1934 French Grand Prix

The starting grid

Louis Chiron after his victory

Louis Chiron in the Alfa Romeo Tipo B / P3 during the race

Hans Stuck in the Auto Union A.

The XX. The French Grand Prix ( XX Grand Prix de l'Automobile Club de France ) took place on July 1, 1934 at the Autodrome de Linas-Montlhéry in France . It belonged to the category of the Grandes Épreuves and was held according to the provisions of the International Grand Prix racing formula (racing cars up to a maximum of 750 kg curb weight; 85 cm minimum width; racing distance at least 500 km) over 40 laps of 12.504 km, giving a total length of 2 km corresponded.

The winner was Louis Chiron with an Alfa Romeo Tipo B from Scuderia Ferrari , who was able to achieve his last success at a Grande Épreuve before the outbreak of World War II .

run

After having had to fight for private drivers to take part in its Grand Prix the previous year in order to get a fairly respectable Grand Prix field together, the Automobile Club de France , which has traditionally always been somewhat elitist, looked on in 1934 in view of the five manufacturers involved such condescension is no longer compelled. The race was now again advertised exclusively for the participation of works teams , as had been the case through the 1920s. On top of that, participation was limited to only three cars per team.

As usual, the favorite team was Scuderia Ferrari, which Alfa Romeo provided exclusively with the tried and tested Tipo B works racing cars . With the trio of Achille Varzi , Louis Chiron and Carlo Felice Trossi , the team was also well staffed in terms of driving. Completely blank pages at that time, however, were the German automobile companies Daimler-Benz and Auto Union , which had just re-entered or newly entered Grand Prix racing . Although had Hans Stuck extremely futuristic appearing with his former in the eyes of the viewer new Auto Union rear engine race car before the run on the ultra-fast Berlin AVUS to long for his downtime led -Rennstrecke and Mercedes driver Manfred von Brauchitsch at the Eifel race at the challenging Nürburgring they even won, but the real endurance test of a major international Grand Prix race was still to come for both teams.

At Mercedes in Montlhéry, Rudolf Caracciola surprisingly returned to the cockpit of one of the three Mercedes-Benz W 25s after a long injury break . Although he had to rely on crutches to walk since the accident in Monaco last year , he immediately achieved respectable training times again, much to the displeasure of his team-mate Luigi Fagioli , who rightly saw his position as the nominal captain of the Mercedes team threatened . In the Auto Union camp, however, there were no such problems, where Stuck, as the only real top driver of international stature , had little to fear from his team mates August Momberger and Hermann zu Leiningen . The latter also had to forego the race due to illness. On the other hand, both German teams were much more concerned about the reliability of their very new racing cars, as well as the unexpectedly high tire wear, which the Mercedes team, which was always very conscientiously prepared, had noticed during extensive test drives on site in the week before the race. In addition, the German drivers in particular also had to struggle with the physical strain caused by the steep turns of the unfamiliar course. As a result of the defeat in World War I , German drivers and racing teams had not been allowed to compete on French racetracks for several years.

At Bugatti, too, they had prepared themselves for the home race in view of the actually hardly competitive own Grand Prix model Bugatti Type 59 , which was still designed in the style of the 1920s as the only two-seater, as well as it was possible under the circumstances and two of the cars were fitted with engines enlarged to 3.3 liters. In terms of paper at least, it was roughly the same as the Mercedes-Benz W 25 . It was also possible to sign Tazio Nuvolari again after Monaco , one of the absolute top drivers, but he was still suffering from leg injuries while driving, which he had sustained a few weeks earlier in an accident with his Maserati in the Alessandria race . The injury forced him to give the car to the substitute driver Jean-Pierre Wimille during the race . He was also supported by the two drivers under contract, René Dreyfus and veteran Robert Benoist , who had won the World Championship for Delage practically single-handedly in 1927 and who now took the wheel again this season after a four-year break from racing.

Maserati was particularly affected by the tendering regulations , where the company policy had been geared entirely towards supporting private drivers as paying customers. In addition to Goffredo Zehender , who was regularly nominated for the team anyway, Philippe Étancelin with his Maserati 8CM was quickly "adopted" by the factory. The third representative of the brand in the search for a new top driver was the American Peter DePaolo after it became known that Nuvolari would again give preference to Bugatti, as it had done at the Monaco race . However, DePaolo had sustained serious injuries in an accident in the previous Gran Premio de Penya Rhin , so that the third Maserati cockpit was ultimately unoccupied.

