1939 French Grand Prix

The XXXIII. The French Grand Prix ( XXXIII Grand Prix de l'Automobile Club de France ) took place on July 9, 1939 at the Circuit de Reims-Gueux in France . As Grande Épreuve , the race was part of the European Grand Prix Championship in 1939 and, according to the provisions of the 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 300 km) over 51 laps of 7.186 km each, which corresponded to a total distance of 398.6 km.

The winner was Hermann Paul "HP" Müller in an Auto Union Type D , which was the only Grand Prix victory of his career. At the same time, this was the last success of the Auto Union racing team in a Grande Épreuve .

run

The political tensions between the two countries at the beginning of 1939 led Italy's dictator Benito Mussolini to forbid Italian drivers and racing teams from participating in motor sport events in France. The Auto Union team was therefore only able to compete in Reims with its top driver Tazio Nuvolari , whose Auto Union Type D as well as the cars of his team mates, old master Hans Stuck , the young and aspiring Hermann Paul Müller , and junior driver " Schorsch “Meier , was now equipped with a two-stage compressor, as had been the case with the Mercedes-Benz W 154 for a few races before. The team from Daimler-Benz was after the tragic death of their young stars Richard Seaman during the previous Belgian Grand Prix contrast to their traditional occupation of European champion Rudolf Caracciola , Hermann Lang had won the last four international races in series, and always experienced but slightly impetuous Manfred von Brauchitsch reduced.

In contrast to Nuvolari, the Alfa Romeo and Maserati racing teams had to obey Mussolini's decree and stay away from the French Grand Prix. Alfa Romeo circumvented this at least to a certain extent at the factory by instead registering three Alfa Romeo Tipo 308s privately used by the Swiss Christian Kautz , in which usually only official works teams were allowed. However, these were older models which, due to a lack of engine power, had practically no chance against the German Silver Arrows on the fast Reims-Gueux course , and the driver line-up was - with the exception of Raymond Sommer  - not necessarily first class.

The field was finally completed by two French teams that Ecurie Schell of resettled to France US racers couple Laury and Lucy O'Reilly Schell with two racing cars of the type Delahaye Type 145 for the experienced René Dreyfus and the little-known Raphael Bethenod de las Casas , as well as the works team from Lago-Talbot with three newly developed racing single-seaters for Grand Prix veteran Philippe Étancelin , the British Voiturette driver Raymond Mays and sports car driver René Le Bègue . However, all of these vehicles were only equipped with comparatively weak 4.5 liter naturally aspirated engines.

Hermann Lang and Mercedes dominated the practice once again, but Auto-Union driver Tazio Nuvolari came off the best on a track that was still wet and led the group of three Mercedes drivers Caracciola, Lang and von Brauchitsch into the first lap. There was a strong rivalry among them and when Caracciola tried to overtake Lang, the race ended early for him against a wall.

Now an explosive duel developed between Nuvolari and Lang, in which the Mercedes driver finally got the upper hand on the fifth lap. When trying to keep up, Nuvolari's gearbox then said goodbye, so that after the first quarter of the race, Lang now had a relatively comfortable lead over the pursuing duo Müller (Auto Union) and von Brauchitsch (Mercedes). Shortly afterwards, however, the second Mercedes was already out of the race with engine failure, and although Mercedes racing director Alfred Neubauer Lang gave instructions from the pits to drive more slowly and to protect the car, the same fate finally overtook him in the second half of the race. This cleared the way for Auto Union driver Hermann Müller, who had already shown strong form in the last races. Second - albeit one lap behind - was his relatively inexperienced stable colleague Georg Meier, who survived the race despite burns on his arm after his Auto Union racing car briefly caught fire during the pit stop in the middle of the race.

