Dudley Benjafield

The Bentley 4.5 liter with the Benjafield was third overall at Le Mans in 1929

Dudley Benjafield (born August 6, 1887 in the London Borough of Enfield , † January 20, 1957 ) was a British bacteriologist and racing car driver .

Career

Dudley Benjafield studied medicine at the University of London and received his doctorate in medicine in 1912. Benjafield specialized in bacteriology and served in World War I as a doctor in the British Army in Egypt . In 1918 he worked extensively in Great Britain to contain the Spanish flu .

Benjafield was interested in motorsport from a young age and began racing himself in the early 1920s. His first successes brought him a works contract with Bentley . He competed seven times in the Le Mans 24-hour race . The greatest success was the overall victory in 1927 , which he secured together with Sammy Davis . And this even though the Bentley 3 liter was only poorly repaired after a mass accident in which Davis was involved. However, the team benefited from the failure of Jean Chassagne's Ariès , who retired shortly before the end of the race after problems with the distributor. In 1929 he came back on the podium when he drove a Bentley again with Frenchman André d'Erlanger and came third in the overall standings.

Benjafield drove car races until 1936 and founded the British Racing Drivers' Club . He died in 1957.

statistics

Le Mans results

year	team	vehicle	Teammate	placement	Failure reason
1925	Bentley Motors Ltd.	Bentley 3 Liter Sport	Herbert Kensington-Moir	failure	no petrol
1926	Bentley Motors Ltd.	Bentley 3 Liter Speed ​​Model	Sammy Davis	failure	accident
1927	Bentley Motors Ltd.	Bentley 3 Liter Super Sport	Sammy Davis	Overall victory
1928	Bentley Motors Ltd.	Bentley 4½ liter	Frank Clement	failure	cooler
1929	Bentley Motors Ltd.	Bentley 4½ liter	André d'Erlanger	Rank 3
1930	Hon. Dorothy Paget	Bentley Blower C.	Giulio Ramponi	failure	Engine failure
1935	Arthur W. Fox and Charles Nicholl	Logonda M45R Rapide	Sir Ronald Gunter	Rank 13

Web links

• Dudley Benjafield at Racing Sports Cars