The long shadow of Le Mans 1955

On October 16, 1955, Stirling Moss and Peter Collins led a Mercedes-Benz 1-2-4 at the Targa Florio to clinch the manufacturers’ world championship and complete a dominant season in the wheel tracks of Juan Manuel Fangio’s F1 title. Little did anyone know it would be 34 years before a Silver Arrow would again grace the track, when a Sauber-Mercedes C9 carried the famous colours to victory at a World Sports-Prototype Championship round at Suzuka on April 9 1989.

The silencing of racing engines for more than three decades has always been blamed on the Le Mans disaster of that tragic 1955 season, when Pierre Levegh’s 300 SLR was launched off the back of Lance Macklin’s Austin Healey and into the crowd opposite the pits, killing more than 80 and injuring almost 100 more. But Mercedes has always claimed its decision to withdraw was down to more practical reasons. Fritz Nallinger, board member responsible for engineering, said at a ceremony honouring its racing drivers on October 22, 1955: “The development of our product makes it appear advisable to put these highly skilled people to work now, without overtaxing them, solely in an area which is the most interesting to our customers, namely production car engineering.” It’s even claimed the decision pre-dated Le Mans.

Whatever the backstory, consider the context of the disaster: it was just 10 years after the second war of the century in which Germany had wrought devastation on France. It also sparked a backlash against motor sport that led to the cancellation of four grands prix and a long-lasting ban on racing in Switzerland. A withdrawal was entirely reasonable.

Le Mans 1955 cast a long, dark shadow, even though poor Levegh was blameless for an accident that was triggered by Mike Hawthorn – in a Jaguar. Undeserved ‘shame’ kept Mercedes away and explains why clandestine measures were taken as 1980s engineers went racing on the quiet.

In truth, the Silver Arrows’ return was long overdue.