1926 Spanish Grand Prix
The III. The Spanish Grand Prix took place on July 25, 1926 on the Circuito Lasarte , a classic street circuit near San Sebastián . Despite its title, the race was not carried out according to the applicable International Grand Prix racing formula , but as a formula -free race in which both privately and factory- registered cars could take part without any particular technical restrictions. The race was held over 40 laps of 17.75 km each, which corresponded to a total distance of 710.0 km.
The winner was Bartolomeo "Meo" Costantini in a Bugatti Type 35 .
run
One week after the European Grand Prix , the Gran Premio de España was held as a formula-free race at the same location . After the German Grand Prix this year, it was the second official Grand Prix of an automobile nation that did not use the regulations of the International Grand Prix formula. The background was that the organizers only expected a weak line-up for the European Grand Prix from the start and therefore wanted to include another race with a decent number of participants in the program.
This hope was only partially fulfilled, however, because of the originally registered 30 participants, only ten showed up at the start, including Delage and Bugatti, the two opponents from the previous World Championship round, who each had three of their previous year's grand for this race -Prix racing cars with a displacement of 2 liters. The three Delage Type 2 LCVs with twelve-cylinder supercharged engines were again driven by Louis Wagner , Robert Benoist and André Morel , while Jules Goux , Bartolomeo Costantini and Ferdinando Minoia took the wheel of the compressorless Type 35 in -line eight-cylinder engines for Bugatti, which in terms of performance were inferior to the Delage were, but had a much better roadholding on the winding course. There were also three privately used Bugattis with 2 and 2.3 liter engines and a Sunbeam originally designed as a record car by Henry Segrave with a 4 liter V12 engine.
As expected, Segrave and the mighty Sunbeam pushed forward from the rolling start, but was overtaken by Morel on Delage on the fourth lap and had to give up two laps later with a broken front axle. One lap later, Morel was also out of the race, now being led by his team-mate Wagner in front of five Bugattis. On the slightly rain-wet track, Costantini now put pressure on the significantly better-lying Bugatti and finally took the lead on lap 13, which he was able to expand afterwards. He was helped by a pit stop by Wagner, who on this occasion passed the steering wheel to Benoist. Goux in third place was already one lap behind the leader at this point. Despite further pit stops, this order was maintained until the 35th lap, when Benoist was caught by Goux during another refueling stop. After his great drive at the finish line, Costantini had one lap ahead of the rest of the field, of which Minoia was ranked fourth and last.
Results
Registration list
Race result
| Item | driver | constructor | Round | Stops | time | begin | Fastest lap | Failure reason |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 |
 Meo Costantini
|
 Bugatti
|
40 | 5: 35: 47.0 h | 2 | 7: 41.6 min | ||
| 2 |
Jules Goux
|
Bugatti
|
40 | + 16: 28.0 min | 4th | |||
| 3 |
Louis Wagner Robert Benoist
|
Delage
|
40 | + 21: 10.0 min | 7th | |||
| 4th |
Ferdinando Minoia
|
Bugatti
|
40 | + 21: 40.0 min | 6th | |||
| - |
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|
Bugatti
|
33 | DSQ | 10 | angled | ||
| - |
 William Grover-Williams
|
Bugatti
|
29 | DNF | 8th | Piston damage | ||
| - |
André Morel
|
Delage
|
6th | DNF | 5 | Piston damage | ||
| - |
Henry Segrave
|
Sunbeam
|
5 | DNF | 1 | Axle break | ||
| - |
Robert Benoist
|
Delage
|
4th | DNF | 3 | Ignition damage | ||
| - |
 René de Buck
|
Bugatti
|
2 | DNF | 9 | broken handlebar |
1 unregistered substitute driver
Web links
- III Gran Premio de España. (No longer available online.) Www.teamdan.com, archived from the original on February 7, 2019 ; accessed on February 17, 2020 (English).