The
1906 Grand Prix de l'Automobile Club de France, commonly known as the
1906 French Grand Prix, was a
motor race held on 26 and 27 June 1906, on closed public roads outside the city of
Le Mans. The Grand Prix was organised by the
Automobile Club de France (ACF) at the prompting of the French
automobile industry as an alternative to the
Gordon Bennett races,
which limited each competing country's number of entries regardless of
the size of its industry. France had the largest automobile industry in
Europe at the time, and in an attempt to better reflect this the Grand
Prix had no limit to the number of entries by any particular country.
The ACF chose a 103.18-kilometre (64.11 mi) circuit, composed primarily
of dust roads sealed with
tar,
which would be lapped six times on both days by each competitor, a
combined race distance of 1,238.16 kilometres (769.36 mi). Lasting for
more than 12 hours overall, the race was won by
Ferenc Szisz driving for the
Renault team.
FIAT driver
Felice Nazzaro finished second, and
Albert Clément was third in a
Clément-Bayard.
Paul Baras of
Brasier set the
fastest lap
of the race on his first lap. He held on to the lead until the third
lap, when Szisz took over first position, defending it to the finish.
Hot conditions melted the road tar, which the cars kicked up into the
faces of the drivers, blinding them and making the racing treacherous.
Punctures were common; tyre manufacturer
Michelin introduced a detachable
rim
with a tyre already affixed, which could be quickly swapped onto a car
after a puncture, saving a significant amount of time over manually
replacing the tyre. This helped Nazzaro pass Clément on the second day,
as the FIAT—unlike the Clément-Bayard—made use of the rims.
Renault's victory contributed to an increase in sales for the French
manufacturer in the years following the race. Despite being the second
to carry the title, the race has become known as the first Grand Prix.
The success of the 1906 French Grand Prix prompted the ACF to run the
Grand Prix again the
following year, and the German automobile industry to organise the
Kaiserpreis, the forerunner to the
German Grand Prix, in 1907.
The first
French Grand Prix originated from the
Gordon Bennett races, established by American millionaire
James Gordon Bennett, Jr. in 1900. Intended to encourage
automobile industries through sport, by 1903 the Gordon Bennett races had become some of the most prestigious in Europe;
[2]
their formula of closed-road racing among similar cars replaced the
previous model of unregulated vehicles racing between distant towns,
over open roads. Entries into the Gordon Bennett races were by country,
and the winning country earned the right to organise the next race.
[3]
Entries were limited to three per country, which meant that although
the nascent motor industry in Europe was dominated by French
manufacturers, they were denied the opportunity to fully demonstrate
their superiority. Instead, the rule put them on a numerical level
footing with countries such as Switzerland, with only one manufacturer,
and allowed
Mercedes, which had factories in Germany and Austria, to field six entries: three from each country.
[4] The French
governing body, the
Automobile Club de France
(ACF), held trials between its manufacturers before each race; in 1904
twenty-nine entries competed for the three positions on offer.
[5]
When
Léon Théry won the 1904 race for the French manufacturer
Richard-Brasier,
the French automobile industry proposed to the ACF that they modify the
format of the 1905 Gordon Bennett race and run it simultaneously with
an event which did not limit entries by nation.
[2]
The ACF accepted the proposal, but decided that instead of removing
limits to entries by nation, the limits would remain but would be
determined by the size of each country's industry. Under the ACF's
proposal, France was allowed fifteen entries, Germany and Britain six,
and the remaining countries—Italy, Switzerland, Belgium, Austria and the
United States—three cars each.
[6]
The French proposal was met with strong opposition from governing
bodies representing the other Gordon Bennett nations, and at the
instigation of Germany a meeting of the bodies was organised to settle
the dispute. Although the delegates rejected the French model for the
1905 race, to avoid deadlock they agreed to use the new system of limits
for the 1906 race. But when Théry and Richard-Brasier won again in
1905, and the responsibility for organising the 1906 race fell once more
to the ACF, the French ended the Gordon Bennett races and organised
their own event as a replacement, the Grand Prix de l'Automobile Club de
France.
[6]
The Track
A combined offer from the city council of
Le Mans and local hoteliers to contribute funding to the Grand Prix persuaded the ACF to hold the race on the outskirts of the city,
[7] where the
Automobile Club de la Sarthe devised a 103.18-kilometre (64.11 mi) circuit.
