1923 French Grand Prix
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The 1923 French Grand Prix (formally the XVII Grand Prix de l'Automobile Club de France) was a Grand Prix motor race held at
Tours Tours ( , ) is one of the largest cities in the region of Centre-Val de Loire, France. It is the prefecture of the department of Indre-et-Loire. The commune of Tours had 136,463 inhabitants as of 2018 while the population of the whole metro ...
on 2 July 1923. The race was run over 35 laps of the 22.83 km circuit for a total distance of just under 800 km and was won by
Henry Segrave Sir Henry O'Neal de Hane Segrave (22 September 1896 – 13 June 1930) was an early British pioneer in land speed and water speed records. Segrave, who set three land and one water record, was the first person to hold both titles simultaneous ...
driving a Sunbeam. This race is notable as the first Grand Épreuve to be won by either a British driver or a British car. The race also featured several innovative new technologies, including the first appearance of both
supercharging In an internal combustion engine, a supercharger compresses the intake gas, forcing more air into the engine in order to produce more power for a given displacement. The current categorisation is that a supercharger is a form of forced induc ...
and
V12 engine A V12 engine is a twelve-cylinder piston engine where two banks of six cylinders are arranged in a V configuration around a common crankshaft. V12 engines are more common than V10 engines. However, they are less common than V8 engines. The f ...
s in Grand Prix racing.


Entries

Four French manufacturers entered the Grand Prix in 1923. Based locally in Tours, Rolland-Pilain entered three cars, two of which were improved versions of the straight eights raced in
1922 Events January * January 7 – Dáil Éireann, the parliament of the Irish Republic, ratifies the Anglo-Irish Treaty by 64–57 votes. * January 10 – Arthur Griffith is elected President of Dáil Éireann, the day after Éamon de Valera ...
and the third was one of last year's chassis fitted with a new straight six to be driven by
Jules Goux Jules Goux (6 April 1885 - 6 March 1965) was a French racing driver and Grand Prix motor racing champion. He was also notable for being the first Frenchman, and the first European driver, to win the Indianapolis 500. Biography Influenced by the G ...
but it did not start. Bugatti entered their new highly slipstreamed ''
Tank A tank is an armoured fighting vehicle intended as a primary offensive weapon in front-line ground combat. Tank designs are a balance of heavy firepower, strong armour, and good battlefield mobility provided by tracks and a powerful engi ...
'' model based on the Type 30, featuring an all–enveloping body. While this gave superior aerodynamic efficiency, the bodywork blocked the drivers' view of their tires, and the cars were also hampered by a short wheelbase and narrow track width on the winding and bumpy circuit. Voisin entered four cars which also featured streamlined bodies, but with the front wheels exposed, and an innovative
semi-monocoque The term semi-monocoque or semimonocoque refers to a stressed shell structure that is similar to a true monocoque, but which derives at least some of its strength from conventional reinforcement. Semi-monocoque construction is used for, among ot ...
body. Finally there was a single V12 engined Delage which featured a conventional body and chassis design but the engine was still being developed so it was surprising at the time that it arrived at all. Just two other manufacturers fielded teams in 1923. The British Sunbeam team entered three cars very closely based on the
Fiat 804 Fiat Automobiles S.p.A. (, , ; originally FIAT, it, Fabbrica Italiana Automobili di Torino, lit=Italian Automobiles Factory of Turin) is an Italian automobile manufacturer, formerly part of Fiat Chrysler Automobiles, and since 2021 a subsidiary ...
s which won in 1922. Fiat themselves (from Italy), who were the last to arrive at the circuit, entered a team of three completely new cars featuring, for the first time in Grand Prix racing, supercharged straight eight engines.


