The show must go on

The tragic accident involving so many spectators which happened in the early stages of this year’s Le Mans 24 Hours race at La Sarthe calls for a strong and heartfelt expression of sympathy to all those whose relatives and friends were involved. This, the worst disaster by far in the history of motor racing, has touched-off some panic and irresponsible opinions in the daily press, and it is necessary to take a calm and reasoned view. That the race was continued after the accident has been criticised, yet he who ordered it to go on was undoubtedly wise, because a sudden cessation of racing would have concentrated spectators in the crash area, led to greater alarm and despondency, and jammed local roads, apart from spelling, in all probability, the end of Le Mans.

The French Government wisely banned further road-racing until safety precautions had been investigated. That was sensible, but suggestions that all future motor racing should be banned are farcical. Racing survived the calamities of Paris-Madrid, 1903, Brooklands did not close after crashes involving spectators in 1930 and 1938, and Le Mans will outlive this unhappy and terrible affair of 1955. The Motor thinks that perhaps now is the time to abandon sports-car racing as at present practised, because it is becoming so fast as to be dangerous.

This is the wrong attitude, surely, because grand prix racing also involves extremely high speeds. These are now being achieved at Le Mans and the problem facing organisers is to render circuits safer for all forms of racing. Reverting to whether or not the race should have been stopped, let us remember that the 1952 Farnborough Air Display was not stopped, nor abandoned on the Sunday, following the accident there which killed 26 spectators, although on that occasion experimental aircraft were diving at supersonic speeds over the heads of an unprotected crowd. That show goes on and so must motor racing.

As to the race itself, it seems possible that the Fangio/Moss 300SLR Mercedes-Benz would have won had not Mercedes-Benz withdrawn this and the Kling/Simon car after Levegh’s accident, because it was well in the lead (by two laps) and running comfortably.

The victory of Hawthorn and Bueb with the latest D-type Jaguar is creditable indeed, from both technical and ‘cockpit’ aspects. From the technical as here is a car possessing a decided ‘under-bonnet’ similarity to the Jaguar MkVII saloon and XK140 sports car, which was used by Hawthorn to break up the opposition (it did this to the big Ferraris), during which it set a phenomenal lap record of 122.39mph, yet which then ran trouble-free to win comfortably at 107.08mph over the 2594 miles it covered, with the privately-entered D-type Jaguar of Swaters-Claes in third. From the ‘cockpit’ aspect on account of the magnificent adaptation by Ivor Bueb to this very fast car under highly responsible and unhappily tragic conditions, to which he graduated, with high honour, from nothing bigger than 1100cc experience.

The finest performance of all, however, was that of the three Porsche cars, which were placed fourth, fifth and sixth, behind far larger machines.

The value of Jaguar’s third victory (following 1951 and 1953) was emphasised by a sticker reading “Jaguar Wins Again at Le Mans” which appeared on Coventry Jaguar adverts the Monday following the race. The efficiency and reliability of the Haynes-designed 3.5-litre twin-overhead camshaft engine has again been emphasised.

Yet, when all is said and done, Le Mans this year is a race we would prefer to forget. But the Jaguar victory was, we hope, a tiny morsel of consolation to Bill Lyons for the death of his son, J. Michael Lyons, in a crash on the way to the race. To the bereaved through the Austin-Healey/Mercedes-Benz accident go the deep feelings of motor racing followers the world over, with a special thought for the Levegh family. Levegh will be remembered always for his gallant lone attempt to beat Mercedes-Benz in the 1952 race, and it is bitterly ironical that he should have died in one of these cars this year through no fault of his.

In withdrawing its cars as a mark of respect for both the great French driver, and the spectators who perished with him, Mercedes-Benz acted correctly.

From: Motor Sport, July 1955 Matters of Moment