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1951 24 Hours Of Le Mans
The 1951 24 Hours of Le Mans was the 19th Grand Prix of Endurance, and took place on 23 and 24 June 1951. It was won by Peter Walker and Peter Whitehead in their works-entered Jaguar C-type, the first Le Mans win for the marque. The arrival of Jaguar's and Cunningham's first purpose-built racers in direct competition with Ferrari, and the first showing for Porsche and Lancia, marked the beginning of an era of intense competition between manufacturers of sports cars. The more powerful new sport racers would develop rapidly and put a final end to luxury touring cars and their derivatives as top contenders at Le Mans. It was the final outing for Delahaye and Bentley (for 50 years) and the sports prototype tide would overwhelm Talbot-Lago in the next couple of years. The race was marred by the death of French driver Jean Larivière within the opening laps of the race. Regulations This year there were no significant changes to the regulations, by either the CSI or the Automobile Club ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Vittorio Jano
Vittorio Jano ( hu, János Viktor; 22 April 1891 – 13 March 1965) was an Italian automobile designer of Hungarian descent from the 1920s through 1960s. Jano was born ''Viktor János'' in San Giorgio Canavese, in Piedmont, to Hungarian immigrants, who arrived there several years earlier. He began at the car and truck company Società Torinese Automobili Rapid owned by G.B. Ceirano. In 1911 he moved to Fiat under Luigi Bazzi. He moved with Bazzi to Alfa Romeo in 1923 to replace Giuseppe Merosi as chief engineer. At Alfa Romeo his first design was the 8-cylinder in-line mounted P2 Grand Prix car, which won Alfa Romeo the inaugural world championship for Grand Prix cars in 1925. In 1932, he produced the sensational P3 model which later was raced with great success by Enzo Ferrari when he began Scuderia Ferrari in 1933. For Alfa road cars Jano developed a series of small-to-medium-displacement 4-, 6-, and 8-cylinder inline power plants based on the P2 unit that established t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tony Rolt
Major Anthony Peter Roylance Rolt, MC & Bar, (16 October 1918 – 6 February 2008) was a British racing driver, soldier and engineer. A war hero, Rolt maintained a long connection with the sport, albeit behind the scenes. The Ferguson 4WD project he was involved in paid off with spectacular results, and he was involved in other engineering projects. At his death, he was the longest surviving participant of the first ever World Championship Grand Prix at Silverstone in 1950. He was one of the last prewar winners remaining too – he won the 1939 British Empire Trophy, aged just 20 in 1939 – this was after he started his career in 1935, as a 16-year-old, in a 3-wheeler Morgan in speed trials. He won the 1953 24 Hours of Le Mans and participated in three Formula One World Championship Grands Prix. Early life and prewar racing Rolt was born in Bordon, Hampshire, and brought up at St Asaph in Denbighshire, Wales. He was the fourth child of Brigadier-General Stuart Rolt, a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pierre Levegh
Pierre Eugène Alfred Bouillin (22 December 1905 – 11 June 1955) was a French sportsman and racing driver. He took the racing name Pierre Levegh in memory of his uncle, a pioneering driver who died in 1904. Levegh died in the 1955 Le Mans disaster which also killed 83 spectators during the 1955 24 Hours of Le Mans automobile race. Career Levegh, who was born in Paris, France, was also an ice hockey and tennis player. In motorsport he competed in Formula One for the Talbot-Lago team in 1950 and 1951, starting six races, retiring in three, and scoring no points. At Le Mans he raced for Talbot in four races, finishing fourth in 1951. In 1952, driving single-handedly, his car suffered an engine failure in the last hour of the race with a four lap lead. The failure was due to a bolt in the central crankshaft bearing having come loose many hours earlier in the race, although many fans placed the blame on driver fatigue. Levegh had refused to let his co-driver take over because he f ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Brian Shawe-Taylor
Brian Newton Shawe-Taylor (28 January 1915 – 1 May 1999) was a British racing driver. He participated in 3 World Championship Grands Prix and numerous non-Championship Formula One races. He scored no World Championship points. Shawe-Taylor was born in Dublin, Ireland, the younger of two sons of Francis Manley Shawe-Taylor (1869–1920), magistrate and high sheriff for the county of Galway, and his wife, Agnes Mary Eleanor ''née'' Ussher (1874–1939).Warrack, John"Taylor, Desmond Christopher Shawe- (1907–1995)" ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'', Oxford University Press, September 2004; online edition, May 2009, accessed 30 May 2010 (requires subscription) His parents were members of the Anglo-Irish ruling classes; he was related to the playwright and co-founder of the Abbey Theatre, Lady Gregory and a cousin of Sir Hugh Lane who founded Dublin's gallery of modern art."Desmond Shawe-Taylor – Obituary", ''The Times'', 3 November 1995 Following the murder of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
George Abecassis
George Edgar Abecassis (21 March 1913 – 18 December 1991) was a British racing driver, and co-founder of the HWM Formula One team. Pre-1946 career Born in Oatlands, Surrey, Abecassis was educated at Clifton College. He began circuit racing in 1935 in a modified Austin Seven which became known as ''The Einsitzer''. After taking 1937 as a year away from the track, he acquired an Alta and made a name for himself in English national racing during the 1938 and 1939 seasons. In 1939, he won the Imperial Trophy Formula Libre race at Crystal Palace, driving his Alta, defeating Prince Bira, in the E.R.A. known as ''Romulus'', in a wet race, "that being the only time it was beaten by a car in the British Isles." At one point, Abecassis held the Campbell circuit lap record at Brooklands at On 3 July 1938 Abecassis broke the Prescott Hill Climb record with a climb of 47.85 seconds in his supercharged 1½-litre Alta. When World War II broke out he joined the Royal Air Force, as a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Guy Mairesse
