1951 24 Hours of Le Mans

After all the rain in practice, race-day also started wet but it was dry for the start. Tom Cole's Allard was first away, but at the end of the first lap, it was the Talbot of González ahead of Moss and Cole. After three laps the young, very fast, Stirling Moss dashed into the lead and took on the role that was to become his signature - the hare sent out to break the pursuing hounds, running to an assigned pace.[2] However tragedy struck on the sixth lap: French driver Jean Larivière crashed his Ferrari 212 heavily into a sandbank at Tertre Rouge, getting airborne. He was killed instantly when virtually decapitated by a wire fence.[11][12] [Notes 1]

The race continued though, and Moss set a blistering pace, repeatedly lowering Rosier's 1950 lap record (eventually, over 6 seconds quicker). After an hour, Moss led González, ahead of the Jaguars of Biondetti and Walker, then the Talbots of Chaboud and Rosier. By the end of the second hour, Moss had put a lap on the whole field. At the four-hour mark Moss & Fairman had a lead of over 2 laps, with the Jaguar team running 1-2-3, ahead of the Talbots of González and Fangio.

Soon afterward, the rain returned and stayed for the rest of the night. The pace was starting to take its toll: Both Allards had gone off track, and repairing the damage put them well down. Chaboud's Talbot was out with radiator problems, and a loss of oil pressure caused a similar problem stopping the Biondetti Jaguar. Louis Chiron, running in the top 10, ran his Ferrari out of gas on-track, but when the officials found out a mechanic had driven out to him with a tank of fuel to top up he was disqualified.[13]

In the smaller classes, the 1500cc Gordinis were comfortably ahead of their English competition (the Jowetts and MG) – at times 40 seconds a lap faster[14] - Manzon and Trintignant running as high as 15th and 16th respectively, mixing it with the bigger cars until both were put out with engine problems after only 4 hours.

Just before midnight, after his car had held the lead for more than 7 hours, Moss’ impressive run came to an end – a conrod broke due, like Biondetti, due to a major loss of oil pressure. Soon after, Rosier was stopped by a split oil tank. The remaining works Jaguar of Walker/Whitehead inherited the lead, a lap ahead of González/Marimón. The Britons extended the lead to 7 laps, easily matching the Talbot's pace through the night until the latter car retired with a blown head gasket at the halfway mark.[15]

The Ferrari challenge never really materialised, although wealthy Englishman Eddie Hall, who had driven solo the previous year to 2nd place, had his Ferrari 340 up to as high as 3rd during the night. The big heavy Cunninghams suffered in the greasy wet conditions; two had been held up in the first couple of hours and were well down the order. Huntoon, co-driving the boss’ car, slid off at Indianapolis wrecking the steering, then soon afterward Rand spun his car in traffic at the Dunlop curve. He missed the other cars but slammed into the roadside bank. The third car though, of Fitch/Walters, had been in the top 10 throughout, steadily picking up places as others fell out, and was up to 2nd when the Talbot retired. The Allard/Cole car had charged through the field up to 4th after its initial delay, but was finally stopped at the end of the night by a broken gearbox.

Back in the junior classes, with only the reserve-entry Jowett left, the Gordinis were making good progress, with a 9-lap lead, when disaster struck – both remaining Gordinis were retired late in the night with yet more engine problems.

As dawn broke, the Jaguar had a comfortable 8-lap lead over the Cunningham, the Macklin/Thompson Aston Martin and the Rolt/Hamilton Nash-Healey. Hall's Ferrari gave up with a flat battery and would not restart. The two Talbots of Mairesse/Meyrat and Bouillin/Marchand followed, trying to stage a fightback, split by the Abecassis/Shawe-Taylor Aston Martin. This order stayed fairly constant through the morning, until midday when the Cunningham hit the pits with engine problems. The crew made repairs and it crawled around doing occasional slow laps, waiting for the race-end. By pushing hard, Mairesse and Meyrat picked off the Nash-Healey in the early morning, then passed the Aston Martin into 3rd about 11am, which became 2nd when the Cunningham stopped.

Meanwhile, even being the sole survivor of the S1500 class, it still took the Jowett over an hour to overtake the leading Gordini on distance – they eventually cruised home to finish 21st.[16]

In the end, the Jaguar won at a canter, with a 9-lap lead over the Talbot. Despite 16 hours of rain, the Jaguar easily broke the distance record, covering over 3600 km. Even though Mairesse put in his fastest lap in the last hour, and they covered two more laps than Rosier's winning Talbot last year, Meyrat and Mairesse were not going to catch the Jaguar and they again finished second. Debutants Pierre Bouillin (racing under the pseudonym Levegh) and René Marchand, driving Mairesse's 1949-race Talbot finished a creditable 4th. The Aston Martins again proved extremely reliable: five entered, five finished with the three works cars coming in 3rd, 5th and 7th and 1-2-3 in class. Macklin & Thompson in 3rd were less than a lap behind the Talbot, having spent only 10 minutes in the pits during the whole race.[11] Like the previous year, the Anglo-American Nash-Healey of Rolt/Hamilton had proven very reliable. Even with its bigger engine, its heavier weight meant it could never compete with the Jaguars and Talbots in its class for pace, but that reliability had got it up to 4th in the morning, until overtaken by the Talbot and the leading Aston Martin and finishing 6th.[17] Only one of the big Ferraris finished – Chinetti's own, in 8th, although three of the smaller ones did make it to the end. The Lancia had run like clockwork finishing 12th. Incredibly it had covered nearly 2000 miles on just a single set of tyres, and was then driven back to Turin after the race.[5]

Bentley 4 1/4 litre driven by Hay and Clarke. It did not cover the required distance.

Porsche 356 SL driven by Veuillet and Mouche, which won the S 1.1 class

After the tribulations getting to the start, the new Porsche of Auguste Veuillet (the Porsche agent in Paris[7]) won its class at first attempt; a promising start to an exceptional association with Le Mans. For the second year running the Biennial Cup and the Index of Performance both went to the works Monopole by Pierre Hérnard & Jean de Montrémy[18][19] Despite their best attempts, neither Fitch's Cunningham, the second Allard nor the Bentley were classified – the former two could not get their final laps done in the minimum time and the latter missed its minimum required distance by just 4 miles (half a lap!).[20]

The popular American adage of the time – “Win on Sunday, sell on Monday” – was particularly apt for Jaguar. It was later estimated that extra sales of US$12 million were generated in the USA alone from their Le Mans win.[9] By contrast, the negative press for Gordini's failure led to Simca withdrawing its engine supply to the team.[14]