[nb 2][8][9]
Running through farmlands and forests, the track, like most circuits of
the time, formed a triangle. It started outside of the village of
Montfort, and headed south-west towards Le Mans. Competitors then took the Fourche
hairpin,
which turned sharply left and slowed the cars to around 50 kilometres
per hour (31 mph), and then an essentially straight road through
Bouloire south-east towards
Saint-Calais. The town was bypassed with a temporary wooden
plank road,
as the track headed north on the next leg of the triangle. Another
plank road through a forest to a minor road allowed the track to bypass
most of the town of
Vibraye, before it again headed north to the outskirts of
La Ferté-Bernard.
A series of left-hand turns took competitors back south-west towards
Montfort on the last leg of the triangle, a straight broken by a more
technical winding section, near the town of
Connerré.
[10][11]
Competitors lapped the circuit twelve times over two days, six times on
each day, a total distance of 1,238.16 kilometres (769.36 mi).
[9]
To address concerns about previous races, during which spectators
crowding too close to the track had been killed or injured by cars, the
ACF erected 65 kilometres (40 mi) of
palisade
fencing around the circuit, concentrated around towns and villages, and
at the ends of lanes, footpaths and roads intersecting the track.
[10]
The planking used to avoid the towns of Saint-Calais and Vibraye was
installed as an alternative to the system used in the Gordon Bennett
races, where cars passing through towns would slow down to a set speed
and were forbidden to overtake.
[12] Several
footbridges were erected over the track, and a 2,000-seat canopied
grandstand was built at the start and finish line at Montfort. This faced the
pit lane
on the other side of the track, where the teams were based and could
work on the cars. A tunnel under the track connected the grandstand and
the pit lane.
[11]
The road surface was little more than compacted dust and sharp stones
which could be easily kicked up by the cars, and to limit the resulting
problem of impaired visibility and punctures the ACF sealed the entire
length of the track with tar. More was added to the bends of the track
after cars running on them during practice broke up the surface.
[5][10]
Entries and cars
Ten French manufacturers entered cars in the Grand Prix:
Clément-Bayard,
Hotchkiss,
Gobron-Brillié,
Darracq,
Vulpes,
Brasier (the successor to Richard-Brasier),
Panhard,
Grégoire,
Lorraine-Dietrich and
Renault. Two teams came from Italy (
FIAT and
Itala)
and one (Mercedes) from Germany. With the exceptions of Gobron-Brillié
and Vulpes, which each entered one car, and Grégoire, which entered two
cars, each team entered three cars, to make a total field of thirty-four
entries.
[14] No British or American manufacturers entered the Grand Prix. The British were suspicious that the event was designed as
propaganda for the French automobile industry; British magazine
The Motor quoted French daily newspaper
Le Petit Parisien as evidence of this supposed lack of
sportsmanship.
[13][15]
The ACF imposed a maximum weight limit—excluding tools,
upholstery,
wings, lights and light fittings—of 1,000 kilograms (2,205 lb), with an additional 7 kilograms (15 lb) allowed for a
magneto or
dynamo, to be used for
ignition.
[16][17] Regulations limited
fuel consumption to 30 litres per 100 kilometres (9.4 mpg
-imp; 7.8 mpg
-US).
[16]
Every team opted for a magneto system; all used a low-tension system
except Clément-Bayard, Panhard, Hotchkiss, Gobron-Brillié, and Renault,
which used high-tension.
[13] Mercedes, Brasier, Clément-Bayard, FIAT and Gobron-Brillié used a
chain drive system for transmission; the rest used
drive shafts.
[17] All entries were fitted with four-cylinder engines;
engine displacement ranged from 7,433 cubic centimetres (454 cu in) for the Grégoire to 18,279 cubic centimetres (1,115 cu in) for the Panhard.
[18] Exhaust pipes were directed upwards to limit the dust kicked up off the roads.
[10]
Teams were allowed to change drivers and equipment, but only at the end
of the first day's running, not while the race was in progress.
[19]
Michelin,
Dunlop and
Continental supplied tyres for the race.
