ALMOST THE END OF RACING! The Full Story of the 1955 Le Mans 24hrs

[Music] [Music] hey everybody its aden here once again and welcome back to another edition of story time where i sidestep my seemingly undocumented simracing kabhi to bring you the weird wonderful tragic and does this look infected stories from the real world of motorsport today in a bid to go through my massive to-do list of stuff that is constantly being asked for in discord I thought I'd tackle the worst ever accident to happen in Motorsports history and that story is the full story of the 1955 LeMond disaster now just another disclaimer like I had to put in at the start of the Emaline 1994 video there will be pictures of the crash and the aftermath in this episode and I'll do my best to avoid posting pictures of actual dead people because I like getting paid but if you've just got to get out race because I've shown pictures of what actually happened to give me [ __ ] in the commets for it well you were warned the fact I have to do these is worrying in itself moving on it's no secret that the 24-hour deulim on is the most grueling and also the most famous endurance race on the planet and I'm sure I'm gonna get bombarded by people in the comments saying no it's the Nurburgring 24 but sticking by it it's a track laid out on French public roads that stretches over eight and a half miles with the vast majority of the lab being at full throttle what also needs to be taken into account is that back then there were no shoe canes on the road from Tetra rouge all the way to more st. corner which in the cars of this time must have been terrifying unlike a lot of circuits that barely resemble their original layouts these days with only a few spots looking similar LeMans layout in 1955 is still recognizable as you'll see in the footage of me badly driving around the 1967 layout as 24-hour of lemon aficionados will notice there is no first chicane although the second chicane before tetra rouge remains then after tetra rouge begins the super long super straight almost super flat blast down the Mulsanne straight and before the anoraks get to me for saying that I'll just call it by its proper name there hunnid the air no she gains just pure speed more sank ink is as it currently exists today with the entry to Mulsanne itself being much straighter than what we have in 2019 or 2020 now I can't calendar Indianapolis and Arnage are the same but the road from Arnage to the start-finish is different to what we know now the Porsche curves did not exist in this era nor do the four chicanes there is a slight S bend at Maison Blanche but aside from that the cars were at full throttle for about 80% of the lap possibly more there were probably four or five other circuits at the time in the world that could touch LeMond in this instance Monza Alvis hockenheim spa and Silverson I guess there's Indianapolis as well but that's an oval British pave a news outlet has since gone defunct claimed that the race would be a United Nations of racing with some massive names in sports car manufacturing taking part Mercedes Ferrari Aston Martin Austin Cooper Talbot Gordini Porsche and Jaguar all taking part with some famous names driving the cars 1953 winners Duncan Hamilton and Tony Rolt were driving for Jaguar and were best known for winning the race in 1953 while absolutely blind drunk and setting the first ever hundred mile an hour average lap speed around the circuit also driving for Jaguar was Mike Hawthorn Britain's first ever Formula One world champion while other names included pizza Collins Colin Chapman & Birmingham's own Ken miles possibly the biggest crowd-pleaser in the field was Stirling Moss along with his co-driver fan Manuel Fangio who apparently won the f1 world title a couple of times Hawthorn was a blonde and Bashi womanizer according to UK TV history and was also a bit of a practical joker he was known for wearing a bowtie while racing and had a devil-may-care attitude to his racing Mercedes had just won the Mille Miglia and with the rainy Formula One world champions well at least they would have been four constructors title existed in 1955 but Fangio who had been driving the Mercedes was the f1 drivers title winner that previous year and it was his second win at the time I mean I say find I've been driving the Mercedes he'd actually started out at Maserati in then switch midseason because he could the race was shaping up to be Birmingham versus Stuttgart Jaguar versus Mercedes Britain versus Germany with Jaguar actually occupying the former Factory in Birmingham that built the Spitfires Hawthorne wanted to do well in the race but at the same time he wanted to knock Mercedes down a peg or two he'd lost a relative in the second world war so he had a major dislike of Germans and anything they built he also had health issues the most major being kidney