Registration list

No.	driver	constructor	vehicle	team	comment
02		Alfa Romeo	Alfa Romeo Tipo 308	Alfa Corse	not started (notification withdrawn)
02	Raymond Summers	Alfa Romeo	Alfa Romeo Tipo 308	R. summer
04th		Alfa Romeo	Alfa Romeo Tipo 308	Alfa Corse	not started (notification withdrawn)
04th	Luigi Chinetti	Alfa Romeo	Alfa Romeo Tipo 308	Christian Kautz
04th	Christian Kautz	Alfa Romeo	Alfa Romeo Tipo 308	Christian Kautz	not started (reserve driver)
06th		Alfa Romeo	Alfa Romeo Tipo 308	Alfa Corse	not started (notification withdrawn)
06th	Yves Matra	Alfa Romeo	Alfa Romeo Tipo 308	Christian Kautz
08th	Tazio Nuvolari	Auto Union	Auto Union Type D	Auto Union AG
10	Hans Stuck	Auto Union	Auto Union Type D	Auto Union AG
12	Hermann Paul Muller	Auto Union	Auto Union Type D	Auto Union AG
14th	Georg Meier	Auto Union	Auto Union Type D	Auto Union AG
14th	Rudolf Hasse	Auto Union	Auto Union Type D	Auto Union AG	not started (reserve driver)
16	Rudolf Caracciola	Mercedes Benz	Mercedes-Benz W 154	Daimler-Benz AG
18th	Manfred von Brauchitsch	Mercedes Benz	Mercedes-Benz W 154	Daimler-Benz AG
18th	Walter Bäumer	Mercedes Benz	Mercedes-Benz W 154	Daimler-Benz AG	not started (reserve driver)
18th	Hans-Hugo Hartmann	Mercedes Benz	Mercedes-Benz W 154	Daimler-Benz AG	not started (reserve driver)
20th	Hermann Lang	Mercedes Benz	Mercedes-Benz W 154	Daimler-Benz AG
22nd	Richard Seaman	Mercedes Benz	Mercedes-Benz W 154	Daimler-Benz AG	not started (fatal accident at the Belgian Grand Prix )
24		Maserati	Maserati 8CTF	Officine A. Maserati	not started (notification withdrawn)
26th		Maserati	Maserati 8CTF	Officine A. Maserati	not started (notification withdrawn)
28	Jean Trémoulet	SEFAC	SEFAC		not started
30th	René Dreyfus	Delahaye	Delahaye 145	Ecurie Lucy O'Reilly Schell
32	"Raph"	Delahaye	Delahaye 145	Ecurie Lucy O'Reilly Schell
34	Philippe Étancelin	Talbot	Talbot MD	Automobiles Talbot-Darracq
36	René Le Bègue	Talbot	Talbot MD	Automobiles Talbot-Darracq
38	Raymond Mays	Talbot	Talbot MC	Automobiles Talbot-Darracq

Starting grid

1		2		3
Long 2: 27.7 min		Caracciola 2: 29.6 min		Nuvolari 2: 29.9 min
	4th		5
	von Brauchitsch 2: 30.4 min		Müller 2: 31.7 min
6th		7th		8th
Piece 2: 35.0 min		Meier 2: 39.9 min		Le Bègue 2: 46.3 min
	9		10
	Étancelin 2: 50.2 min		Mays 2: 53.7 min
11		12		13
Dreyfus 2: 54.4 min		Chinetti 2: 58.4 min		Summer 2: 58.7 min
	14th		15th
	Matra 3: 01.3 min		"Raph" 3: 03.0 min

Race result

Item	No.	driver	constructor	Round	time	Failure reason	EM points
1	12	Hermann Paul Muller	Auto Union	51	2: 21: 11.8 h		1
2	14th	Georg Meier	Auto Union	50	+ 01 lap		2
3	36	René Le Bègue	Talbot	48	+ 03 rounds		3
4th	34	Philippe Étancelin	Talbot	48	+ 03 rounds		4th
5	02	Raymond Summers	Alfa Romeo	47	+ 04 rounds		4th
6th	10	Hans Stuck	Auto Union	47	+ 04 rounds		4th
7th	30th	René Dreyfus	Delahaye	45	+ 06 rounds		4th
8th	04th	Luigi Chinetti	Alfa Romeo	45	+ 06 rounds		4th
9	32	"Raph"	Delahaye	44	+ 07 rounds		4th
DNF	20th	Hermann Lang	Mercedes Benz	36		engine	5
DNF	18th	Manfred von Brauchitsch	Mercedes Benz	17th		engine	6th
DNF	06th	Yves Matra	Alfa Romeo	17th			6th
DNF	38	Raymond Mays	Talbot	10		tank	7th
DNF	08th	Tazio Nuvolari	Auto Union	10		transmission	7th
DNF	16	Rudolf Caracciola	Mercedes Benz	8th		transmission	7th

Fastest race lap : Hermann Lang ( Mercedes-Benz ), 2: 32.2 min = 184.9 km / h  

References

Web links

Commons : Automobilsport 1939  - Collection of Pictures, Videos and Audio Files

• XXXIII Grand Prix de l'Automobile Club de France. www.teamdan.com, accessed on September 13, 2014 (English). 
• XXV GRAND PRIX DE L'AUTOMOBILE CLUB DE FRANCE. www.kolumbus.fi, May 4, 2014, accessed on September 13, 2014 . 

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.
2. ↑ The type designation of the Auto Union racing cars was only introduced later by specialist authors to differentiate between the individual models