THERE is little point at this late stage after the Le Mans 24 hour race in giving a lap by lap or hour by hour detailed account of the event; it is sufficient to précis the major happenings between 4 p.m. on Saturday, June 21st and 4 p.m. on Sunday, June 22nd, and then look more closely into the why’s and wherefore’s of the event. For the first two hours weather conditions were good and Stirling Moss, driving a DBR1/300 Aston Martin ran away from the rest of the field. Without apparently stressing the engine Moss built up a commanding lead ready for when his co-driver Jack Brabham took over, but after only 2 hours 10 minutes of racing the Aston Martin engine broke in a big way and Moss stopped at Mulsanne. This left Von Trips (Ferrari), Brooks (Aston Martin) and Hawthorn (Ferrari) battling for the lead, but the last of the three stopped to refuel and Collins took over. As if in sympathy with Moss’ retirement, the skies burst asunder and torrential rain fell which prevented any further serious racing, and foul weather conditions continued throughout the evening, the night, the early morning, and intermittently, all day Sunday.
Due to driver changes and the second driver not being able to keep up the pace of the number one driver, both the Trips/Seidel Ferrari and the Brooks/Trintignant Aston Martin lost ground during the evening, while the Gendebien/Hill Ferrari gained a commanding lead. The Collins/ Hawthorn Ferrari was delayed at the pits for a long time with clutch trouble and it was never able to re-challenge the leaders, finally retiring from the fray, while any hopes of a Jaguar challenge looked meagre indeed, for the two Ecurie Ecosse D-types had retired within 30 minutes of the start, both with burst pistons and in the opening stages the only other Jaguar of any consequence, that of Hamilton/Bueb seemed to be outclassed. However, though the car might have been outclassed by the Ferraris and Aston Martins, the drivers most certainly were not, and in the rain and dark of Saturday evening, the car moved steadily up the leader board. Just before midnight on Saturday, in terrible weather conditions Bueb did a fine job of driving, weaving in and out of the slower cars and caught and passed Gendebien who was driving the leading Ferrari. The Belgian driver then stopped for fuel and Phil Hill took over, but shortly after that Bueb came in for a refuel and to hand over to Hamilton and though the dark green Jaguar got away before the Ferrari appeared, by the end of the next lap Hill had caught and passed Hamilton.
For a brief spell the rain stopped, though everything was still very wet and the Ferrari drew further and further away into the lead. During the early hours of the morning the Brooks/Trintignant Aston Martin which had been lying third went out with transmission trouble and Seidel put his works Ferrari into a ditch and by consistent and reliable running the Debra/Henmann 1600 Porsche RSK came up into third place, followed by the two Whiteheads in their privately prepared DB3S Aston Martin. Around breakfast time on Sunday the Porsche developed brake trouble and lost a lot of time having a brake drum and brake shoes replaced and this let the Whitehead’s into third place, behind the Hamilton/Bueb Jaguar. The leading Ferrari was running comfortably within its limits, neither Hill nor Gendebien having to take risks in the continual rain, nor did they need to strain the Ferrari engine or brakes. At midday on Sunday it was still raining, and Hamilton spun off the road in the second place Jaguar and this let the Whitehead’s in second position with the Behra/Herrmann Porsche now third and fully-braked once more. With now nearly 100 miles lead the Ferrari toured round, going just fast enough not to look ridiculous and won what must have surely been the wettest Le Mans on record.
