24 Hours of Le Mans is the world’s most famous auto race, a grueling endurance competition that tests the abilities of both driver and car.
The north-western French town of Le Mans will forever be synonymous with the brutal 24-hour endurance race that takes place on its Circuit de la Sarthe each year. Established in 1923, the 24 Hours of Le Mans is the oldest sports car race of its type in the world, and it makes up one-third of the “triple crown of Motorsport” that includes the Indianapolis 500 and Monaco Grand Prix. It’s become known both for its punishing distance and many tragedies, alongside top speeds that exceed 225 miles per hour on the course’s Mulsanne straight.
In the 1971 film “Le Mans,” Steve McQueen famously said, “When you’re racing, it’s life. Anything that happens before or after is just waiting.” This became one of the most quoted phrases in motorsport, and it perfectly summarizes the attitude required of every driver in the 24 Hours of Le Mans. This is more than a race, as it tests not only the cars but also the drivers to the absolute limits of their abilities as they compete to drive the most laps of the 8.5-mile circuit in a single day, with many cars covering over 3,000 miles in total.
Regarded as the greatest race on the motorsport calendar, the 24 Hours of Le Mans is legendary in the eyes of racing fans, moviegoers, and the public at large, thanks to a host of documentaries and films that include the aforementioned “Le Mans” and more recently, “Le Mans 66,” otherwise known as “Ford vs. Ferrari.” The Early Years
The 24 Hours of Le Mans turned 100 in 2023, but its roots go back to 1922’s Paris Motor Show when three heavily-mustachioed Frenchmen, Georges Durand, Emile Coquille, and Charles Faroux, decided to launch an endurance race to rival Italy’s Mille Miglia and the set-distance motorcar races of its day. This type of race was an ideal platform for automobile brands to not only showcase their cars’ performance abilities but also demonstrate their durability on the world’s stage.
Thus, the world’s most famous endurance race began, with great European marques like Bentley, Alfa Romeo, and Bugatti dominating in the early years. Unlike today’s dedicated circuit, which only partially encroaches public roadways, the entire racewas held on the streets of Le Mans and named after the Sarthe river that ran through the town. The Le Mans tradition grew in popularity until 1936, when public strikes halted the proceedings, and again in 1939 when World War Two intervened. It wasn’t until a decade later, in 1949, that a revitalized race was resurrected, with more brands competing than in pre-war races and some now-legendary marques starting to make an impression on the first races of the new era.The 1950s and 1960s
The new generation of the 24 Hours of Le Mans came to be a golden age of motorsport as a host of new manufacturers joined the ranks of competitors, including Jaguar, Aston Martin, Mercedes-Benz, and Ferrari. Mercedes proved to be a formidable contender, having placed first and second in the 1952 race in the stunning gull-winged 300 SL, although Jaguar dominated the 1950s with an impressive five wins. This era’s racing was highly aggressive, as the 24 Hours of Le Mans became as much about speed as it was a showcase for reliability and endurance. Yet safety measures had yet to catch up, resulting in the 1955 Le Mans Disaster in which Frenchman Pierre Levegh’s Mercedes 300 SLR suffered a collision that sent him into a crowd of spectators, killing himself and 83 others. While tragic, this event highlighted a concern for better safety in motorsports, although Mercedes stayed away from racing for some years.
The 1960s became one of the most memorable decades in Le Mans history, as Ferrari debuted its glorious 250 Testarossa and 250 GTO (which would come to be two of the most expensive cars ever to be auctioned), as well as the successful P series of cars which included the 330 P3. Ferrari’s incredible run of six consecutive wins and eighteen podiums between 1960 and 1965 was suddenly challenged by the Ford GT40 in what was to become one of the biggest upsets to the Prancing Horse in Enzo Ferrari’s racing career. This was the race that was immortalized in the film “Le Mans 66” starring Christian Bale and Matt Damon, and Ford dominated the rest of the decade with four wins for the GT40, as Porsche started to show its potential as the U.S. giant’s leading contender.The 1970s and 1980s
The 1970s started with a triple podium for Porsche, followed by another win in 1971. Ferrari withdrew its Prototypes from Le Mans in 1973 following the previous decade’s disappointment, looking to focus exclusively on Formula One. This leveled the playing field for other marques, including Matra-Simca and Renault-Alpine, to rise, although Porsche would dominate the next two decades in both the Prototype and GT classes.