Guy Mairesse (10 August 1910 – 24 April 1954) was a French racing driver. He participated in three Formula One World Championship ''Grands Prix'', debuting on 3 September 1950. He scored no championship points. Mairesse built a haulage business during the interwar period, and became interested in motor sport in 1946 through his friendship with Le Mans driver, Paul Vallée. He won the Lyon-Charbonnières Rally in 1947 and then purchased a Delahaye from Vallée for 1948, with which he was victorious at Chimay. In 1949 Mairesse joined Vallée's team, Ecurie France, to race the Lago-Talbot and took fourth place at Pau and fifth at Albi. In 1950 he finished second at Le Mans with Pierre Meyrat using a single seat Talbot. Towards the end of that season the Vallée team closed and Mairesse purchased the Le Mans car and a Lago-Talbot T26C, which he used to enter the 1950 Italian Grand Prix, from which he retired, and the Swiss and French Grands Prix in 1951, finishin ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Eric Thompson (racing Driver)
Eric David Thompson (4 November 1919 – 22 August 2015) was a British motor racing driver, book dealer and insurance broker. He participated in sports car racing between 1949 and 1955 taking his greatest success by finishing third in the 1951 Les 24 Heures du Mans and took part in the 1952 RAC British Grand Prix. Thompson worked as a broker for Lloyd's of London. His racing career started in 1948, racing cars for HRG. He won the 1.5-litre class in the Les 24 Heures du Mans in 1949 and drove for Aston Martin driving a DB2 to third place in the 1951 24 Hours of Le Mans. He also drove in Formula Libre, RAC Tourist Trophy and Formula Two achieving minor success. He took part in his only Formula One race in the 1952 RAC British Grand Prix finishing fifth, and later spent more time working at Lloyd's. He retired from motor racing at the end of 1955. Thompson resigned from Lloyd's in the 1980s and became a dealer of rare books on motorsport. Biography Early life Thompson was b ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lance Macklin
Lance Noel Macklin (2 September 1919 – 29 August 2002) was a British racing driver from England. He participated in 15 Formula One World Championship Grands Prix, debuting on 18 May 1952. He was infamously involved in the 1955 Le Mans disaster, starting the initial chain reaction. Early life Macklin's father was the automotive entrepreneur Noel Macklin, founder of both the Invicta and Railton car companies, as well as Fairmile Marine, a manufacturer of motor gun and torpedo boats during World War II. Macklin was born in Kensington, and educated at Eton College. He volunteered for service with the Royal Navy in 1939 and (in line with his father's business) was assigned to work on motor gun boats. Motoring career On demobilisation after the Second World War, Macklin followed his early ambition and became a racing driver, although an early attempt to enter a race on the Isle of Man was refused on grounds that he had no experience. He secured an entry to the 1948 Grand Prix d ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John Fitch (driver)
John Cooper Fitch (August 4, 1917 in Indianapolis, Indiana – October 31, 2012) was an American racing driver and inventor. He was the first American to race automobiles successfully in Europe in the post-war era. In the course of a driving career which spanned 18 years, Fitch won such notable sports car races as the Gran Premio de Eva Duarte Perón – Sport, 1953 12 Hours of Sebring, 1955 Mille Miglia (production car class), and the 1955 RAC Tourist Trophy, as well as numerous SCCA National Sports Car Championship races. He was also involved in Briggs Cunningham's ambitious Le Mans projects in the early 1950s, and was later a member of the Mercedes-Benz sport car team. He also competed in two World Championship Grands Prix. After retirement in 1964, Fitch was the manager of Lime Rock circuit, and a former team boss of Chevrolet's Corvette racing team. His biggest legacy is motor sport safety, as well as pioneering work to improve road car safety, and this has helped sa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Maurice Trintignant
Maurice Bienvenu Jean Paul Trintignant (30 October 1917 – 13 February 2005) was a motor racing driver and vintner from France. He competed in the Formula One World Championship for fourteen years, between 1950 and 1964, one of the longest careers in the early years of Formula One. During this time he also competed in sports car racing, including winning the 1954 24 Hours of Le Mans race. Following his retirement from the track Trintignant concentrated on the wine trade. Maurice Trintignant was the brother of Bugatti race car driver Louis Trintignant — who was killed in 1933, in practice, at Péronne, Picardy — and the uncle of renowned French film actor Jean-Louis Trintignant. Racing career He began racing in 1938, and won the 1939 Grand Prix des Frontières, but his career was interrupted by the Second World War, during which his own Bugatti was stored in a barn. When he rebuilt it for an event of 1945, the '' Coupé de la Liberation'', he overlooked a clogged fuel filte ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Robert Manzon
Robert Manzon (12 April 1917 – 19 January 2015) was a French racing driver. He participated in 29 Formula One World Championship Grands Prix, debuting on 21 May 1950. He achieved two podiums, and scored a total of 16 championship points. At the time of his death, Manzon was the last surviving driver to have taken part in the first Formula One World Championship in 1950. Career Manzon began his career as a mechanic and after World War II he started racing, initially with a Cisitalia D46. Earning a contract with the Gordini team for 1948, Manzon won some minor races although his machinery was not always reliable. He continued with Gordini into the new Formula One era, scoring points at the 1950 French Grand Prix, and finishing sixth in the World Drivers' Championship in 1952, taking third place in the 1952 Belgian Grand Prix. He left Gordini in 1953 and joined Louis Rosier's team, which was campaigning Ferraris. He subsequently achieved his second podium at the 1954 French Gra ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