Report

The race began with a rolling start with René Thomas in the Delage, and
Kenelm Lee Guinness Kenelm Edward Lee Guinness Member of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire, MBE (14 August 1887 – 10 April 1937) was a London-born racing driver of the 1910s and 1920s mostly associated with Sunbeam Motor Car Company, Sunbeam racin ...
in a Sunbeam on the front row (the order being determined by ballot). Immediately after the start, from the second row Fiat driver
Pietro Bordino Pietro Bordino (22 November 1887 – 15 April 1928) was an Italian racecar driver. A native of Turin, he was one of Italy's top racing drivers of the 1920s. Bordino won the 1922 Italian Grand Prix and also raced in the 1925 Indianapolis 500 ...
overtook first Guinness, then Thomas to take the early lead, completing his first lap in 9 minutes and 45 seconds, faster than any driver had done in practice, and already had a lead of 41 seconds over Guinness, followed at some distance by a close pack in the order Thomas,
Enrico Giaccone Enrico is both an Italian masculine given name and a surname, Enrico means homeowner, or king, derived from ''Heinrich'' of Germanic origin. It is also a given name in Ladino. Equivalents in other languages are Henry (English), Henri ( French), ...
(Fiat),
Carlo Salamano Carlo Salamano (1891 - 19 January 1969) was an Italian racecar driver. A resident of Turin, in 1923 he drove a FIAT 805 to win the Italian Grand Prix at Monza, the event also serving as the inaugural European Grand Prix; it was the first victor ...
(Fiat), Segrave (Sunbeam), Albert Divo (Sunbeam),
Albert Guyot Albert Guyot (25 December 1881 in Orléans – 24 May 1947 in Neuilly-sur-Seine) was a French racecar driver. He was one of four drivers who entered with Duesenberg the 1921 French Grand Prix The 1921 French Grand Prix (formally the XV Gr ...
(Rolland-Pilain) and Ernest Friderich (Bugatti). Overheating caused Thomas to drop back, while the two other Fiats moved up into third and fourth place. Segrave also dropped back during his third lap due to a slipping clutch, an issue which existed even for the start of the race due to an incorrectly adjusted clutch pedal. Divo began to challenge the Fiats, taking second place from Salamano on his fourth lap. Guyot also moved up the field, reaching sixth place on his fourth lap having passed Segrave. Bordino continued pushing, increasing his lead over Guinness to almost four minutes by the start of the eighth lap, who had himself continued to increase the gap back to the other two Fiats. However, on the eighth lap, Bordino suffered a supercharger failure, believed to be caused by the large amount of stones and other debris on the Tours circuit. This handed Guinness a healthy lead. Not long after Thomas retired the Delage which had not been expected to perform well for long due to it being an undeveloped design. With Guinness leading the field, Divo's efforts the catch the Fiats had exhausted his riding mechanic, forcing him to stop for him to be replaced. This allowed Guyot into fourth place, defying early low expectations for the local Rolland-Pilains. At the end of lap 11, Segrave made a scheduled pit stop. His lead was enough that he rejoined the race still in first place, but Giaccone was very close behind. Giaccone took first place during lap 12, and clutch issues in Guinness' car dropped him all the way back to sixth place by lap 15, with the order then being Giaccone, Salamano, Divo, Guyot, Segrave, Guinness, Freidrich, with
Henri Rougier Henri Louis Rougier, (28 October 1876 – July 1956)Champagne, Berc ...
in eighth place in the best placed Voisin. Segrave had again started moving up through the field: the stop on his clutch pedal having worn off he was able to overtake the slowing Guyot. At the end of lap 16, both Fiats came to the pits. Giaccone had difficulty starting, his car sounded rough and would retire after completing one more lap with similar supercharger issues to Bordino. Salamano maintained first place but was quickly losing ground to Divo who took first place on lap 20. This was short lived, however, as Salamano retook the lead on the 23rd lap, building up a lead of over four minutes by the end of lap 30 over Divo and Segrave, with Guinness keeping the Sunbeam 2–3–4 nearly 30 minutes off of the lead, and less than three minutes ahead of Freidrich in the only remaining Bugatti. Guyot's race had ended after 28 laps, retiring whilst in fourth place and what could have eventually been a podium position.
André Lefêbvre André — sometimes transliterated as Andre — is the French and Portuguese form of the name Andrew, and is now also used in the English-speaking world. It used in France, Quebec, Canada and other French-speaking countries. It is a variation o ...
was a further 40 minutes behind Freidrich in the only remaining Voisin. Divo stopped for fuel at the end of the 30th lap but jammed his filler cap. Having wasted over 15 minutes trying to fix the issue he decided to go on with just the reserve tank, forcing him to stop each lap for more fuel. Around the same time Divo set off again, with just two laps to go Salamano failed to appear past the pits when expected, with the next car through being Segrave, now just a lap behind Salamano. Eventually Salamano's mechanic appeared running towards the pits, with the car apparently out of fuel just a couple of miles from the pits. After a disagreement with officials about using a bicycle to return to the car, the mechanic eventually set off on foot, only to find that the issue in Salamano's Fiat was another supercharger failure. So with the race nearly over Sunbeam had a 1–2–3 finish in hand when on his final lap, Guinness stalled at the ''la Membrolle'' hairpin costing him over two minutes and allowing Freidrich through into third place. Lefêbvre was the last to finish, nearly 50 minutes behind fourth placed Guinness.


Classification


References

{{Grand Prix race report , Name_of_race =
French Grand Prix The French Grand Prix (french: Grand Prix de France), formerly known as the Grand Prix de l'ACF (Automobile Club de France), is an auto race held as part of the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile's annual Formula One World Championsh ...
, Year_of_race = 1923 , Previous_race_in_season =
1923 Indianapolis 500 The 11th International 500-Mile Sweepstakes Race was held at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway on Wednesday, May 30, 1923. After winning previously in 1921, Tommy Milton became the first multiple winner of the Indianapolis 500. Howdy Wilcox (the ...
, Next_race_in_season =
1923 Italian Grand Prix The 1923 Italian Grand Prix was a Grand Prix motor race held at Monza on 9 September 1923. It was the first race to be designated as the European Grand Prix. Classification References {{Grand Prix race report , Name_of_race ...
, Previous_year's_race = 1922 French Grand Prix , Next_year's_race = 1924 French Grand Prix French Grand Prix
French Grand Prix The French Grand Prix (french: Grand Prix de France), formerly known as the Grand Prix de l'ACF (Automobile Club de France), is an auto race held as part of the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile's annual Formula One World Championsh ...
1923 in French motorsport