[20] In the Grand Prix's one major technical innovation, Michelin introduced the
jante amovible: a detachable
rim
with a tyre already affixed, which could be quickly swapped onto the
car in the event of a puncture. Unlike in the Gordon Bennett races, only
the driver and his
riding mechanic
were allowed to work on the car during the race, hence carrying the
detachable rims could save time and confer a large advantage. The
conventional method of changing a tyre, which involved slicing off the
old tyre with a knife, and forcing the new tyre onto the rim, generally
took around fifteen minutes; replacing Michelin's rims took less than
four.
[21] The FIATs each used a full set, while the Renaults and two of the Clément-Bayards used them on the rear wheels of their cars.
[14]
As carrying each rim added 9 kilograms (20 lb) to the weight of the car
over conventional wheels and tyres, some teams—such as Itala and
Panhard—could not carry them without exceeding the weight limit.
[5][14]
The Grand Prix name ("Great Prize") referred to the prize of 45,000
French francs to the race winner.
[22] The franc was pegged to the gold at 0.290 grams per franc, which meant that the prize was worth 13 kg of gold.
Race
Roads around the track were closed to the public at 5 am on the morning of the race.
[23] A draw took place among the thirteen teams to determine the starting order, and assign each team a number.
[24]
Each of a team's three entries was assigned a letter, one of "A", "B",
or "C". Two lines of cars formed behind the start line at Montfort: cars
marked "A" in one line and cars marked "B" in the other. Cars assigned
the letter "C" were the last away; they formed a single line at the side
of the track so that any cars which had completed their first circuit
of the track would be able to pass. Cars were dispatched at 90-second
intervals, beginning at 6 am.
[nb 3][23] Lorraine-Dietrich driver
Fernand Gabriel (numbered "1A") was scheduled to be the first competitor to start, but he
stalled on the line and could not restart his car before the FIAT of
Vincenzo Lancia, who was next in line, drove away.
[12] Renault's lead driver, the Hungarian
Ferenc Szisz, started next, and behind him
Victor Hémery of Darracq,
Paul Baras of Brasier,
Camille Jenatzy of Mercedes,
Louis Rigolly of Gobron-Brillié and
Alessandro Cagno
of Itala. Philippe Tavenaux of Grégoire, scheduled next, was unable to
start; the only other non-starter was the sole Vulpes of Marius
Barriaux, which was withdrawn before the race when it was found to be
over the weight limit. The last of the thirty-two starters—the
Clément-Bayard of "de la Touloubre",
[nb 4] numbered "13C"—left the start line at 6:49:30 am.
[18]
Itala driver Maurice Fabry started the fastest of the competitors; he
covered the first kilometre in 43.4 seconds. Over the full distance of
the lap Brasier's Baras was the quickest; his lap time of 52 minutes and
25.4 seconds (52:25.4) moved him up to third position on the road and
into the lead overall.
[5][25]
A mechanical problem caused Gabriel to lose control of his car at
Saint-Calais; he regained control in time to avoid a serious accident
but was forced to retire.
[26]
Baras maintained his lead after the second lap, but fell back to second
the next lap as Szisz took over the lead. As the day grew hotter—it
reached a high of
49 °C (120 °F)—the
tar began to melt, which proved to be a greater problem than the dust;
it was kicked up by the cars into the faces of the drivers and their
mechanics, seeping past their goggles and inflaming their eyes.
[5][25]
The Renault driver, J. Edmond, was particularly affected: his broken
goggles allowed more tar to seep past and rendered him nearly blind. His
attempts to change the goggles at a pit stop were rejected by officials
on the grounds that equipment could not be replaced mid-race. Nor could
another driver be substituted; he continued for two more laps before
retiring.
[19]
FIAT driver Aldo Weilschott climbed from fourteenth on lap three to
third on lap five, before his car rolled off the planks outside of
Vibraye.
[27]
Szisz maintained the lead he had gained on lap three to finish the
first day just before noon in a time of 5 hours, 45 minutes and
30.4 seconds (5:45:30.4), 26 minutes ahead of
Albert Clément of Clément-Bayard.
[28] Despite a slow start, FIAT driver
Felice Nazzaro moved up to third position, 15 minutes behind Clément. Seventeen cars completed the first day;
Henri Rougier's Lorraine-Dietrich finished last with a time of 8:15:55.0, two-and-a-half-hours behind Szisz.