When allocating the starting positions, the Auto Union drivers, with positions in the first (Stuck) and second (Momberger) rows, benefited most from the luck of the draw, but in the race, as usual, it was Chiron who did one of his notorious early starts on his Alfa Romeo shot away first. Behind them, the three Silver Arrows from Caracciola, Fagioli and Stuck fought a close battle for second position over the first few laps, in which the Auto Union driver finally prevailed. In the third lap, Stuck was able to pass Chiron and then continuously expand his lead until he was slowed down a little later by the onset of heavy tire wear. In the tenth lap, Chiron was back in front and shortly afterwards Fagioli was able to move past Stuck into second position.

Behind them the death of the Silver Arrows had already begun, and one after the other they were eliminated from the race with various mechanical problems. In the 14th lap, Fagioli was finally hit. On his hunt for Chiron, he came into contact with the track barrier and damaged a brake line. A little later, Caracciola also stopped because of problems with the gasoline supply. After a third of the distance, with the exception of Stuck's Auto Union, all German racing cars had already retired. However, Stuck also had to pit about every ten laps to change tires, and he was also having increasing problems with the leaking cooling system, so that the race was decided in favor of Alfa Romeo long before his final retirement on the 32nd lap. The debacle was complete for the German teams, while Scuderia Ferrari with Chiron, Varzi and Guy Moll , who had replaced Trossi at the wheel of the third Alfa Romeo, achieved a great triple success. As the only other participant remaining in the race, Benoist crossed the finish line in fourth place on Bugatti, a considerable four laps behind.

Results

Registration list

team	No.	driver	chassis	engine	tires
Auto Union AG	02	Hans Stuck	Auto Union A	Auto Union 4.4L V16 compressor	C.
	04th	August Momberger
	10	Hermann zu Leiningen
Scuderia Ferrari	06th	Achille Varzi	Alfa Romeo Tipo B / P3	Alfa Romeo 2.9L I8 compressor	E.
	12	Louis Chiron
	20th	Carlo Felice Trossi
		Guy minor
Daimler-Benz AG	08th	Rudolf Caracciola	Mercedes-Benz W 25	Mercedes-Benz M 25 A 3.4L I8 compressor	C.
	22nd	Manfred von Brauchitsch
	30th	Luigi Fagioli
		Ernst Jakob Henne
Automobiles Ettore Bugatti	14th	Tazio Nuvolari	Bugatti T59	Bugatti 3.3L I8 compressor	M.
	18th	René Dreyfus
		Jean-Pierre Wimille
	16	Robert Benoist	Bugatti T59	Bugatti 2.8L I8 compressor
Officine Alfieri Maserati	24	Goffredo Zehender	Maserati 26M	Maserati 3.0L I8 compressor	P
Philippe Étancelin	26th	Philippe Étancelin	Maserati 8CM	Maserati 3.0L I8 compressor
Société d'Etude et de Fabrication d'Automobiles de Course	28	Raymond Summers	SEFAC	SEFAC 2.8L 2 x V4	M.
Ecurie Braillard	32	Peter DePaolo	Maserati 8CM	Maserati 3.0L I8 compressor

Race result

Item	driver	constructor	Round	Stops	time	begin	Fastest lap	Failure reason
01	Louis Chiron	Alfa Romeo	40		3: 39: 14.0 h	6th	5: 06.0 min
02	Achille Varzi	Alfa Romeo	40		+ 3: 17.9 min	3
03	Carlo Felice Trossi Guy Moll	Alfa Romeo	40		+ 4: 09.8 min	10
04th	Robert Benoist	Bugatti	36		+ 4 rounds	8th
-	Goffredo Zehender	Maserati	33		DNF	12		Rear suspension breakage
-	Hans Stuck	Auto Union	32		DNF	2		defective water pump
-	Tazio Nuvolari Jean-Pierre Wimille	Bugatti	17th		DNF	7th		Engine failure
-	René Dreyfus	Bugatti	16		DNF	9		Engine failure
-	Rudolf Caracciola	Mercedes Benz	15th		DNF	4th		broken fuel line
-	Luigi Fagioli	Mercedes Benz	14th		DNF	14th		cracked brake line
-	Manfred von Brauchitsch	Mercedes Benz	11		DNF	11		Krompressor damage
-	Philippe Étancelin	Maserati	11		DNF	13		Engine failure
-	August Momberger	Auto Union	10		DNF	5		broken shock absorber
-	Hermann zu Leiningen	Auto Union			DNS	1

Web links

Commons : French Grand Prix 1934  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• Leif Snellman, Felix Muelas: XX GRAND PRIX DE L'AUTOMOBILE CLUB DE FRANCE. www.kolumbus.fi, April 5, 2013, accessed on January 28, 2020 . 
• XXVIII 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.