1939 Le Mans

1939 — Bugatti returned with a lone works T57C for 1937 winner Jean-Pierre Wimille and Pierre Veyron, this time powered by a 3.3-liter supercharged engine. Delahaye brought eight cars – nearly 20 percent of the field! And Talbot came with six 4.0-liters, plus a trio of thinly disguised 4.5-liter GP cars that would otherwise have been on grand prix spear carrying duty, acting as ambulatory chicanes for the Mercedes-Benz and Auto-Union demonstrations later that summer. Even ‘33 winner Tazio Nuvolari had gone over to the Germans.

Britain sent two 4.5-liter V12 Lagondas plus a typical compliment of gentlemen sportsmen and splendid amateurs in 1.5-liter Astons and MGs, plus the usual under-two-liter suspects from Riley, Morgan and Singer. B. Bira, the Anglophile Siamese Prince of ERA fame, made his Le Mans debut, with two-time winner Raymond Sommer in a lone 2.5-liter ALFA coupe. A trio of tidy 328 BMWs (one a new streamlined coupe) and an Adler coupe were the only players from Germany. Their mission involved the subordinate classes, plus the usual advertising and promotional duties of serious manufacturers and retailers. In all, 42 cars appeared and blue was the dominant color, especially at the front of the field.

The start was the usual frantic affair with nearly every driver seized suddenly by his inner child. Sommer was first to move, but Arthur Dobson – 20 cars up the rank and nearer the Champion Bridge in a new Lagonda – was the leader as the field headed for the esses.

Sommer had the inertia and the power and got the lead before the scrum emptied onto Hunaudiers. But Luigi Chinetti on the 4.5 semi-GP Talbot won the first lap grand prix, cracking off a standing opening lap of just under 89mph. Delages’ Louis Gerard was even more excited and towed Wimille’s Bugatti along as he passed into second. A lap later, he took the lead. Wimille was content to stalk the two other French cars from third place. The whole train passed Sommer’s inert ALFA stranded on the back of the circuit during the third lap. Even with the pre-race favorite hobbled, Gerard kept upping the ante, easily dealing out 95mph laps. After four patient laps, Wimille moved the Tank past Chinetti, just to keep the fleeing Delage in sight.

Near the end of the first fuel load, Mazaud passed Wimille for second and began to annoy Gerard’s leading Delahaye. The cool hours between 6:00 o’clock and dusk have always been prime time for lap records, and the battle for the lead produced a new standard of 96.74mph for Mazaud, who cracked Robert Benoist’s two year-old lap record.

The No. 10 Talbot oiled the road throughout the turn past the pits. Only the No. 40 Fiat got caught out. The Fiat hit the bank and spun back onto the racing line spitting the driver into the road. The No. 40 was removed and an ambulance arrived to collect the driver, Breillet, who had a nasty scalp laceration. The ambulance driver nearly collected the No. 1 Bugatti while driving across the road, oblivious to traffic, just past the Champion footbridge.

The battle for the lead continued relentlessly with the leaders constantly in touch through the four-hour mark. The Delage took its turn in front of the Delahaye. Sommer finally got his wounded ALFA back to the pits, where the engine had to be partially disassembled. The crew finally decided to press on but imposed a reduced rev limit, and Bira went back to get a better view of the intense and close-fought French intramural between Delage, Delahaye and Talbot for the lead. Veyron had the No. 1 Bugatti he shared with Wimille fourth, one lap behind Chinetti in the Talbot.

At quarter distance, Chinetti had moved to the front with a 21sec lead – the biggest so far – and that only through the artificial relief brought by scheduled fuel stops. Fire rearranged the order at 2:00 a.m., when Mazaud’s 3.5 Delahaye ignited just before a scheduled pit stop. The fire was extinguished quickly, but the damage was done. Gerard was leading in the No. 21 Delage, a lap ahead of Chinetti in the No. 1 Bugatti.

The question now occupying the minds of the bleary spectators and assorted denizens of the Hippodrome café was the Bugatti’s plan. Could he catch the leading Delage? Could the Delage maintain the pace? Would those annoying white cars from Bavaria continue to be so fast and reliable?

At 8:00 a.m., the No. 3 Talbot suffered a profound and sudden tire failure just as Mathieson had got rolling out of Tertre Rouge. The big Talbot nosed hard into the earth bank only to be speared by the No. 22 Delage. Mathieson extracted the Talbot and continued, only to end the day in the dead car park before 9:00 a.m.

BMW had their 2.0-liter trio running steadily near the top of the order; the coupe leading the 2000cc class in eighth overall with the roadsters ninth and 11th. The new experimental Lagondas were running like Italian trains in third and fourth. But of course, the bleu cars were still in front.

Just after lunch, the leading Delage, which had been circulating with stunning regularity averaging 93mph, pitted with a sick sounding engine. Wimille eased the 3.3 Bug into the lead and immediately slackened his pace by nearly 10mph. At 4:00 p.m., the Bugatti had broken the existing record for distance, even at the reduced and conservative pace. Benoist’s two-year-old lap record was broken by Robert Mazaud with a tour at 96.74mph on Saturday evening.

The Lagondas finished third and fourth, running to a strict, predetermined speed based on the previous year’s winning average. Unfortunately the ‘38 winning speed was inferior to Wimille and Benoit’s ‘37-winning pace, and the Lagondas were being stalked by the annoyingly fast BMW coupe of Baron von Schaumberg-Lippe and Wenschler in fifth overall. BMW thus won the 2.0-liter class and placed all its cars within the top 10.

Delage won the 3.0-liter laurels with Gerard and Monnefet’s 3.0-liter in second overall. The Clark/Chambers HRG was the only British class winner, home 14th overall and first in the 1500cc category. Simcas won the tiddler classes, giving the blue cars victory in four of the six displacement categories and a well-judged and overall victory – two in two attempts for the brilliant Jean-Pierre Wimille and the first in five attempts for Pierre Veyron. It was the final Grand Prix d'Endurance for a decade.