problems which was said to be terminal and is believed to be the reason way he had no fear behind the wheel died of kidney failure or died racing it's going to happen anyway soon so no the Jaguar had a big advantage over the Mercedes the d-type was slippery making use of advances in aerodynamics at the time borrowed from aircraft Jaguar needed to break the Mercedes all thought would be able to drive the wheels off the Jag but beating Fangio and Moss would be tough to do but still Jaguar had a lot of confidence the race starters amo Maji the president of the Mille Miglia and the two cars belong is giovanni Moretti were barred from starting because they weren't on the green in time Fangio also had issues his trouser leg had got caught in the gear lever but he quickly made his way through the field to be behind Michael thorne and Eugenio castor lottie's Ferrari who took an early lead the race was now on Ferrari versus Mercedes vs. Jaguar with all three manufacturers occupying the top eight places except one Ferrari that had run into issues a lap five the Ferrari Mercedes and jag started lapping slower class cars one car was literally blown off the road and into a ditch by the slipstream of the faster classes the cars were lapping faster than ever before with Hawthorne and Fangio kept at bay in the first hour but just after the hour mark cast a lot II made a mistake going to Mulsanne and that let the Jag and the Mercedes through for the crowns it didn't matter it was Britain versus Germany on a milestone year which we'll get to in a bit Hawthorne and Fangio started to pull away from the red car breaking of the lap record ten times over the course of the next hour or so going seven seconds faster than the pole sitting Ferraris fastest time in practice from the pits and the grandstands everyone thought the cars will go far too quick all thought was trying to break away from Fangio but Fangio had been told wise German bosses to race the Tommy so he did no matter what Hawthorn did the silver car was still behind their pace was so quick another Mercedes 300sl R was in danger of being lapped driving that other Mercedes was Pierre Levegh a I think that's how it's pronounced it wasn't his real name his real name was Pierre bulan but he raced using his uncle's name as his uncles been killed in a motor racing accident in 1904 leva had come close to winning the 24-hour race in 1953 but issues with an hour to go ruined his chances and handed the Winter Hamilton he driven the whole race by himself and driver fatigue had caused him to miss shift his car and ruined the gearbox he was also fifty years old at the time by far the oldest in the Mercedes team but had done many more laps of the track than Fangio Moss he had the knowledge and they were two of the best drivers in the world if not all time Mercedes was going to be a tough egg to beat Fangio and Hawthorn must have forgotten they were in a 24 hour endurance race and we're driving as if they was still in Formula one mere feet would separate them at times on an eight and a half mile track that was barely three cars wide as it was and the only thing the crowd was interested in was watching them fire at amazed on blush towards the start line Hawthorn came out of Maison Blanche has sped towards the start line with the Mercedes to his left but it wasn't Fangio it was levar lap 35 of the 1955 24-hour duel Amon was where the recipe for disaster would be served up as I mentioned in the episode a dude about Jackie Stewart the pits were not like what we have today a safety bubble with pit bays and separate garages men in fire resistant clothing everything in the garage until is needed and nobody in the pitlane itself unless there was servicing a car as well as the speed limits and a concrete wall separating the pit lane from the track at the vast majority of tracks including spa romanza the pits are basically rectangular boxes drawn onto the track with another line forming a pit lane if you were lucky fuel and tires would just been left around and it was not uncommon for some drivers to spark up a cigarette while fuel was being poured into the cars Hawthorne flew past lance Macklin's austin-healey and had already overtaken levar who had fan Joe in his slipstream to aid him along Leavitt needed to move over for fan Joe but he couldn't because the Macklin's car being on the right-hand side of the road just a little ahead of him and just behind Hawthorne Hawthorne was given the call to pit fairy fairy light Fink fee in an in in in in inning no kimi staying out thing from Hockenheim 2018 only fastly more dangerous Hawthorn was on the right-hand side of the road ahead of Macklin and slammed on his brakes to get into his box but missed it and had to do another lap as backing up was against the rules as Hawthorn died for the pits Macklin swards as horn had disc brakes on his jag Macklin