1959 24 Hours of Le Mans
The prospect of an exciting duel between Ferrari, Aston Martin and giantkillers Porsche was enough to draw large crowds and some 150,000 spectators gathered for France's classic sports car race, around the 8.38-mile course.
[6] The increase in potential classes to 10 created a lot of interest with manufacturers and drivers and a total of 97 entries applied for the event.
[7] This year there were seven manufacturer works teams, led by Ferrari and Aston Martin as well as Porsche, Lotus, DB, OSCA and Triumph.
Also, after six years Enzo Ferrari had finally relented and installed Dunlop disc brakes on the works cars.
[8][9][10] His squad of drivers included 1958 winners, Phil Hill/Olivier Gendebien, joined by Jean Behra/Dan Gurney and Hermano da Silva Ramos/Cliff Allison.
A subsidiary team, Scuderia Eugenio Castellotti, was entrusted with a new prototype to take on the Porsches in the 2-litre division – the V6-engined Dino 196 S that produced 195 PS.
The three works cars were driven by Nürburgring winners Stirling Moss/Jack Fairman alongside the F1 team driver Roy Salvadori with ex-chicken farmer, Texan[9] Carroll Shelby, and Maurice Trintignant/Paul Frère.
[13][14] In the GT category there was also a new DB4 GT (also using the DBR1 engine) entered by the Swiss Ecurie Trois Chevrons[4] With no Maseratis this year, the remaining five cars in the S-3000 category all had Jaguar-engines: Lister Engineering brought two of their new Frank Costin-designed cars (joined by Jaguar's former team manager, Lofty England[15]), with another for the Equipe Nationale Belge, while the previously successful Ecurie Ecosse team this year entered both a Jaguar D-Type (for Masten Gregory and Innes Ireland) and a Tojeiro-Jaguar (for Ron Flockhart and Jock Lawrence).
[16] The two works cars were driven by regulars Hans Herrmann / Umberto Maglioli and new team-members Wolfgang von Trips / Jo Bonnier.
Four Porsches made up the only entrants in the S-1500 class, the works car driven by Edgar Barth / Wolfgang Seidel alongside Dutch, French and American privateers.
Up against the Porsches and Lotus and the new Ferrari, Cooper sent the new T49 ‘Monaco’ (named after its first GP victory)[17] driven by young works driver Bruce McLaren.
Triumph returned to Le Mans with three TR3S cars, its driver line-up including 1956 race winner Ninian Sanderson.
[19] For the first time, the ACO was able to close the public roads in April which allowed a test day for teams to prepare their cars.
However Jean Behra had a major argument with team manager Romolo Tavoni who had imposed a 7500rpm rev-limit on the cars, limiting top performance, to protect the engines.
Some of the lap-times recorded during practice were:[20][21] Both the Whitehead Aston Martin and the Tojeiro had major problems and needed parts urgently flown in before the race.
After practice, Dickie Stoop's Lotus Elite was in a traffic accident driving back to its garage in the town and was too badly damaged to be ready for the race-start the body having been all but destroyed.
[2][8][27][14] Surprisingly, there was not a single retirement in the first hour (although Lund was delayed after his MG hit a dog at Mulsanne corner).
[28] It was at dusk, in the fifth hour, that the first major accident occurred: Brian Naylor hit oil and rolled the Whitehead Aston Martin at Maison Blanche.
Both smaller cars went up in flames and although Russell had a broken leg and ribs from the initial collision both drivers got away with only minor burns.
But as night fell the pace started taking its toll – around 10pm, on the 70th lap, both the Ireland/Gregory Jaguar running second and the Moss/Fairman Aston Martin in third were put out with engine problems.
[29] And when Behra's Ferrari was called into the pits by officials to fix malfunctioning lights suddenly the Salvadori/Shelby Aston Martin found itself in the lead.
Meanwhile, Phil Hill had hunted down the leaders and soon after 2am the Aston Martin lost ten minutes when Salvadori pitted with major vibrations in the suspension.
[30][31][27] The Hill/Gendebien Ferrari finally hit the front – its engine issues resolved when the water levels dropped – and together they set about building a solid lead through the night.
[33] As the sun rose (for once without the thick rolling fog[34]) the S-750 class Stacey/Greene Lotus had risen to 14th, leading the Index of Performance by a big margin, when it was stopped by the same distributor issues that had halted its teammate.
[39] Perhaps the unluckiest drivers were the privateer DB team of Bartholoni/Jaeger who had battled and survived clutch problems through the whole race only for it to break completely with mere minutes to run.
Managing Director David Brown had got changed into his ‘Sunday best’ and in his joy jumped about the winning car for its victory lap.
After winning the Tourist Trophy round later in the year, Aston Martin clinched the World Constructors Championship and Brown withdrew the company from motorsport (including its unsuccessful venture into Formula 1).
[1][41] Perhaps the unluckiest drivers were the privateer DB team of Bartholoni/Jaeger who had battled and survived clutch problems through the whole race only for it to break completely with mere minutes to run.
[40] In a remarkable turn of fortune to the previous year, this was Porsche's worst performance to date with none of their cars, works or privateer, finishing.
Taken from Quentin Spurring's book, officially licensed by the ACO Championship points were awarded for the first six places in each race in the order of 8-6-4-3-2-1.
