1912 French Grand Prix
1912 French Grand Prix | |||
---|---|---|---|
Race details | |||
Date | 25–26 June 1912 | ||
Official name | Grand Prix de l'Automobile Club de France | ||
Location | Dieppe, France | ||
Course | Public roads | ||
Course length | 76.989 km (47.840 mi) | ||
Distance | 20 laps, 1539.778 km (956.800 mi) | ||
Fastest lap | |||
Driver | David Bruce-Brown | Fiat S74 | |
Time | 36:32.0 | ||
Podium | |||
First | Peugeot | ||
Second | Fiat | ||
Third | Sunbeam |
The 1912 French Grand Prix was a Grand Prix motor race held at Dieppe on 25–26 June 1912.
The Race[]
The race was run over two days with the drivers completing ten laps on each day and their times being aggregated to produce the winner (similar to a modern rally race). cars competed alongside Grand Prix cars. The coupe cars were limited to 3 litre engines. The only restriction on the Grand Prix cars was that cars must be no wider than 1.75 metres.[1] Riding mechanic Jean Bassignano was killed in a lap 3 crash when his driver Léon Collinet put a wheel off and flipped. 47 cars started the race at 30 second intervals, with Victor Rigal's Sunbeam the first to start.
Victor Hemery, driving a Lorraine-Dietrich held the lead after the first lap. David Bruce-Brown's Fiat subsequently took the lead and retained it overnight, more than two minutes ahead of Georges Boillot's Peugeot. Louis Wagner was third at the halfway stage. During the second day, Bruce-Brown was disqualified for refuelling away from the pits on lap 15, giving Boillot a comfortable victory by over thirteen minutes from Wagner.[2]
The Sunbeams performed extremely well in the race, with Rigal finishing in first place, Resta second, and Medinger third. Due to their astonishing speed they were also placed in third, fourth, and fifth places in the Grand Prix itself, beating many, much more powerful machines. Rigal averaged 65.35 m.p.h. over the 956 miles, only 3 m.p.h. less than Boillot in his 7.6 litre Peugeot.[3]
Classification[]
Pos | No | Driver | Car | Laps | Time/Retired |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 | 22 | Georges Boillot | Peugeot | 20 | 13:58:02.6 |
2 | 23 | Louis Wagner | Fiat S74 | +13:05.8 | |
3 | 3 | Victor Rigal | Sunbeam | +40:33.4 | |
4 | 17 | Dario Resta | Sunbeam | +41:49.2 | |
5 | 52 | Sunbeam | +2:01:38.8 | ||
6 | 50 | Joseph Christiaens | Excelsior | +2:25:36.2 | |
7 | 20 | Th. Schneider | +3:33:36.6 | ||
8 | 30 | "Anford"/ Pilain | Rolland-Pilain | +3:51:29.4 | |
9 | 36 | Richard Wyse | Arrol-Johnston | +4:09:16.6 | |
10 | 40 | Arthur Duray | Alcyon | +4:30:53.0 | |
11 | 32 | Paul Vonlatum | +5:07:57.4 | ||
12 | 12 | Dragutin Esser | Mathis | +5:20:02.4 | |
13 | 29 | +6:59:03.4 | |||
14 | 28 | James Reid | Arrol-Johnston | 19 | +1 Lap |
Ret | 33 | Percy Lambert | Vauxhall | 18 | Radiator |
Ret | 55 | A. Crossman | Arrol-Johnston | 17 | Radiator |
Ret | 7 | Sizaire-Naudin | 17 | Lost a wheel | |
Ret | 14 | Calthorpe | 16 | Engine | |
Ret | 27 | Page | Alcyon | 16 | Crash |
Ret | 51 | John Hancock | Vauxhall | 15 | Engine |
Ret | 38 | Thomas Schweitzer | Sizaire-Naudin | 10 | Engine |
Ret | 21 | Gregoire | 10 | Withdrawn | |
Ret | 24 | Mario Romano | Gregoire | 10 | Withdrawn |
Ret | 34 | Lorraine-Dietrich | 10 | Fire | |
Ret | 18 | Gregoire | 8 | Steering | |
Ret | 4 | Barriaux | Alcyon | 8 | Engine |
Ret | 56 | 7 | No oil | ||
Ret | 47 | René Thomas | Lion-Peugeot L3 | 7 | Engine |
Ret | 19 | Sizaire-Naudin | 7 | ||
Ret | 16 | Sunbeam | 7 | Engine | |
Ret | 45 | Paul Zuccarelli | Peugeot L-76 | 7 | Ignition |
Ret | 31 | Paul Bablot | Lorraine-Dietrich | 7 | Engine |
Ret | 25 | Frank Rollason | Singer | 6 | Engine |
Ret | 39 | Singer | 5 | Crash | |
Ret | 26 | L G Hornsted | Calthorpe | 5 | Gearbox |
Ret | 9 | Th. Schneider | 4 | ||
Ret | 8 | 3 | No oil | ||
Ret | 54 | W. Watson | Vauxhall | 2 | Engine |
Ret | 10 | Gregoire | 2 | Crash | |
Ret | 41 | 1 | Universal joint | ||
Ret | 57 | Lorraine-Dietrich | 1 | Engine | |
Ret | 11 | Victor Hemery | Lorraine-Dietrich | 1 | Engine |
Ret | 49 | Albert Guyot | Rolland-Pilain | 1 | Engine |
DQ | 37 | David Bruce-Brown | Fiat S74 | 15 | Refuelling away from pits |
DQ | 42 | Ralph De Palma | Fiat S74 | 7 | Work away from pits |
DQ | 13 | Jules Goux | Peugeot L-76 | 3 | Refuelling away from pits |
DQ | 43 | Fred Burgess | Calthorpe | 1 | Too slow |
References[]
Wikimedia Commons has media related to 1912 French Grand Prix. |
- ^ Higham, Peter (1995). The Guinness Guide to International Motor Racing. Guinness Publishing. p. 194. ISBN 0-85112-642-1.
- ^ Rendall, Ivan (1995). The Chequered Flag. Weidenfeld and Nicolson. pp. 66–69. ISBN 0-297-83550-5.
- ^ "Sunbeam cars".
- French Grand Prix
- 1912 in Grand Prix racing
- 1912 in French motorsport
- Auto racing stubs