Le Mans 1955

On June 11th 1955, Pierre Levegh was invited to drive a Mercedes-Benz 300 SLR after his excellent previous efforts. He was chasing Mike Hawthorn, when Hawthorn's Jaguar passed the slower Austin-Healey of Lance Macklin before suddenly braking and pulling over to the right to enter the pits. This forced the Austin-Healey to move over to the left, into the path of two faster Mercedes driven by Levegh and Juan Manuel Fangio, who was approaching at high speed.

Fangio, driving behind Levegh, narrowly escaped. Levegh did not have time to react, and his car ran into the sloped back of the Austin-Healey, was catapulted into the air, and crashed on top of an earth bank designed to protect the crowd. The engine and other parts flew from the chassis and into the crowd. Levegh and over 80 spectators were killed; many others were injured. Large portions of the car were made of magnesium which then ignited intense fires—which, due to the nature of magnesium combustion, were only accelerated when water was used in an attempt to extinguish the flames.

The race was continued, officially in order to prevent departing spectators from crowding the roads and slowing down ambulances. By order from Stuttgart, the remaining Mercedes cars (driven by Fangio, Stirling Moss and others) were withdrawn from the race during the night as a sign of respect to the victims. Mike Hawthorn and the Jaguar team kept driving and won the race; they refused to take responsibility for the crash, and later were cleared of any wrongdoing.

In the shock following this disaster, many major and minor races were cancelled in 1955, like the Formula One Grand Prix races in Germany and Switzerland - the latter country banned circuit automobile racing, a ban which still remains in effect today.

See my Ebay shop http://stores.shop.ebay.co.uk/CLASSIC-CARS-AND-TRANSPORT-DVDS to purchase this film and more like this film.

Category:

Sports

Tags:

• Mercedes-Benz 300 SLR
• le mans
• Fangio
• 1955
• Mike Hawthorn
• Stirling Moss
• Levegh

[editmasters]

yes...over 60 people I think...

[spider23000]

"but rightly the race goes on"

What's right about that?!

[AbandonGod]

hard to believe the safety standards were so lax.

[TheMPSScissors]

@spider23000 The race went on to keep people at the tracks so the roads outside would be clear for amnbulances

[MyLOCKSTOCK]

@uberkid100 got sold in auction for £843k Dec 2011

[uberkid100]

@1smyd11 They continued because if the race would be stopped the crowd would block the streets of the ambulances which were coming to the injured and dead people

[lightmaster275]

@editmasters 84 including the driver who got thrown (forgot his name) 83 spectators

[marpetpet]

@PetalHorrorcaused - oh for goodness sake, do you really think they thought "hmm,what will the jews think if we stop the race"???? They continued the race to ensure access roads were not blocked so that ambulances etc could still pass... stopping the race woudl have caused even greater chaos.

[PetalHorrorcaused]

"But rightly the race goes on" people moaning about that have got to remember this is only 10 years after World War II. This is probably still people trying to recover, to forget WWII. If they stop the race and say "sorry, people have died in a fire, we need to stop the race", that's gonna make holocaust survivors feel really good innit. On the flipside, people did burn to death and it was a horrible tragedy. 2 sides to every story. I say: race!

[HFLanciaStratos]

While cars may not be as exciting or as magnificent anymore, they're certainly safer! Thank goodness for that.

[1smyd11]

"but rightly the race goes on"-wtf, they should have stopped

[BIackMoonCGI]

@spider23000 - If they'd stopped the race, many spectators would have headed for home and by doing so, blocked the entrances and exits to the track preventing ambulances and other emergency services access.

[1983ACARTER]

@the13er it crashed into an austin healey not a jag