1952 Le Mans 24 Hours: when one man almost won the race solo

LEVEGH’S 23 HOURS OF LE MANS JUNE 1997

No one has ever managed to win Le Mans single-handedly, but in the early ’50s one man nearly did. Pierre Levegh, who 70 years ago this month was killed at the La Sarthe disaster along with 83 spectators, was a Frenchman hellbent on securing home glory in endurance racing’s greatest challenge.

Gordon Cruickshank’s June 1997 feature details how in 1952 Levegh did his own Le Mans without ever removing himself from his Talbot-Lago, only to fall in the closing stages.

The Parisian’s love of his homeland pushed him to win a race the Brits and Italians had made their own. Levegh dearly wanted to taste victory in a French car, and in 1951 he and co-driver René Marchand finished fourth in a Talbot-Lago T26 GS. The pair would enter again the following year, but this time it was strictly a one-man show.

While the ’51 car had been works-backed, Levegh went privateer in ’52 so as to make technical modifications to the T26 that the manufacturer would never have allowed.

The formidable field Levegh (and theoretically Marchand) would be up against included the works Mercedes 300 SL Gullwings, low-line Jaguar C-types, Aston Martin DB3s and a five-pronged Ferrari effort.

Come the start, however, the Frenchman chose to take it steady, and it paid off. The challenge of works rivals melted away due to a whole host of reliability issues. Levegh – still yet to hand over to his team-mate – was second when the sun went down, and leading by 2am. At each pitstop his mechanics, team-mate and wife pleaded with him to make a driver change, but he refused – even when Talbot boss Tony Lago tried to intervene.

The possessed privateer kept going and by his final fuel call only had the distance of a grand prix left to go. By this point Levegh had vomited, burnt his legs on the dry sump tank and appeared dazed, but still he pressed on.

That was until disaster struck: the Talbot puttered out with just over one hour to go – handing victory to Mercedes. What happened? Levegh never publicly stated how and why his solo Le Mans dream fell apart, the reason emerging in the aftermath of his death in ’55. But you’ll have to read Cruickshank’s brilliant archive piece to get the complete picture.

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On this month…

Three-wheelers, Detroit and fish ’n’ chips

Phone numbers

July 1960
Jenks is at the Monaco GP and notices that the BRMs have unfinished cockpits: “Drivers were using sponge rubber to make themselves comfortable.” Away from the glitz we test three-wheelers. On seeing a Scootacar, a mechanic wit says, “We don’t service telephone boxes here.”

Motown medley

July 1983
The well-travelled Jenks reports from the Detroit GP: “It’s an unqualified success – it looks like ‘Motown’ will stay as the ‘Gotown’.” Later, we ask Stig Blomqvist why he sits so low in cars. “I think about the roof,” he admits. “In the Saab I roll over so often, I want to get away from it!”

Do-re-jim 

July 2009
Lunch With… is in Monte Carlo’s Hotel Columbus with Allan McNish; he orders fish and chips in newspaper – FT here! A chat with Sally Swart, girlfriend in the ’60s of Jim Clark, reveals the Scot’s top film: The Sound of Music. “He even shed a tear when the nuns sung about Maria.”