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Paul Frere - It is completely clear from these photographs that Hawthorn did not make a sudden-brake-and-pull-sharp-right manoeuvre only a short distance from the pits Tony Bailey No use without acknowledgement Plagiarism of this site will NOT be tolerated Home Home In the United States, the American Automobile Association (AAA) dissolved their Contest Board that had been the primary sanctioning body for motorsport in the US (including the Indianapolis 500) since 1904. Boards are the best place to save images and video clips. And the car's magnesium body burst into flames like a torch, burning others to death.. [3], The 1955 race began at 4pm on Saturday, and, as predicted, the lead cars of Eugenio Castellotti (Ferrari), Hawthorn (Jaguar), and Fangio (Mercedes-Benz) were at the head of the field in the first hour. This put him into the path of Levegh's Mercedes, closing in at over 200km/h (120mph), intent on doing another lap and in front of Fangio, who was patiently waiting to pass. What stands out in these pictures is the confusion. As callous as that might sound, there was a justifiable reason. Police managed to drag the Austin-Healey to the other side of the track. Catastrophe aux 24 heures du Mans en 1955 (France 3 Ouest, 2008), Apokalypse in Le Mans Das Rennen in den Tod (2010), Deadliest Crash: the Le Mans 1955 Disaster (Programme Website), "Crash and carnage at 150 mph This is how the worst racing accident happened", "1955 24 Hours of Le Mans - History, Profile, Information and Photos", "Mike Hawthorn & the 1955 24 Hours of Le Mans: The Cause and the Effect", "BBC Four - The Deadliest Crash: the Le Mans 1955 Disaster", "1956 Sebring 12 Hours Grand Prix - Race Photos, History, Profile", "Switzerland Officially Lifts 67-Year Ban On Circuit Racing", "Sir Jackie Stewart and Halo: No stranger to F1 safety ridicule", "Historic Austin-Healey car in Le Mans disaster to fetch '1m at auction", "1953 Austin-Healey has been restored to its former glory", Le Mans 1955 from The Mike Hawthorn Tribute Site, Newsreel footage of the 1955 race and crash, Life Magazine report of the 1955 Le Mans Disaster, 1955 Le Mans Disaster depicted and analyzed in depth by a witness (currently available only in French), Deadliest Crash: The Le Mans 1955 Disaster, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=1955_Le_Mans_disaster&oldid=1142738568, Short description is different from Wikidata, Articles with unsourced statements from June 2017, Articles with French-language sources (fr), Wikipedia articles needing clarification from March 2015, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0, that if the huge crowd of spectators had tried to leave, that firms participating in the race could have sued the race organizers for huge sums of money, that "the rough law of sport dictates that the race shall go on"; Faroux specifically pointing to the, that he did not, in fact, have the authority to stop the race at all, and that, This page was last edited on 4 March 2023, at 02:57. Hawthorn retired from motorsport soon after but was ironically killed when overtaking a Mercedes on a slippery road near his Surrey home in 1959. [14] The bonnet lid scythed through the air, "decapitating tightly jammed spectators like a guillotine. A photographer captured Hawthorn slugging from the customary bottle of champagne presented to the victory - just over 20 hours after the tragedy. It was a sort of victory for motorsports somehow, a pyrrhic victory, albeit. (In English, "To your health ('Cheers'), Mr. A special Mass was held in the morning in the Le Mans Cathedral for the first funerals of the victims. The other team cars were being kept on tighter leashes to conserve the cars, but still racing in the top ten. [42] The car retained the original engine SPL 261-BN,[41] but was reported to be in 'barn find' condition. So abruptly that he ended up missing his garage space and was ordered to do another lap to make it back around since backing up wasn't allowed. The disaster at Le Mans heralded a new era for motorsports with more technological innovations to improve sports cars and driver's safety. Bodies were strewn throughout the stands The majority of the dead were French, with the numbers injured running into the hundreds. At the Circuit de la Sarthe, the audience stands at the pits were demolished. Pierre Levegh, aged 49, had been hired by Mercedes-Benz . Lance Macklin, who had just been lapped in his slower Austin-Healey moved across to avoid Hawthorn and Levegh ran into the back of his car. Grow your brand authentically by sharing brand content with the internets creators. He was among the dead. Tap into Getty Images' global scale, data-driven insights, and network of more than 340,000 creators to create content exclusively for your brand. outstanding team of sports writers. It does not include track marshals and spectators other race attendees, including the 1955 disaster which claimed the lives of 83 spectators. On the one hand: worst accident in autoracing so far, with one dead pilot and about 80 dead spectators. The final verdict assigned blame to no one. [3][25][27], Hawthorn and the Jaguar team kept racing. - The opening hours were a fast and furious affair with drivers battling for early supremacy. 58 men, 15 women, and 6 children were reported dead at the time, but there was a further casualty of 5 people after later findings, with 170 (approximate figure) people suffering injuries of varying degrees. 