1928 24 Hours of Le Mans
The 1928 24 Hours of Le Mans was the 6th Grand Prix of Endurance that took place at the Circuit de la Sarthe on 16 and 17 June 1928.
Salmson achieved consecutive victories in the Biennial Cup, while the new car from Bollack Netter and Co won the Index of Performance.
[2] But the main innovation from the ACO this year was the introduction of the Coupe à la Distance for the car that travelled the furthest over the twenty-four hours.
Supercharged engines were now allowed (but not into the final round of the 1927-28 Biennial Cup), with their effective capacity regarded as 1.3 times their swept volume.
Example targets included the following:[2] The Hors Course rule was relaxed considerably this year – with cars now only disqualified for completing insufficient distance at the 12-hour mark and not every six hours as before.
No doubt motivated by the excitement of 1927, and a prize for an overall winner, there were more cars in the large-engine classes, although Ariès was still the only French manufacturer in that category.
After the tough race the previous year, there were only six entries eligible for the 1927-28 Biennial Cup, with Salmson taking only one of its two available spots.
Company director, and chief shareholder, Woolf Barnato drove with his wealthy Australian-born Grosvenor Square neighbour Bernard Rubin.
The third car was driven by another of the “Bentley Boys” debutantes, Sir Henry “Tim” Birkin, who was accompanied by the experienced Jean Chassagne, who had chased the team so hard in his Ariès the previous year.
It was entered by Charles Terres Weymann, the Paris-based American car-distributor and aviator and driven by Le Mans veterans Édouard Brisson and Robert Bloch formerly of Lorraine-Dietrich.
[7] After a promising debut in the 1925 race, Chrysler returned with a big four-car team, once again entered by its French distributor, the Grand Garage St Didier Paris.
The team hired a squad of grand-prix drivers: Henri Stoffel (1925 Chrysler driver) was with dual race-winner André Rossignol, up-and-coming race-winner Louis Chiron ran with Cyril de Vere, Conte “Freddie” Zehender was paired with Jacques Ledure while the Cantacuzino brothers (Parisian-resident Romanian aristocrats) had the fourth car.
The Grand Sport had proven reliability and was entered in the Biennial Cup with 1927 winners, works drivers Georges Casse and André Rousseau.
Founded in 1923, they started with small, quick cyclecars and then introducing models with bigger engines that proved competitive in racing.
Three versions of their new Type H were offered (named after famous race-tracks), including the supercharged “Montlhéry” but it was a regular “Monza” model that was bought to Le Mans.
Two prototypes came to Le Mans, driven by engineer co-owner Augustus “Bert” Bertelli / George Eyston and Cyril Paul with former Bentley mechanic Jack Besant.
Fortunately, Morris Motors had purchased the Léon Bollée factory near Le Mans to produce cars for the French market.
[20] From the start the Bentleys were in front, with Birkin taking the lead, ahead of Brisson in the Stutz, Laly's Ariès the four Chryslers and two of the Lagondas.
Ignoring team orders to slow down his luck ran out when he went off at Mulsanne corner and planted the car in the sandbank.
Furious and bruised, d’Erlanger made it back to the pits where the front brakes and shock absorbers had to be disengaged to continue on.
[25][1] The Alvis team had planned on running 22-laps shifts but were concerned when their cars began sputtering on 19 laps because of their fuel-tank shape.
[19] Having been on schedule as night fell, the supercharged Salmson developed engine problems that meant it was disqualified, alongside one of the SARAs, at the halfway point for insufficient distance.
Then not long after midday the green Bentley had to pit with a water leak as the radiator worked loose, also due to a cracked chassis like their sister car.
With water spattering him from the overheating radiator, he dropped to 50 km/h, free-wheeling down slopes and stopping to let the engine cool a bit.
[11] Salmson repeated its previous year's success, coming in tenth overall and again winning the Biennial Cup, romping in and beating their target by 29 laps.
However, they were beaten to this year's Index of Performance by the mighty little BNC that beat the same target by 33 laps, coming 7th overall and first French car home.
came away with their best result at Le Mans, finishing second in the Biennial Cup and beating their previous best distance by nine laps.
It was delayed through the middle of the race but they made up time to make their target by the slimmest of margins – calculated by the ACO as only 35 metres on its last lap.
[29] After much success in the mid-1920s Salmson closed its racing team in 1929 on this high note, as the grand prix cars were getting outdated and the company was moving out of the crowded fast sports-car market.
Bollack and Natter were forced out of their own company at the end of the year when it was bought by businessman Charles de Ricou.
