le mans disaster

As a journalist at the time put it, the hood of the car "decapitated tightly jammed spectators like a guillotine". There were reports that, immediately after the incident, Hawthorn had been weeping and admitting culpability. And, in a final grim denouement, Hawthorn himself would die in a car crash just months after retiring, while driving his own Jaguar on the A3 Guildford bypass.In 1955, the world of playboy racers and their exotic cars exploded in a deadly fireball.Documentary charting the dramatic life of British motorsport legend Mike Hawthorn.Documentary chronicling the colourful life of British racing driver Graham Hill.This is the story of when fans, ambition, politics and cars collided.Take a look at the Forbidden History gallery, from the show presented by Jamie Theakston.Sign up for all the latest news and shows on Yesterday. The remaining Mercedes cars were quietly called in from the race at 1:45am, with the crowd at its most sparse. His bonnet lid scythed through the spectators for 100m, decapitating those in its path like a terrible automotive guillotine. Traditionally an endurance event, both Jaguar and Mercedes appeared to be treating it more like a sprint, with Fangio and Hawthorn repeatedly swapping lap records. Thanks to its sheer length, the event is designed to test endurance and engineering ingenuity as well as well as driving skill.

One of them was the charismatic British driver Mike Hawthorn, driving for Jaguar. If nothing else, he argued, the PR disaster for a German manufacturer to be seen to be cavalier about French bloodshed would be catastrophic just a decade after the guns had fallen silent in Europe. Yet, inexplicably, perhaps unforgivably, the race continued.The American Formula One driver John Fitch, who was Levegh’s co-driver and was standing with the Frenchman’s wife when the accident happened, urged Mercedes to withdraw from the race. Debris, including his car’s engine block, flew into the crowd. The annual 24 Hours of Le Mans is renowned as one of the toughest and most prestigious races in the realm of motorsports. Icons were about to do battle on the circuit.

In the stands, people used advertising banners to carry the injured and the dead, while others frantically searched for loved ones and priests performed last rites.

Well, improvements were made to the track at Le Mans and the stand in the pit straight was demolished.

By signing up to our newsletter you accept the I stood as in a dream, too horrified to even think. If that was the case, he changed his tune and denied the fault was his. Hawthorn, who had overshot the pits, came in a lap later, with tears streaming down his face. The real legacy of the disaster was that the lives of 84 people were brutally cut short. On lap 35, while hurtling ahead of his rival Fangio, Hawthorn had to make a pit-stop, cutting ahead of another driver, Lance Macklin, before hitting his brakes.Taken by surprise, Macklin desperately swerved to avoid a crash, putting himself directly in the path of Pierre Levegh, who was coming up behind him.

Mike Hawthorn and Jaguar went on to win Le Mans 1955, which must rank as the hollowest victory in the history of motorsports. His last conscious act was to wave his hand to warn drivers behind him, before his car literally drove up the side of Macklin's vehicle like it was a ramp, and launched into the air.Thrown out of his cartwheeling car, Levegh smacked into the ground, crushing his skull and dying in an instant. Many suggested that Hawthorn had cut in front of Macklin and braked too hard, including Macklin himself. It would not have been hard to close the car parks and, anyway, they could have cancelled it at 3am, when the crowds were at their thinnest.As it was, Hawthorn and his co-driver Ivor Bueb won the race, with a record average speed of 106mph.

Fifty-nine years ago, the 1955 Le Mans 24-hour race started like any other.

In 1958, Hawthorn’s autobiography reasserted his claim that he was not to blame. The organisers’ justification that cancelling the race would have caused an alarmed crowd to gridlock the roads and hamper the emergency services seems implausible. Despite this shocking carnage, the race wasn't stopped, because officials wanted to keep the surviving spectators where they were and avoid a mass exodus that might have stopped emergency crews from getting to the site.Mike Hawthorn and Jaguar went on to win Le Mans 1955, which must rank as the hollowest victory in the history of motorsports. Supporters of Hawthorn and Jaguar counter-claimed that both Macklin and Levegh (who had been a veteran of 50 when he died) lacked the competence for such high-speed racing.It all became rather messy and unedifying. And Mercedes withdrew from motor racing entirely and only returned to the sport in 1987.But such matters pale into insignificance when set against the horrors of that day in northwest France. Levegh had no time to swerve out the way. Yet the decision had to be made at the highest level and clearance to retire from the race was only received after all the company directors had been contacted and given their assent, at around midnight. It was originally aired on BBC Four on Sunday, 16 May 2010. The 1955 Le Mans became a gruelling, thrilling duel between Hawthorn in his Jaguar, and Fangio in his Mercedes. The responsibility for the disaster has been hotly debated ever since. The course had been built in 1923, when cars had a top speed of 60mph. It had had only minor adjustments since then, in spite of the fact that the cars could now reach speeds three times as fast.But absolution at the hands of the inquiry did not stop some in the sport from assigning blame. They were first and third at the time.A senior member of the Mercedes team approached Jaguar at this time to suggest that they, too, might like to retire from the race in an act of solidarity. The car itself slammed into the side of the circuit, sending sharp chunks of metal spinning into the dense crowd.

As well as Levegh, 83 spectators were killed and hundreds were injured.

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