[27][28] All the cars that were competing the next day were moved into
parc fermé, a
floodlit area guarded overnight by members of the ACF, to prevent teams and drivers from working on them until the following morning.
[27]
The time each car set on the first day determined the time they set
off on the second day, hence Szisz's first-day time of 5 hours and
45 minutes meant he started at 5:45 am. Following the same principle,
Clément began at 6:11 am and Nazzaro at 6:26 am. This method ensured
that positions on the road directly reflected the race standings. A
horse, which had been trained before the race to be accustomed to the
loud noise of an engine starting, towed each competitor out of parc
fermé to the start line.
[29]
As neither driver nor mechanic could work on their car until they had
been given the signal to start the day's running, Szisz and Clément
began by heading directly to the pit lane to change tyres and service
their cars. Clément completed his stop more quickly than Szisz, and
Nazzaro did not stop at all, and so Clément closed his time gap to Szisz
and Nazzaro closed on Clément.
[27]
Jenatzy and Lancia, who were both suffering eye problems from the first
day, had intended to retire from the race and be relieved by their
reserve drivers. As planned, "Burton" took over Jenatzy's car, but
Lancia was forced to resume in his street clothes when his replacement
driver could not be found when the car was due to start.
[30]
Hotchkiss driver
Elliott Shepard,
who finished the first day in fourth, less than four minutes behind
Nazzaro, spent half-an-hour working on his car at the start of the
second day, fitting new tyres and changing liquids. On the eighth lap,
he ran off the wooden planking at Saint-Calais but was able to resume; a
wheel failure later in the lap caused him to run into a bank of earth
and forced him to retire.
[30][31]
Panhard driver Georges Teste crashed early in the day and retired, as
did Claude Richez of Renault; the sole Gobron-Brillié of Rigolly
suffered
radiator damage on lap seven and was forced out of the race.
[32]
After two laps' running on the second day, second-placed Clément had
established a 23-minute lead over Nazzaro, but this was reduced to three
minutes on the following lap. Despite Nazzaro passing Clément on lap
ten, a refuelling stop for the FIAT soon after put Clément back in
front. Nazzaro passed again, and led Clément into the last lap of the
race by less than a minute.
[32]
Szisz's Renault suffered a broken rear
suspension
on the tenth lap, but his lead was so great (more than 30 minutes) that
he could afford to drive cautiously with the damage. He took the black
flag of the winner at the finish line after a combined total from the
two days of 12:12:07.0; he had also been quicker on the straight than
any other driver, reaching a top speed of 154 kilometres per hour
(96 mph).
[5][33][34]
He finished 32 minutes ahead of second-placed Nazzaro, who was in turn
3 minutes ahead of Clément. Jules Barillier's Brasier was fourth, ahead
of Lancia and Panhard driver
George Heath. Baras—whose first lap was the fastest of any car during the race—was seventh, ahead of
Arthur Duray
of Lorraine-Dietrich, "Pierry" of Brasier, and "Burton". The last
finisher, the Mercedes driver "Mariaux", was eleventh, more than four
hours behind Szisz. Rougier, who had set the fastest lap of the day with
a time of 53:16.4, had retired on lap ten after a long series of
punctures.
[34] Of the other retirements, Hémery,
René Hanriot and
Louis Wagner
of Darracq suffered engine problems; the radiators on the cars of
Rigolly of Gobron-Brillié, Xavier Civelli de Bosch of Grégoire and Cagno
of Itala failed;
Pierre de Caters of Itala, Shepard and
Hubert Le Blon of Hotchkiss, A. Villemain of Clément-Bayard and
Vincenzo Florio
of Mercedes withdrew after wheel failures; Gabriel of
Lorraine-Dietrich, "de la Touloubre" of Clément-Bayard and Henri Tart of
Panhard retired because of other mechanical problems; and Fabry of
Itala, Weilschott of FIAT, Teste of Panhard, Richez of Renault and
Jacques Salleron of Hotchkiss suffered crash damage. Edmond of Renault
was the only competitor whose retirement was the result of driver
injury.
[34]
Post-race and legacy
The top three finishers were escorted to the grandstand to collect
their trophies. In an interview after the race, Szisz reflected on the
"anxiety" he had felt as he drove the final laps: "I feared something
small which would take away victory at the moment when it had seemed to
be won."
