1932 French Grand Prix
The XVIII. The French Grand Prix ( XVIII Grand Prix de l'Automobile Club de France ) took place on July 3, 1932 on the 7.826 km Circuit de Reims-Gueux near Reims in France . As Grande Épreuve , it was a valuation run for the Grand Prix European Championship in 1932 and was held in accordance with the applicable regulations without a predetermined racing formula for the car over a race duration of five hours.
The winner was Tazio Nuvolari in an Alfa Romeo Tipo B / P3 .
run
This year , the Automobile Club de France chose the fast triangular circuit of Reims-Gueux as the venue for its Grand Prix for the first time , which had regularly hosted the Grand Prix de la Marne since 1925 . In the run-up to the race there was an embarrassing incident when a re-measurement shortly before the start resulted in a course length of only 7.8269 km instead of the 8 km specified for years and the conversion table for determining the average speeds could no longer be adjusted in time.
Because Maserati surprisingly decided not to participate despite Luigi Fagioli's promising position in the European Championship standings, the race turned into a duel between Alfa Romeo and Bugatti . Alfa Romeo had become a third copy of the new Alfa Romeo Tipo B - seaters for Rudolf Caracciola completed, together with Tazio Nuvolari and Mario Umberto Borzacchini represented the colors of the house, while Giuseppe Campari had to settle for the role of reserve driver. At Bugatti, Louis Chiron left the two 5-liter Type 54 racing cars to his teammates Achille Varzi and Albert Divo and opted for the much weaker, but much lighter and better-lying model from last year, Type 51 . The rest of the field consisted of private drivers in Bugattis of both types as well as older Alfa Romeo type "Monza" .
At the beginning of the race there was a battle for the lead between Caracciola and Varzi for five laps, but after that the Bugatti driver fell back position by position and was ultimately eliminated with a gearbox defect. This allowed the three Alfa Romeo drivers to negotiate the race largely undisturbed. Only during the pit stops around halfway through the race did the Nuvolari, who was third at the time, once again fall back briefly behind Chiron, until the Bugatti had to stop to refuel and change tires. After each of the three Alfa Romeos had meanwhile been in the lead, Nuvolari ultimately thwarted the staging of a photogenic formation of all three cars for the finish line, planned by race director Vittorio Jano , because he was not ready to reduce the pace so far that his two teammates could catch up with him. In contrast, Caracciola bowed to the stable order and let Borzacchini pass.
The race was scored on the basis of the distances that the participants had reached after exactly five hours; the positions of the cars in the last started lap were interpolated using the preceding and following timekeeping when crossing the finish line. However, the calculation tables were based on the wrong value of 8 km for the length of a lap, which explains the corresponding discrepancies in the final ranking.
Results
Registration list
team | No. | driver | chassis | engine | tires |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Jean Gaupillat | 2 | Jean Gaupillat | Bugatti T51 | Bugatti 2.3L I8 compressor | |
Marcel Lehoux | 4th | Philippe Étancelin | Alfa Romeo Monza | Alfa Romeo 2.3L I8 compressor | M. |
36 | Marcel Lehoux | Bugatti T54 | Bugatti 5.0L I8 compressor | ||
