1938 French Grand Prix
The XXXII. French Grand Prix ( XXXII Grand Prix de l'Automobile Club de France ) took place on July 3, 1938 at the Circuit de Reims-Gueux in France . As Grande Épreuve , the race was part of the European Grand Prix Championship in 1938 and, according to the provisions of the changed International Grand Prix Formula (mainly racing cars up to 3 liters with a compressor and up to 4.5 liters without a compressor; minimum weight 850 kg; race distance at least 500 km) over 64 laps of 7.826 km each, which corresponded to a total distance of 500.86 km.
The winner was Manfred von Brauchitsch in a Mercedes-Benz W 154 .
The race
In 1936 and 1937 the Grand Prix de l'ACF was held as a sports car race in view of the hopelessness of the success of a local racing car brand, and with Talbot , Delahaye and Bugatti these races were also dominated by three French manufacturers. For 1938 , due to the new regulations, the engines used - naturally aspirated engines with a maximum displacement of 4.5 liters - were now also approved as an alternative to the supercharged engines limited to 3 liters for the Grand Prix class. Ignoring the true differences in performance between the two categories, the French automobile club ACF dared to return to the top motorsport category . For the first time since 1932 , the fast triangular road course from Reims-Gueux was chosen as the venue .
Already in training but it soon became clear that the new Mercedes-Benz W154 - Silver Arrows with the successful trio Rudolf Caracciola as reigning European champions, Manfred von Brauchitsch and Hermann Lang have little to fear something would. After the fatal accident of its only world-class driver Bernd Rosemeyer in a record attempt at the beginning of the year, the Auto Union racing team was in ruins, as was the Alfa Romeo team, where, after the departure of Tazio Nuvolari after the race in Pau , where his car caught fire in practice, the top driver was also lost.
In addition to the event in Pau was the race in - in contrast to Alfa Romeo, where the face of previous failures to Tripoli in an accident Eugenio Siena died and the new top driver Giuseppe Farina in the fatal accident of the Hungarian pilots László Hartmann been involved - The Auto Union team at least faced the competition and even traveled to the fast track with its long straights in two streamlined racing cars similar to those used in the 1937 spectacular Avus race. The previous reserve and junior drivers Rudolf Hasse and Hermann Paul "HP" Müller were overwhelmed by this and had two serious accidents during training. Two interim models - Auto Union Type-C chassis from the previous year with the new V12 engine of the Auto Union Type D - were therefore used for the race and the injured Müller was replaced by Christian Kautz .
But even these measures shouldn't change too much, and before the end of the first lap of the race, both Auto Union racing cars had already retired due to driving errors by their drivers. Even Jean-Pierre Wimilles lonely Bugatti and the unspeakable SEFAC of Eugène Chaboud was granted no longer life and so were the three Mercedes drivers from that date convenient for the entire race amongst themselves - apart from the two Talbot sports car of Philippe Étancelin and René Carrière , who were so slow that the leading trio lapped them once every six laps on average.
In view of these circumstances, Mercedes racing director Alfred Neubauer canceled the previously set stable order for his three drivers in order to offer the audience at least a minimum of excitement. Caracciola was initially in the lead, but when a cylinder on his car stopped working and Lang also had to make a longer pit stop due to bubbles forming in the fuel supply, von Brauchitsch came forward from the second half of the race and was unable to continue until the end of Caracciola and Lang be obtained. The only other participant in the ranking was Carrière, who finished fourth with his Talbot, ten laps behind.
The Fund de Course
In order to support the French automotive industry in the fight against the state-sponsored German and Italian racing teams, the Fonds de Course, a national funding fund financed from public collections and the fees for the award of racing licenses , was set up as early as 1935, with a budget of around one Million francs have now been paid out. The prerequisite for the allocation was that a vehicle from the manufacturer in question on the Linas-Montlhéry racecourse over a distance of 200 km had an average time of 2% better than the last Grand Prix winner at this location, Louis Chiron 1935 in an Alfa Romeo , could achieve. Of course, participation in this year's French Grand Prix was also a must.
In the meantime, however, the level of performance of the international Grand Prix constructions had risen by leaps and bounds and there had been some conflicts in advance about the distribution of the funds from the pot. Although the Ecurie Bleue , the team of France-based US racers couple Laury and Lucy O'Reilly Schell , a converted sports car model type Delahaye 145 early in the season two wins celebrated in international races - including in Pau even a sensational win over the overpowering Mercedes Silver Arrows - and had also ordered a thoroughbred monoposto racing car from Delahaye with the 155 model , the team missed out on the award of the funding. In protest, the Schells immediately withdrew their participation in the French Grand Prix and later even relocated with their team to Monte Carlo in order to compete under a Monaco license.
