manufacturers of the time to organize a competition for headlights, the weak point of automobiles at the time. Thus engages the soon-to-be-famous ordeal, “from the outset designed as an open-air laboratory intended to demonstrate the quality and reliability of production cars, and to innovate as much as possible”says the writer Bob Garcia, a specialist in 24 hours (1).
And innovation, it was going to be often discussed. Still in terms of lighting, the 1926 Lorraine-Dietrich equipped themselves with a third eye in the center of their grille, and with this “fog lamp” darkened to a triple at more than 100 km/h on average. In 1962, Ferrari tested iodine headlights for the first time, which were generalized three years later to all production models. In 1953, disc brakes appeared on Jaguars before equipping ordinary cars. At Le Mans, manufacturers are experimenting, validating or refining. The turbo engine in the 1970s before the hybrid engine (thermal and electric) in the 2000s, the two then becoming more popular on the roads, and tomorrow the hydrogen engine.
A technical race, Le Mans obviously is. But spectacular racing too, and that’s what very quickly caught the attention of the public. For good reason, when the suspense is intense, as with the duel between Ford and Porsche in 1969, won by nothing by the American car, or the unlikely twists, like the failure of Toyota in the very last lap in 2016 For bad ones too, when the drivers have long accepted borderline racing conditions by sacrificing themselves to the “risks of the job”.
A festival of emotions
It is impossible to evoke the legend of Le Mans without dwelling on the worst disaster in the entire history of motor racing. On June 11, 1955, in a race carried out at breakneck speed, the accident occurred because of an adventurous maneuver by Englishman Mike Hawthorn, which forced his compatriot Lance Macklin to make a sudden swerve on the track. Arriving behind him, the Frenchman Pierre Levegh cannot avoid the shock. But worse: the streamlined rear of Macklin’s car acts as a springboard, and the Frenchman’s racing car flies away. By falling on a low wall supposed to protect the spectators, it explodes. Hood, nose gear and engine block are thrown into the crowd. Scene of horror and terrifying toll: 82 dead and more than 100 injured.
For a long time, 24 hours will be lethal. 21 drivers who died in the race or in qualifying, the last in 2013. We are far from the Hollywood glamor embodied on screen by Steve McQueen (in the film Le Mans in 1971) or Christian Bale (in Le Mans 66 in 2019), without forgetting the actor Paul Newman who actually raced the 1979 edition, finishing second at the wheel of a Porsche 935. But the myth is nourished by all these ingredients. Is it still alive for the public as for the pilots, with a hundred years now on the clock?
“Without a doubt, because it is a festival of emotions and a popular party where more than 300,000 people will flock this year, because for the first time we are sold out”answers Pierre Fillon, the president of the ACO, organizer of the event. “All drivers have in the back of their heads the dream of the triple crown crowning the winner of the Monaco Grand Prix, the Indianapolis 500 and the 24 Hours, a performance that only the Englishman Graham Hill was able to achieve”, says Bob Garcia. It was between 1963 and 1972. When is his successor in the 21st century?
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