Autodrome de Linas-Montlhéry
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The Autodrome de Linas-Montlhéry was a motorsport racetrack between Linas and Montlhéry , 24 kilometers south of Paris . It was used between 1924 and 2005 in two versions of around 2.55 and 12.5 kilometers for international races.
Foundation and construction
The former French race track of the same name was located between the towns of Linas and Montlhéry, 20 kilometers south of Paris. The industrialist Alexandre Lamblin , who was a successful manufacturer of coolers for aircraft engines in the 1920s, was responsible for the construction . The region around Paris was the center of the French automotive industry at the time, so a race track, especially for test purposes, was a useful addition. Lamblin bought a large piece of land on the Hurepoix plateau in 1923 and commissioned engineer Raymond Jamin to build the line.
Permanent racetracks were still a rarity back then. Racing events were held almost exclusively on public roads. The first permanent course was opened in Brooklands , England, in 1907 , the second in 1911 in Indianapolis , which is still the venue for the 500 miles today . But it wasn't until 1922 that a race track was built in the royal park of Monza , on which - after the closure of the section with the steep curves - the Italian Grand Prix is still held today, the starting signal for the construction of circuits in Europe. What all three routes had in common was that the curves were partly very elevated and that is still the case in Indianapolis today.
Jamin therefore constructed a course that consisted of two 180 meter short straights, connected by two banked curves with a radius of around 250 meters. In the record construction time of six months in 1923, 2000 workers built the racetrack, with a total length of 2548.24 meters (measured just below the upper limit of the route) and lane widths between 18 and 21.5 meters, the enormous average speed of up to 220 km for the time / h allowed. This value was made possible when the drivers stayed at the top of the banked turns. However, these journeys were associated with a high risk, as there were hardly any barriers at the top.
Record drives with the car
Designed primarily as a course for record drives, the track attracted racing drivers from France and England shortly after it opened in 1924. Especially pilots from England were able to avoid the restrictions to which the Brooklands railway was subjected (noise pollution). More than 100 new records were set in the first two months of racing. In 1925 Mrs. Gwenda Stewart , who also competed at the Le Mans 24 Hours with a derby in 1934 and 1935, set a new course record with an average speed of 234.861 km / h, which was long considered the measure of all things. Your vehicle was a derby with a US Miller engine. In December 1954, the track wrote motorsport history again. The Frenchman Pierre Chancel crossed the 200 km / h mark for vehicles under 1000 cm³ for the first time with a Panhard X88 in Le Mans version (744 cm³) with an average of 201.880 km / h.
Cycling
On September 29, 1928, Belgian racing cyclist Léon Vanderstuyft set a new hour record at 122.771 km / h behind a motorized pacemaker on an Opel ZR3 bike at the Autodrome . This sensational record was to last for decades.
From 1928 the French road championships were held on the Autodrome regularly every year. In 1950, three drivers - Camille Danguillaume , Louison Bobet and Antonin Rolland - were joint leaders in the championships . Danguillaume crashed into a press motorcycle and fell. He died in the hospital a few days later. Louison Bobet became the master.
The races before World War II
In 1925, the Automobile Club de France hosted the Grand Prix on the Linas-Montlhéry track after the oval track had been expanded to include a ten-kilometer street circuit , again in record time. The route now had a total length of 12.5 kilometers. During races, the vehicles drove the route clockwise, while the record drives across the oval were driven in the opposite direction. The race was won by Robert Benoist on a 12-cylinder Delage . The race cost the Italian Antonio Ascari his life. Ascari, at that time one of the best and most popular racing drivers, father of the future Formula 1 world champion Alberto Ascari , had a serious accident with his Alfa Romeo P2 and died at the scene of the accident. Between 1931 and 1937 the Grand Prix of the Automobile Club de France (ACF) took place regularly in Linas-Montlhéry. As early as the mid-1930s, however, it was foreseeable that the speeds in the oval at the Grand Prix races would be too high. In 1935, three artificial chicanes were built in for the race on June 23, 1935, on the one hand to reduce the top speed and on the other hand to slow down the superior vehicles from Mercedes-Benz and Auto Union . Nevertheless, there was a double victory for Mercedes. After four hours of driving, Rudolf Caracciola won just ahead of Manfred von Brauchitsch and two laps ahead of Goffredo Zehender , who was third on a Maserati .
Resurrection
When Alexandre Lamblin no longer wanted to raise the considerable costs of maintaining the concrete track and the track was closed to the fast monoposto racing cars in 1938, he sold the circuit to the French state in 1939, which placed the track under the Ministry of War. During the years of the Second World War there was no longer any racing operation there.
In 1946 the UTAC (Union Technique pour Auto, Moto et Cycle) was taken over by a new management team. The UTAC was the operator of the racetrack until the end, responsible for maintenance and renovation. A long-term lease with the ministry ensured an active racing life. The renovation of the route took two years and was completed in 1948 after the construction of a control tower, new stands and a gas station.
Formula races were held until the 1970s: from 1956 onwards, at irregular intervals, parallel to the Paris Motor Show , the Coupe du Salon . The most famous race was the 1000 km from Paris , which was held regularly until 1971, although the uneven concrete track was extremely unsuitable for the fast sports cars. In 1964 the German Peter Lindner and the Italian Franco Patria had a fatal accident after a collision, tearing three marshals to their deaths. One last race for the time being took place in 1971.
Once again, in 1994, the 1000 km from Paris were briefly brought to life again when the BPR series, a forerunner of today's FIA GT championship , held a race at Linas-Montlhéry.
The end of the racetrack
In 1997 and then again in 2001, the French race track commission granted the railways the necessary approval for an orderly racing operation for four years in order to include the “Coupe du Salon” and the “Grand Prix de l'Age d'Or” - a race historic racing vehicles - to continue to organize. A race for the national Formula Renault championship was also held in 2002, but only on the street circuit. Above all, the maintenance of the support structure of the steep curves bothered the operators; so in 1997 one of the two curves had to be closed. At the end of the last four-year period in 2005 it was clear that the track no longer met the safety requirements of a modern race track and that only investments in the millions could remedy the situation.
But the operators no longer wanted to make this investment and sold the area to a real estate company that wants to completely grind the route and build residential complexes. An association to save the course (Association pour la Sauvegarde de l'Autodrome de Linas-Montlhéry, ASALM) under the patronage of the well-known French racing drivers Hubert Auriol , Henri Pescarolo , Patrick Tambay , Patrick Delage , Jean-Claude Andruet , Jean-François Baldé and Despite extensive protests and demonstrations, Jean-Pierre Beltoise was unable to maintain the route.
The Autodrome in the media
The series became world famous in 1966 for the film A Man and a Woman by Claude Lelouch , with Anouk Aimée and Jean-Louis Trintignant . The film's racing scenes take place in Linas-Montlhéry.
literature
- SS Collins (text), Gavin D. Ireland (photos), Helmar Winkel (translation): Forgotten racetracks - traditional courses in Europe , Heel-Verlag, Königswinter 2006, ISBN 3-89880-644-8 .
Web links
- History of the route (German translation)
- History of the route (French)
- Gymkhana in and around the Autodrome ( Ken Block in viral promotional video)
Individual evidence
- ↑ Alt-Opel.org accessed on May 8, 2010
- ↑ Jacques AUGENDRE: Petites histoires secrètes du Tour .... Place Des Editeurs, ISBN 978-2-263-06995-6 ( limited preview in Google Book Search).
Coordinates: 48 ° 37 '20 " N , 2 ° 14' 43" E
