1923 Spanish Grand Prix

The winner Albert Divo , here at the French Grand Prix in 1924

Louis Zborowski's Miller racing car

The second Spanish Grand Prix took place on October 28, 1923 at the Autódromo de Sitges-Terramar near Sant Pere de Ribes . The race was held over 200 laps of 2.00 km each, which corresponded to a total distance of 400.0 km.

The winner was Louis Zborowski on Miller

run

Contrary to what was counted as the second Spanish Grand Prix, it was the first event that was actually contested with Grand Prix racing cars because the first race under this title in 1913 was still held with touring cars. Strictly speaking, this event also did not fully meet the requirements of the International Grand Prix Formula , because the race distance was set at over 600 km instead of the required 800 km and ultimately even shortened to 400 km due to the weather conditions. This can be one of the possible reasons why the race is not usually run as a Grande Épreuve  - and therefore not on the same level as the French and Italian Grand Prix in the same year.

The track was a high-speed oval with banked curves, which was the first permanent Spanish racetrack to be built specifically to host the Spanish Grand Prix and was now inaugurated as part of a racing week with the Grand Prix as the prelude. However, there was already a scandal at the premiere because the audience income was seized in order to reimburse outstanding bills for the construction of the route. For this reason, the Real Automòbil Club de Catalunya, as the organizer, was not able to pay the entry fees due to the participants, which primarily had to finance their travel expenses. As a consequence, the track has been closed by the International Automobile Federation to host further international automobile races. On top of that, the drivers also complained about the wrong design of the banked curves, so that racing on the facility was completely stopped after only a few events.

Despite these problems, and although with the two Sunbeams from Albert Divo and Dario Resta and the Miller from Louis Zborowski after the cancellation of Bugatti , Rolland-Pilain and Benz, only three really serious competitors of the 2-liter formula were at the start - at The cars of the four other participants were less powerful cars in the Voiturette category - the race ultimately developed into one of the most exciting Grand Prix races that had ever taken place. On a wet track - the race was initially endangered due to the weather conditions and was ultimately shortened from 300 to 200 laps due to the start delay - real wheel-to-wheel battles developed right from the start, like those in the Grand Prix world had not seen then. Zborowski was initially in the lead with his American Miller racing car designed for this kind of oval course , but had to hand it over to Divo on lap eight. His tire change on the 55th lap put Zborowski back in front, who was able to increase his lead a little before he came back to the track immediately before Divo after a refueling stop on the 138th lap. While Resta had to give up in the meantime, the battle for the top was finally decided on lap 190, when Zborowski had to stop again briefly to change tires. So Divo finally crossed the line with less than a minute ahead of Zborowski and brought Sunbeam the second major success of the season after Segrave's victory in the French Grand Prix, while Alfonso Carreras was the best local driver with his 1.5-liter Elizalde only finished third with almost an hour behind. How close the race was can also be seen from the fact that Divo's average speed of 15 km / h over the entire distance was only about 1 km / h below the lap record set by Zborowski of 157.2 km / h.

Results

Registration list

team	No.	driver	chassis	engine	tires
Harry A. Miller Manufacturing Company	01	Louis Zborowski	Miller 122	Offenhauser 2.0L I8	F.
	02	Martín de Álzaga
	03	Jimmy Murphy
Sunbeam-Talbot-Darracq Motors	04th	Dario Resta	Sunbeam GP	Sunbeam 2.0L I4
	05	Albert Divo
Automobiles Ettore Bugatti	06th	Pierre de Vizcaya	Bugatti T30	Bugatti 2.0L I8	M.
Benz engines	07th		Benz RH 2-liter teardrop-shaped racing car	Benz Bz 6516 2.0L I6	C.
	08th
	09
SA des Établissements Rolland-Pilain	10	Albert Guyot	Rolland-Pilain A22	Rolland-Pilain 2.0L I8
SA Autocostruzioni Diatto	11	José dos Santos-Mora	Diatto 20S
Elizalde y Cia	12	Alfonso Carreras	Elizalde 511
	13	José Feliu
Aston Martin Cars	14th	Clive Gallop	Aston Martin GP	Aston Martin 1.5L I4	D.

Race result

Item	driver	constructor	Round	Stops	time	begin	Fastest lap	Failure reason
01	Albert Divo	Sunbeam	200		2: 33: 50.0 h
02	Louis Zborowski	Miller	200		+ 56.0 s		45.8 s
03	Alfonso Carreras	Elizalde	200		+ 52: 45.0 min
04th	José dos Santos-Mora	Diatto	200
05	José Feliu	Elizalde	200
-	Dario Resta	Sunbeam	150		DNF			failure
-	Clive Gallop	Aston Martin			DNF			failure
-	Martín de Álzaga	Miller			DNS
-	Jimmy Murphy	Miller			DNS

Web links

• 1923 Grand Prix. (No longer available online.) Www.teamdan.com, archived from the original on February 7, 2019 ; accessed on July 14, 2020 (English).