Max Fourny | 6th | Max Fourny | Bugatti T51 | Bugatti 2.3L I8 compressor | |
Automobiles Ettore Bugatti | 8th | Achille Varzi | Bugatti T54 | Bugatti 5.0L I8 compressor | M. |
38 | Albert Divo | ||||
32 | Louis Chiron | Bugatti T51 | Bugatti 2.3L I8 compressor | ||
Raymond Summers | 10 | Raymond Summers | Alfa Romeo Monza | Alfa Romeo 2.3L I8 compressor | |
SA Alfa Romeo | 12 | Tazio Nuvolari | Alfa Romeo Tipo B / P3 | Alfa Romeo 2.6L I8 compressor | P |
18th | Rudolf Caracciola | ||||
30th | Baconin Borzacchini | ||||
34 | Giuseppe Campari | ||||
Benoît Falchetto | 14th | Benoît Falchetto | Bugatti T51 | Bugatti 2.3L I8 compressor | |
Jean-Pierre Wimille | 16 | Jean-Pierre Wimille | Alfa Romeo Monza | Alfa Romeo 2.3L I8 compressor | |
Karl Donajowski | 20th | Karl Donajowski | Bugatti T54 | Bugatti 5.0L I8 compressor | D. |
Tim Birkin | 22nd | Tim Birkin | Bugatti T51 | Bugatti 2.3L I8 compressor | D. |
Goffredo Zehender | 24 | Goffredo Zehender | Alfa Romeo Monza | Alfa Romeo 2.3L I8 compressor | |
Jean Pesato | 26th | Jean Pesato | Alfa Romeo Monza | Alfa Romeo 2.3L I8 compressor | |
Earl Howe | 28 | Earl Howe | Bugatti T54 | Bugatti 5.0L I8 compressor | D. |
Hugh Caulfield Hamilton | |||||
Émile Tetaldi | 40 | Émile Tetaldi | Bugatti T51 | Bugatti 2.3L I8 compressor | |
William Grover-Williams | 42 | William Grover-Williams | Bugatti T51 | Bugatti 2.3L I8 compressor | |
René Dreyfus | 44 | René Dreyfus | Bugatti T51 | Bugatti 2.3L I8 compressor | |
Pierre Félix | 46 | Pierre Félix | Alfa Romeo Monza | Alfa Romeo 2.3L I8 compressor | |
Robert Girod |
Race result
Item | driver | constructor | Round | Stops | time | begin | Fastest lap | Failure reason |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 | Tazio Nuvolari | Alfa Romeo | 92 | 1 | 5: 06: 44,900 | 5 | 3: 00,000 | |
2 | Baconin Borzacchini | Alfa Romeo | 92 | 1 | 10 | |||
3 | Rudolf Caracciola | Alfa Romeo | 92 | 1 | 7th | |||
4th | Louis Chiron | Bugatti | 91 | 1 | + 1 lap | 11 | ||
5 | René Dreyfus | Bugatti | 90 | 1 | + 2 rounds | 15th | ||
6th | William Grover-Williams | Bugatti | 90 | 1 | + 2 rounds | 14th | ||
7th | Goffredo Zehender | Alfa Romeo | 84 | 1 | + 8 rounds | 8th | ||
8th |
Pierre Félix Robert Girod |
Alfa Romeo | 82 | 1 | + 10 rounds | 16 | ||
9 |
Earl Howe Hugh Caulfield Hamilton |
Bugatti | 77 | 1 | + 15 rounds | 9 | ||
- | Philippe Étancelin | Alfa Romeo | 70 | 1 | DNF | 2 | Gearbox damage | |
- | Max Fourny | Bugatti | 62 | DNF | 3 | failure | ||
- | Jean-Pierre Wimille | Alfa Romeo | 54 | DNF | 6th | no more gasoline | ||
- | Albert Divo | Bugatti | 52 | DNF | 13 | Leak in the fuel tank | ||
- | Marcel Lehoux | Bugatti | 37 | DNF | 12 | Gearbox damage | ||
- | Jean Gaupillat | Bugatti | 20th | DNF | 1 | failure | ||
- | Achille Varzi | Bugatti | 12 | DNF | 4th | Gearbox damage |
Web links
- Leif Snellman, Felix Muelas: XVIII GRAND PRIX DE L'AUTOMOBILE CLUB DE FRANCE. www.kolumbus.fi, March 27, 2013, accessed on March 25, 2015 (English).
- XXVI Grand Prix de l'Automobile Club de France. www.teamdan.com, accessed March 25, 2015 .
Remarks
- ↑ The first race organized as the Grand Prix de l'ACF took place in 1906. In the 1920s, however, the “big” city-to-city races of the early years between 1895 and 1903 were also awarded these titles, although the ACF was founded after the Paris-Bordeaux-Paris 1895 race. This counting method made the event from 1906 the official ninth Grand Prix de l'ACF. This numbering was after the 1968 renaming of the Grand Prix de l'ACF for Grand Prix de France continued further throughout.