1926 24 Hours of Le Mans
It was the first Le Mans race where the winner's average speed was over 100 km/h (62 mph), and also the first to break the 24-hour distance record set by Selwyn Edge at Brooklands in 1907.
[1] This year saw the entry of the Peugeot works team, after strong success elsewhere in touring and grand prix racing.
For the track position on the final lap after exactly 24 hours, the distance would be calculated using the average speed of the car in the time after reaching its target.
[2] With engine improvements, the targets distances were again modified: The competition was boosted by a substantial prize of FF10000 from Grand Garage Saint-Didier, the large Parisian car-dealership that had entered the Chrysler car in the previous year's race.
The ACO dictated the pit sequence, where pit-crew could assist the drivers – doing refuelling, adding oil, water, and then changing tyres and wheels before getting onto other mechanical work.
[2] The day after the 1925 race, the landowners on Les Raineries side of the track approached the ACO with a more reasonable offer to sell the land.
[4][5] The car parks were extended to accommodate 3000 vehicles and road access improved, and footbridges built by the pits, Pontlieue hairpin and near Maison Blanche.
The 1925 winners were split:André Rossignol with Robert Bloch and Gérard de Courcelles with Marcel Mongin.
In financial difficulties, the company had been recently bailed out by Woolf Barnato, heir to a South African mining fortune.
Driven by Frank Clement/George Duller and doctor Dudley Benjafield with journalist Sammy Davis, they became the kernel of the “Bentley Boys” works team.
A third car, a new short-wheelbase 3-litre Super Sport, was privately entered by wealthy, 21-year old gentleman-driver Arthur “Tommy” Thistlethwayte.
Rather than using sandbags, which rolled around and dried out over time, he installed steel tubes filled with lead of an equivalent weight.
Team principal Baron Charles Petiet this year was able to get Jean Chassagne as a driver to replace Louis Wagner who had gone to Peugeot.
A pre-war French racing hero and veteran of three Indy 500s he was paired with his former riding mechanic, now team-driver, Robert Laly.
John Willys had bought Overland Automobile in 1907, renaming it Willys-Automotive in 1912 and by 1915 was the second-biggest American car-manufacturer behind Ford.
This year the Grand Prix drivers “Nando” Minoia and Giulio Foresti were paired together, with the Danieli brothers and Renato Balestrero/Frédéric Thelusson in the others.
Majority shareholder Robert Poirier drove one car for the race with Antonin Fontaine with another run by Auguste Lefranc/Pierre Tobourin.
[23] After several hours, and 20 laps, the first pit-stops were due and first to stop was the Jousset hard-top – the new team finding their cars disturbingly heavy on fuel-consumption.
[10] In the laborious work of digging himself out Duller had taken off his helmet and for several laps the car was in danger of being disqualified as drivers were not allowed to race without crash-helmets.
[11][19] Going into the night, the Corre La Licorne of Waldemar Lestienne arrived in the pits with its left mudguard bent over the bonnet, the wheel knocked out of alignment and its rearbumper trailing along the ground.
[8] Dauvergne lost time getting his Peugeot out of the ditch and both teams lodged protests with the officials about the unsporting driving, but the EHP's engine expired soon after anyway.
[19][8] In the early hours the other car's battery went flat and when Wagner reversed up the pit to try and bump-start it, he was also disqualified[8] – much to the disapproval of the spectators.
[10] Dudley Benjafield then really picked up the pace of the remaining Bentley, closing in on the Lorraines ahead by as much as twenty seconds a lap.
Realising the danger, both Mongin and then de Courcelles lifted the second-placed car's pace too, breaking the lap record by seven seconds.
He had to explain why he had stopped on the Mulsanne Straight after midday to pick up some tools which was not permitted conveniently left by an OM mechanic.
[13] Mongin's pace versus the Bentley meant he had to pit for a fuel top-up in the last hour, so his average speed on his excess laps was compromised.
[25] The American Overland had moved up to sixth into the last hour when it pulled into the pits to retire, only two laps short of its target.
[20] However, it also extended to motoring in general: the road resurfacing had greatly improved overall race-speed (the three Lorraines all exceeded an average speed of 100 km/h over the 24 hours).
[2][24] It proved to be a bad year for the saturated French touring-car market with a number of smaller manufacturers struggling and forced to close.
There were no official class divisions for this race and these are the highest finishers in unofficial categories (used in subsequent years) related to the Index targets.
