Motorsport year 1903

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1899190019011902Motorsport year 1903  | 1904  | 1905
Further sporting events

Camille Jenatzy with Mercedes, Gordon Bennet-Cup 1903, postcard, by Veuve Durand and Compagnie (VDC)

In Motorsport 1903 there was for the automobile sport first major upheaval. After the "death race" Paris - Madrid with several dead and injured, the format of the races from city to city on public roads could no longer be maintained. The successful course of the Gordon Bennett Cup, which was held for the first time on a circuit in Athy , Ireland , finally showed a way out of the crisis.

Race results

Paris – Madrid

Paris-Madrid in the south of France
space driver team time
1 Third French RepublicThird French Republic Fernand Gabriel Mors 5: 14.31.2 h
2 Third French RepublicThird French Republic Louis Renault Renault + 08/15.0 min
3 Third French RepublicThird French Republic Jacques Salleron Mors + 32.30.6 min

The race from Paris to Madrid was a temporary high point, but with its disastrous course it was also the end point of the classic races from city to city. A record field of 179 automobiles and 59 motorcycles set off on May 24, 1903, surrounded by crowds of spectators Over four daily stages over a total of 1307 km of total distance, and the first participant had already covered more than 200 km when the last started. Despite the weight formula that had been in effect since the previous year, the manufacturers had once again achieved a significant leap in performance and, in particular, the Mors racing cars, which were streamlined for the first time, were a sensation with 90 hp engine power and top speeds of around 140 km / h. But already the first 552 km long stage to Bordeaux turned into a disaster. Due to the dust thrown up by the cars, visibility was restricted to a few meters and spectators were constantly crowding onto the track, so that accidents were almost inevitable. At least seven people were killed, two spectators and five participants (three mechanics and two drivers, the well-known designer Marcel Renault and the Englishman Claude Loraine Barrow ) - the number of injuries was even higher. Finally, the French authorities canceled the race in Bordeaux. Not only did they not allow vehicles to return to Paris under their own steam, they even prohibited them from even leaving them on. They were then loaded onto a train.

The winner of this race, which went down in history in France as la course hecatombe and in Great Britain as the race to death , was then declared to be Fernand Gabriel auf Mors, who had covered the distance to Bordeaux at an average speed of over 105 km / h. Subsequently, the French government finally issued a ban on pure speed races on open public roads, which inevitably meant the end of this type of race, which had been held since 1895. The future of automobile sport seemed to be called into question.

Ardennes Race - Bastogne

space driver team time
1 BelgiumBelgium Pierre de Crawhez Panhard & Levassor 5: 52.07.6 h
2 Third French RepublicThird French Republic Léonce Girardot CGV + 04/20/22 min
3 Third French RepublicThird French Republic René de Brou De Dietrich + 32.21.6 min

On June 22, 1903 in Bastogne, Belgium, the 85 km long circuit through the Ardennes was driven six times again during the Ardennes race . In addition to the victory for Panhard & Levassor , it brought the best result for the car brand CGV, founded by Fernand Charron and Léonce Girardot

Gordon Bennett Cup - Athy

space driver team time
1 BelgiumBelgium Camille Jenatzy Mercedes 6: 39.00 h
2 Third French RepublicThird French Republic René de Knyff Panhard & Levassor + 11.40 min
3 Third French RepublicThird French Republic Henri Farman Panhard & Levassor + 12.44 min

After Selwyn Edge's victory in the Gordon Bennett Cup last year, it was now up to the Automobile Club of Great Britain and Ireland to host the 1903 race. However, since the British Parliament was not prepared to temporarily override the general legal speed limit (12 mph, ≈18 km / h) in the British part of the UK for the race scheduled for July 2, 1903, a circuit that was easier to lock off became instead Voted near the town of Athy in the rural part of Ireland , where it was easier to get an exemption from the local government.

Actually a until then hardly noticed competition, still held in a completely remote part of Europe, the race for the Coupe Internationale of 1903 became practically overnight after the catastrophic end of the death race from Paris to Madrid, followed by the ban on all overland races in France the central event of the entire motorsport world. The interest in participating was correspondingly great and for the first time the Gordon Bennett Cup actually lived up to its original intention. With four teams from Great Britain, France, Germany and the USA, a race was held for the first time that actually deserved the name internationally . The cars were now painted in the specified national colors. With Alexander Winton's Bullett , an eight-cylinder racing car also took part in a major race for the first time, which, like the other two representatives of the American team, could not keep up with the field. The British did much better at first, but then had to say goodbye to the top group due to accidents and defects. The race evolved in a row to a duel between the German and the French team, but the for in the German automobile club propelled Belgian Camille Jenatzy on Mercedes was able to extend his lead steadily to end after more than six and a half hours driving time with an average of just under 77 km / h and only 11 minutes ahead of Henri Farman on Panhard & Levassor . It was the first victory for the German brand in a major race. Instead of the originally planned 90 hp racing car , the German team even had to compete in the DMG factory in Canstatter in June 1903 with 60 hp models from the previous year that had been bought back or loaned from private owners . The Jenatzy winning car came from the US enthusiast Clarence Gray Dinsmore .

This race forms the background to James Joyce's short story After the Race , written between 1905 and 1907, published in 1914.

literature

  • Michael Ulrich: The Race Bugatti missed . Monsenstein and Vannerdat, Münster 2005, ISBN 3-86582-085-9 . (Revised as: Paris-Madrid. The greatest car race of all time . Monsenstein and Vannerdat, Münster 2013, ISBN 978-3-942153-14-0 )

Web links

Commons : Automobilsport 1903  - Collection of Pictures, Videos and Audio Files

Individual evidence

  1. conceptcarz.com; De Dion Bouton Paris-Madrid racing car
  2. ^ Mercedes 90 PS racing car, 1903. In: mercedes-benz-publicarchive.com. Mercedes-Benz Archive, accessed March 5, 2020 .
  3. ^ Mercedes-Simplex 60 hp Gordon Bennett racing car, 1903. In: mercedes-benz-publicarchive.com. Mercedes-Benz Archive, accessed March 5, 2020 .
  4. James Joyce: Dubliner . German by Dieter E. Zimmer . Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt am Main 1969, pp. 36-42.