2023 Getty Images. The crash started when Jaguar driver Mike Hawthorn pulled to the right side of the track in front of Austin-Healey driver Lance Macklin and started braking for his pit stop. Instead it pointed the finger of blame at the track layout which was deemed unsuitable for such high- speed racing. The 1955 Le Mans disaster occurred during the 24 Hours of Le Mans motor race at Circuit de la Sarthe in Le Mans, France on June 11, 1955. Levegh rear-ended Macklin at high speed, overriding Macklins car and launching his own car through the air. A further 120 people were injured. Car and engine bits struck the crowd as there was only a 4 foot bank between spectators and cars traveling up to 170 MPH due to a lack of safety standards. A police officer helps carry out an injured man, dazed. [37][15][38] Track safety technology and practices evolved slowly until F1 driver Jackie Stewart organized a campaign to advocate for better safety measures ten years later. The race authorities never called the race off. The only people on and around the podium that day who had mixed emotions at the race end were either race officials who were trying (and failing) to put on a faade for the camera and were grateful for an end to a disastrous race or other workers at the Le Mans circuit who had no stake in the race. With Levegh dead, Macklin presumed that Hawthorns implication was that he (Macklin) had been responsible, and he began a libel action. Millions of high-quality images, video, and music options await you. In the background are the pit stalls for the racers. Search instead in Creative? Hawthorn and Bueb won the race by a margin of five laps from Aston Martin. The rest of the 1955 World Sportscar Championship season was completed, with the remaining two races at the British RAC Tourist Trophy and the Italian Targa Florio, although they were not run until September and October, several months after the catastrophe. Stewart's campaign gained momentum after the deaths of Lorenzo Bandini and Jim Clark. Macklin survived the incident without serious injury, jumping out of the wreck and over the bank. The official inquiry cleared all drivers of any fault. [2] Marius Mestivier was the first race fatality, occurring only a few hours after Guilbert's death. The momentum of the heaviest components of the car the engine block, radiator, and front suspension hurtled straight on into the crowd for almost 100 metres (330ft), crushing all in their path. [14] Half an hour after the crash Fitch realised that news was probably being broadcast on the radio, and he needed to telephone his family to reassure them that he was not the driver of the crashed car. In other racing events where a car's ability is based on how fast it moves and in record time, this is a test of car reliability. They suggested that Mercedes-Benz had tampered with the official fuel-supply with an explosive additive, but the intensity of the fire was due instead to the magnesium-alloy construction of the chassis. You can read a recent interpretation from a lawyer right here for a deeper look into what it would take to assign definitive blame. . When he pit stopped during the next lap, he staggered out of the car completely distraught, adamant that he had caused the catastrophe. Jaguar driver Duncan Hamilton, and a teammate of Hawthorn, watched the tragedy unfold from the pit wall. . Once it was extinguished, there was nothing left but the frame. Le Mans Motor Racing Disaster (1955) | British Path Watch on At least 83 spectators were killed and over a hundred more injured in the 1955 Le Mans Disaster. The action was still unresolved when Hawthorn was killed in a non-racing crash on the Guildford bypass in 1959, ironically while overtaking a Mercedes-Benz in his Jaguar. As Macklin cut towards the middle of the track, Pierre Levegh, a Mercedes-Benz driver, was approaching at a speed of close to 150 mph; Macklin's car acted as a speed ramp for Pierre catapulting the car towards the spectators. He had just lapped Levegh (running sixth) after Arnage (one of the corners of the race track) and was determined to keep Fangio at bay as long as possible. Three years ago, another Audi crashed and nearly careened over a low wall into a large row of photographers. [14][3][18], Hawthorn had overshot his pits and stopped. "It's a most extraordinary sensation," Macklin said when recalling an incident that spun his car around and sent it skittling down the track backward. Look at how dense the crowd was. Showing Editorial results for le mans 1955. Le Mans, France: Rescue workers pursue the grim task of extricating . The media also speculated on the violent fire that engulfed the wreck, which intensified when fire marshals poured their water-based extinguishers on the flames. It smacked the barrier and the road shoulder rolling at hurtling speeds through 85 yards and over a further 100 yards, the engine, radiator, and suspension already ablaze were flung through a cluster of spectators destroying everything and anything in its part. The discussion focused on traffic policy and environmental questions rather than on safety. Fourteen people were decapitated with the death toll in the crowd recorded at 83 - though more were believed to have succumbed to their injuries in the weeks and months afterward. Shortly before he died, he wrote of the race: "It was as though we were at the point where a great rock had been hurled into a pond, sending out waves of shock and horror and indignation which would later flow back, bringing consequences which no one could foresee. Many other drivers tried to describe the whole crash as a blameless 'racing incident,' but Hawthorn blamed Lance Macklin, the driver of the Austin-Healey. Meanwhile, Macklin's car, heavily damaged, rammed the left-side barrier, then veered to the right of the track into the pit lane, narrowly missing Kling's Mercedes-Benz, Roberto Mieres's Maserati, and Don Beauman's Jaguar, all of which were already in the pits refuelling before the accident. In 2003, the Federal Assembly of Switzerland started a lengthy discussion about whether this ban should be lifted. [2] Sixteen during the race itself, five during pre-race practice and testing sessions, and one en route to the race. Although Marchal was taken to the hospital, he died the following day. It exploded like a grenade spewing debris through the grandstand, killing anyone within the blast radius. Amateur driver Kippeurth lost control of his.