1932 French Grand Prix

Lineup at the start of the race

Tazio Nuvolari after his victory

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	02	Jean Gaupillat	Bugatti T51	Bugatti 2.3L I8 compressor
Marcel Lehoux	04th	Philippe Étancelin	Alfa Romeo Monza	Alfa Romeo 2.3L I8 compressor	M.
	36	Marcel Lehoux	Bugatti T54	Bugatti 5.0L I8 compressor
Max Fourny	06th	Max Fourny	Bugatti T51	Bugatti 2.3L I8 compressor
Automobiles Ettore Bugatti	08th	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
01	Tazio Nuvolari	Alfa Romeo	92	1	5: 06: 44,900	5	3: 00,000
02	Baconin Borzacchini	Alfa Romeo	92	1		10
03	Rudolf Caracciola	Alfa Romeo	92	1		7th
04th	Louis Chiron	Bugatti	91	1	+ 1 lap	11
05	René Dreyfus	Bugatti	90	1	+ 2 rounds	15th
06th	William Grover-Williams	Bugatti	90	1	+ 2 rounds	14th
07th	Goffredo Zehender	Alfa Romeo	84	1	+ 8 rounds	8th
08th	Pierre Félix Robert Girod	Alfa Romeo	82	1	+ 10 rounds	16
09	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

Commons : French Grand Prix 1932  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• 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

1. ↑ 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.