[33]
The prestige Renault gained from Szisz's victory led to an increase in
sales for the company, from around 1,600 cars in 1906 to more than 3,000
a year later, and increasing to more than 4,600 in 1908.
[35]
But the race had not proven the superiority of the French motorcar; an
Italian car had finished second and only seven of the twenty-three
French cars that had started the race finished it.
[34]
Reflections on the race by the organisers and the media generally
concluded that the Grand Prix had been a poor replacement for the Gordon
Bennett races. In part, this had been because the race was too long,
and the system of starting the race—with each car leaving at 90-second
intervals—had meant that there had been very little interaction between
the competitors, simply cars driving their own races to time.
[nb 5][34][38]
The ACF decided that too much pressure had been put on drivers and
riding mechanics by forbidding others to work on the cars during the
race.
[39]
It was also felt that the outcome of the race had been too dependent on
the use of Michelin's detachable rims. Clément had driven the only
Clément-Bayard to not have the rims, and it was thought that this
contributed to Nazzaro passing him on the second day as he stopped to
change tyres.
[34][35] Despite this, the ACF decided to run the Grand Prix again the
following year.
[40]
The publicity generated by the race prompted the German governing body
to organise a similar event that favoured their own industry. The
forerunner to the
German Grand Prix, the
Kaiserpreis (
Kaiser's Prize) was raced in 1907.
[40]
The conference held in 1904 to consider the French proposal for a
change in formula to the Gordon Bennett races led to the formation of
the
Association Internationale des Automobile Clubs Reconnus (AIACR; the predecessor of the
Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile), the body responsible for regulating international motorsport.
[6][41] Although a smaller race held in 1901 had awarded the "
Grand Prix de Pau",
the 1906 race outside Le Mans was the first genuinely international
race to carry the label "Grand Prix". Until the First World War it was
the only annual race to be called a Grand Prix (often,
the Grand Prix), and is commonly known as "the first Grand Prix".
[5][16][41]
- Footnotes
- ^ Hodges (1967), pp. 2–3
- ^ a b Hodges (1967), p. 1
- ^ Cimarosti (1986), p. 19
- ^ Hilton (2005), p. 15
- ^ a b c d e f g h Leif Snellman (2002-05-27). "The first Grand Prix". 8W. FORIX. Retrieved 2011-01-28.
- ^ a b c Hodges (1967), p. 2
- ^ Rendall (1993), pp. 46–47
- ^ Clausager (1982), p. 11
- ^ a b Hodges (1967), p. 221
- ^ a b c d Hilton (2005), p. 16
- ^ a b Hodges (1967), p. 222
- ^ a b Pomeroy (1949), p. 21
- ^ a b c Hodges (1967), p. 13
- ^ a b c Hodges (1967), p. 14
- ^ Hilton (2005), pp. 15–16
- ^ a b c Cimarosti (1986), p. 25
- ^ a b Pomeroy (1949), p. 20
- ^ a b Hodges (1967), pp. 13–14
- ^ a b Hilton (2005), p. 22
- ^ Hilton (2005), p. 17
- ^ Rendall (1991), p. 58
- ^ Grand Prix century – The Telegraph, 10 June 2006
- ^ a b c Hodges (1967), p. 15
- ^ "Une Grand Épreuve Sportive: Le Grand Prix de l'ACF", La Presse (in French) (Paris) 73 (5138), 1906-06-26: 1
- ^ a b Hodges (1967), p. 16
- ^ Hilton (2005), pp. 21–22
- ^ a b c d Hodges (1967), p. 17
- ^ a b Hilton (2005), p. 23
- ^ Hilton (2005), p. 24
- ^ a b Hilton (2005), p. 25
- ^ Hodges (1967), p. 18
- ^ a b Hodges (1967), pp. 18–19
- ^ a b Hilton (2005), p. 26
- ^ a b c d e f g Hodges (1967), p. 19
- ^ a b Rendall (1993), p. 49
- ^ Cimarosti (1986), p. 24
- ^ Rendall (1993), p. 41
- ^ Hilton (2005), pp. 26–27
- ^ Rendall (1993), pp. 48–49
- ^ a b Pomeroy (1949), p. 22
- ^ a b Hodges et al. (1981), p. 10
Taken from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1906_French_Grand_Prix [26.06.2013]
