June 11, 1955 is the blackest date in the history of motorsport. On this day, during the famous race “24 hours of Le Mans” an accident occurred, the victims of which were the pilot of Mercedes-Benz Pierre Leveg and 83 fans. Neither that day, nor after such a massive disaster on the racetracks did not happen.
Then, 65 years ago, the 24 Hours of Le Mans race was the fourth stage of the world championship among sports cars. The fight for the title of the best manufacturer was fought by three large concerns - Ferrari, Mercedes-Benz and Jaguar. In pursuit of high speeds, they created more and more advanced cars, using various novelties in almost every new race.
However, the progress of the machines, capable of accelerating to 300 km / h, did not keep pace with the organizers of the stages. The track for the “24 hours of Le Mans” remained virtually unchanged, despite the fact that the speed of cars has tripled since its construction. Security issues in those days received much less attention than now. Moreover, pilots did not have to use seat belts at that time. About what could happen if the car suddenly flies off the track at high speed, few people cared.
One of the favorites of the race in 1955 was the 49-year-old Mercedes-Benz pilot Pierre Leveg. His real name was Buyen - he took a pseudonym in honor of his uncle, who was a pioneer of motorsport. He unsuccessfully performed in the first two Formula 1 championships and attracted attention in 1952, when for 22 hours he remained behind the wheel of a private car in Le Mans and sensationally led the race. Due to technical problems, Leveg did not finish, but for a long time gained fame in the world of car racing.
Three years later, the Frenchman became a Mercedes-Benz pilot and received one of the most advanced fireballs of his time - the silver 300 SLR. He had an 8-cylinder 3-liter V-engine with a mechanical fuel injection system, which was a real revolution for that time. The case consisted of a magnesium alloy, which allowed to reduce the weight of the machine to 900 kg. Such a car easily accelerated to 300 km / h in a straight line. At the same time, the car was equipped with drum brakes, which were less effective than the newly appeared disc brakes.
The main competitor of Levega, Briton Mike Hawthorne, just used these on his Jaguar D-Type. It was he who took the lead in the first rounds of “24 hours of Le Mans”. His closest pursuer was Juan Manuel Fangio, who also spoke at Mercedes-Benz. Towards the 35th lap, Hawthorne overtook the sixth Legoeg in the lap and drove to the finish line. At this moment, a chain of events began that entailed a terrible tragedy.
On a straight line, which was located along the bleached-up stands, Hawthorne unexpectedly received a command to turn into a pit stop. Before that, the Briton overtook Lance Macklin in a private Austin-Healey car, which had specially shifted to the right for this, and now he had to turn right and slow down to be in the boxes. Macklin was confused. The situation was aggravated by the fact that Hawthorne slowed too sharply - he had the best brakes at that time.
- Fatal collision pattern
To avoid a collision, Maclean himself braked sharply and shifted to the left, finding himself on the trajectory of Leveg gaining speed and waiting in line to overtake Fangio. Leveg had no chance to dodge or slow down. At the last moment, he gave Fangio a signal and crashed into Maclean's car. She served as a kind of springboard for the ultrafast Mercedes-Benz.
Levega car flew into the air and touched the mound that separated the track from the audience. The pilot flew out of the car and received a fatal head injury, and the car spun even more and flew into the stands. From a collision, the car shook and fell apart. Her wreckage scattered over a vast area, instantly killing and causing severe wounds to dozens of fans. This was followed by an explosion in the fuel tank. The magnesium body of the car caught fire and began to discard the burning debris, leading to new victims. When it seemed that things could not be worse, rescuers who arrived at the scene of the fire began to extinguish the flame with water. She reacted with magnesium and only intensified the fire.
84 people became victims of the accident, another 120 spectators were injured. At the same time, the terrible tragedy did not force the organizers to finish the race ahead of schedule - they felt that if fans were sent home immediately, they would create traffic jams for ambulances. The pilots who were on the track could not guess the scale of the tragedy and continued to race.
A few hours later, the entire Mercedes-Benz team, including Fangio, who took the lead, stopped the race. The incident shocked the company's management so much that from the next year it completely turned off all auto racing activities for decades to come. Only in 2010, Mercedes returned to Formula 1 as a factory team.
The winner of the 24 Hours of Le Mans was Hawthorne, whose team did not accept the proposal to withdraw after Mercedes-Benz. French newspapers criticized him for celebrating the victory with champagne and called him the main culprit of the tragedy. However, a further investigation concluded that a collision of circumstances led to the accident, and the numerous casualties among the audience were caused by inadequate security measures.
Four years later, Hawthorne himself died as a result of a car accident. Ironically, he crashed into a tree after overtaking a Formula 1 team manager, Rob Walker, who was driving a Mercedes car in rainy weather.
The crash of June 11, 1955 had a huge impact on motorsport. In many countries, a ban on racing was introduced until the tracks were rebuilt in accordance with new safety standards. In Switzerland, the ban on car racing is still valid, only in the last few years an exception has been made for electric cars.