had drum brakes and disc brakes slowed down the d-type much faster than Macklin would be able to react with and had to swerve to avoid the jack leg then raised his hand signaling to Fangio to slow down of watch out at 125 miles an hour that's nothing in today's terms but in those cars that was very quick Levesque signal to Fangio because there was absolutely no way he was going to be able to slow down himself lever then crashed into the back of the Austin the Healey spun into a wall which killed a spectator and the rear of the car acted like a ramp which then launched their vegs Mercedes into the air lever was ejected from the car and hit the tarmac headfirst that crushed his skull and killed him instantly the car meanwhile while that ended up in the crowd the Mercedes split into three pieces the body went one way the engine went another and the front axle and bonnet went somewhere else you can actually watch the newsreel footage from the day on YouTube I'm not clicking on any of those you can I'm [ __ ] not the crowds were not as far back as they are today they were protected by just hay bales and was sat as close to the track as it was possible to get there is a crowd recording Sapru de style that cuts off as the cameraman tries to avoid the carnage it said that the wreckage of the Mercedes was like guillotine it decapitated some members of the crowd and crushed others with white-hot Fire incinerating some more with the hot oil and water also doing damage an American soldier Jimmy Prickett was at the race and took pictures immediately following the crash the place looked like a war zone and in one of the pictures that are not going to show here a man is holding a dead child another picture shows a man draped over a fence and the Associated Press said it had no idea how that man got there and how he ended up in the position he was in I've blurred the picture because as you can imagine showing dead bodies on a YouTube channel isn't my idea of fun before long those who were dead were piled up and covered with blankets those who are on the edge of death were given the last rites and wider angle pictures show the extent of the chaos and how tightly packed in everybody was you can see a white picket fence with straw bales in front of it not exactly going to stop a racing car is it but they didn't know that what really added fuel to the fire no pun intended is that when the car initially came to a stop a police officer tried to pour water on the flames to try and do something because the Mercedes was made out of magnesium the water did nothing but caused a huge white hot fireball that only added to the casualties when the flames finally died all that was left was the rain of the Mercedes the race as it always did back then went on the organizers didn't want to cancel the race because they didn't want ambulances trying to get in at the same time 300,000 panicked fans were trying to leave News barely reached the other side of the circuit at Mulsanne and what whispers came through was sketchy at best numbers were almost plucked out of a hat as to how many been killed Hawthorn of Fangio continued to battle on the French roads even as it began to rain and Levesque car finally stopped burning at the side of the road after the eighth hour Mercedes decided to withdraw from the race after a protest from Levis co-driver John Fitch his protest actually made sense once Mercedes stopped to think about it Mercedes is a German company Mercedes had been fighting Jaguar a British company Mercedes the German company had been fighting for the LeMond win with the British company at LeMond which is in France this had happened in 1955 almost 10 years to the day that the Second World War in Europe had ended once again a battle between the British and the Germans in France had resulted in the deaths of many innocent French civilians many of the Mercedes personnel had been working for the company back when the silver cars ran around racetracks whose swastikas painted on them Fitch even said that in light of recent unpleasantness Mercedes had to withdraw to get the whole world war to shadow off them and Mercedes whose cars have been Hitler's personal transport couldn't be seen to win where so many French bodies are piled up at the side of the track Mercedes finally agreed and went to speak to lofty England who ran the Jaguar team lofty told them it had taken six hours for Mercedes to reach that decision and couldn't see the point in either of them pulling out now Mercedes withdrew and Jaguar continued with their only competition being Ferrari but the last Scuderia car retired leaving Hawthorn a clearance in the end after the race Hawthorn celebrated as if nothing had happened despite the fact that once he came round again after missing his pit box he was crying because he'd seen what he caused the French media blasted the British