Instead, the funding pot was divided between Bugatti and Talbot, apparently in memory of earlier “services” to Grand Prix racing. The latter company was basically just a rump company that the British-Italian entrepreneur Anthony Lago had bought out of the bankruptcy estate of the former Sunbeam-Talbot-Darracq group , and which operated a long way from the possibilities that existed in 1927 had led to winning the automobile world championship . Although the announced Grand Prix model never got beyond the drawing board and Philippe Étancelin and René Carrière had to compete in the Grand Prix with older Talbot T150C sports car models, a respectable 600,000 francs were paid out. After all, along with the victorious Mercedes trio, Carrière was the only driver who was still able to finish the race - albeit ten laps behind - in classification.
The Bugatti Grand Prix team was also only a shadow of previous successes, not least due to the company's financial difficulties. The "new" Grand Prix model Bugatti Type 59 / 50B3 it was basically just a refitted from two- to one-seater Bugatti Type 59 with a new light-alloy engine, but virtually the same chassis, the rigid axles and cable brakes already in 1933 when it appeared technically out of date. Nevertheless, this was enough to convince the committee to pay out 400,000 francs from the Fonds de Course , and after the shameful appearance of Jean-Pierre Wimille, who had to give up with the only available model in Reims in the first round with a broken oil pipe , Bugatti was henceforth no longer to be seen on the Grand Prix circuits.
The prospect of government funding finally called on the SEFAC again, a failed attempt by a French national racing car back in 1935 , which at its first and so far only appearance at the French Grand Prix caused blatantly slow lap times and well above the permitted maximum had shown lying vehicle weight, so that participation in the race was out of the question. Now it turned out that the car with its charged 3-liter engine fell under the provisions of the new racing formula - the mandatory minimum weight of 850 kg was not a major problem - so it was finally closed for the 1938 French Grand Prix a race came, and Eugène Chaboud was able to cover a full lap before he had to put the car aside with a defect.
Registration list
Starting grid
| 1 | 2 | |
|---|---|---|
.svg){kind=small} Long2: 39.2 min |
von Brauchitsch 2: 40.7 min |
|
| 3 | ||
|
Caracciola 2: 41.9 min |
||
| 4th | 5 | |
 Kautz2: 43.0 min |
Hasse 2: 50.9 min |
|
| 6th | ||
 Carrière2: 57.0 min |
||
| 7th | 8th | |
|
Étancelin 3: 00.7 min |
Chaboud
|
|
| 9 | ||
|
Wimille
|
Race result
| Item | No. | driver | constructor | Round | time | Failure reason | EM points |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 26th |
Manfred von Brauchitsch
|
Mercedes Benz
|
64 | 3: 04: 38.5 h | 1 | |
| 2 | 24 |
Rudolf Caracciola
|
Mercedes Benz
|
64 | +1: 40.8 min | 2 | |
| 3 | 28 |
Hermann Lang
|
Mercedes Benz
|
63 | + 1 lap | 3 | |
| 4th | 4th |
René Carrière
|
Talbot
|
54 | + 10 rounds | 4th | |
| DNF | 2 |
Philippe Étancelin
|
Talbot
|
38 | engine | 5 | |
| DNF | 10 |
Eugène Chaboud
|
SEFAC
|
2 | mechanics | 7th | |
| DNF | 16 |
Christian Kautz
|
Auto Union
|
0 | Accident, rear axle | 7th | |
| DNF | 22nd |
Jean-Pierre Wimille
|
Bugatti
|
0 | Oil pipe | 7th | |
| DNF | 18th |
Rudolf Hasse
|
Auto Union
|
0 | accident | 7th |
Fastest race lap : Hermann Lang ( Mercedes-Benz ), 2: 45.1 min = 170.6 km / h
References
Web links
- XXXII Grand Prix de l'Automobile Club de France. www.teamdan.com, accessed on September 13, 2014 (English).
- XXIV GRAND PRIX DE L'AUTOMOBILE CLUB DE FRANCE. www.kolumbus.fi, May 3, 2014, accessed on September 13, 2014 .
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.
- ↑ The type designation of the Auto Union racing cars was only introduced later by specialist authors to differentiate between the individual models