driver and one of the newspapers printed the picture of Hawthorne celebrating with the headline merci Monsieur Hawthorne merci then the blame game started most of the drivers said it was a racing accident Hawthorne blamed Lance Macklin and even wrote a book on how Lance Macklin caused the crash for which he was sued for libel but the scary thing is how desensitized people were to the accident even though between 80 and 120 people were killed or injured that's the rumoured amount this was 10 years after the Second World War dead bodies in the French countryside were still normal for people in response the French and the Swiss banned motor racing France until naman was made safer at Switzerland even today still has the ban drivers like Simona de Silvestro and Sebastien Buemi have to do their racing in Italy France or Germany but could still race under Swiss racing licenses today lamorne is much different there is extra paving either side of the main road to allow for safer slower class overtaking in 1956 the pit straight was made wider having been only just 12 foot or three point seven metres wide in 1955 and scarily it was not until 1971 that the pits and the track were separated in 1968 the Ford chicane was added to slow cars down heading onto the pit straight in 1970 following a protest by jacky ickx in 1969 the traditional LeMond start where drivers would race across the track jump into their cars start them up and drive off was dropped and replaced by the rolling start that we see today then in 1972 the Porsche cars were added to bypass Maison Blanche and in 1979 tetra Rouge was repro filed to to the construction of a new road with the kink heading into Mulsanne corner added in 1986 to bypass around about the last addition to the circuit that creates the track we race on in our factor to project cars at I racing today was the first chicane following the first corner that was added in 1987 until they put the chicane zin on the Mulsanne straight that is since then small changes have been made to tighten chicanes or repro file corners the last such reprofiling happening in 2014 following the death of Allan Simonsen and that was when he hit an unsophisticated tree despite these changes the lap is still monstrously quick with the current lap record being set by Mike Conway who set a three 17.2 in his Toyota lmp1 in 2019 despite safety improvements accidents still happen at LeMond Peter Dan Breck Mark Webber Marcel Fassler and Allan McNish of all had huge smashes but they all walked away 2013 Allan Simonsen is the last recorded death at the circuit Mike Hawthorn continued to race winning the 1958 Formula One world Drivers title with Ferrari and became Britain's first ever Formula one champion but more tragedy was to come for thorn just months after retiring from racing he blacked out in his jag you on the a3 near Guildford and Surrey it's thought his kidneys finally failed him and he crashed the car the 1955 LeMond disaster was the single most catastrophic accident in motorsports history but it was still a long time before major changes began taking place and safety became more than just an afterthought in 1961 Wolfgang von trips and 15 spectators were killed after von trips and Jim Clark accidentally touched in what became f one's biggest tragedy in 1966 Jackie Stewart began his safety crusade but since then spectators still unfortunately paid the price at the 2013 Daytona 500 a pileup involving Carl Larsson being launched into the fence injured dozens of spectators in the 1999 visionnaire 500 in the Indy Racing League three fans were killed along with three at the 1998 Michigan 100 the most high-profile recent accident in Europe is young Mardon business and GTR gt3 catching air at the Nordschleife er and killing the spectator motorsport is dangerous but at the same time it's part of the reason we like it so this has been the full story of the 1955 LeMond disaster if you've I'm not gonna say enjoyed because that's just morbid but if you've learned something be sure to LIKE the video so I know I've done a good job but if you want to see more then be sure to click Subscribe with the Bell on to get all of the latest massive thanks go out to my patrons on patreon and if you wish to join them or joining my social media nonsense everything is in the description box for you so thanks for watching I've been a damn lord have a great day wherever you are in the world they good bye [Music] [Music]

Channel: Aidan Millward

Views: 261,155

Rating: 4.8991551 out of 5

Keywords: storytime, story time, le mans, 1955, mike hawthorn, fangio, mercedes, mille miglia, stirling moss, sterling moss, crash, podcast, documentary, sports, motorsports, history, sporting history, chainbear, chain bear, jimmy broadbent, rfactor2, demonstration, full story

Id: C6Vt8gpGkkw

Length: 20min 41sec (1241 seconds)

Published: Wed Jan 15 2020