1954 Le Mans

1954 — Enzo Ferrari was the ultimate cold warrior. He had an addict's requirement for enemies. You couldn’t always tell the man by his friends. Ferrari was best defined by his enemies.

By June 1954, Jaguar was Ferrari’s bitterest enemy, at least since the relentless and percussive drubbing administered by the works’ C-Types during the pervious year's 24 Hours. But Ferrari was the world champion at both sports cars and stubbornness. Instead of admitting that disc brakes were the true path, he merely built bigger engines. He put more power in the cockpit as well. In addition to proven Le Mans winners like Louis Rosier and such reliable regulars as Robert Manzon and Luigi Maglioli and Paolo Marzotto, he paired two of his F1 men, Maurice Trintignant and Froilan Gonzalez, in another 375 Plus.

Gonzalez didn’t look the part. Bald and dumpy, he looked less like an F1 driver than even Ascari, but it was the stout Argentinean who broke Alfa’s back for Ferrari, at Silverstone in '51. Gonzalez couldn’t be bullied by other drivers or by a car – any car – not even Ferrari’s noisy, potent and unpleasant 375 Plus.

If Stirling Moss was Jaguar boss Lofty England’s hit man, his Ferrari counterpart was Gonzalez – "the Pampas Bull" – and there wasn’t a dram of hyperbole in that nickname.

The entry list for '53 was somewhat trimmer in terms of marques, but not numbers. Mercedes-Benz was toiling at full boil to birth its latest single-seater for the new grand prix formula and gave the '54 24 Hours a pass. Maserati hoped to make its Sarthe debut with a fleet of A6-derivatives; but the factory transporter crashed on it way to France, and the Trident equipe scratched en masse. Pity. The glorious new 250F GP car had won the opening rounds of the new Formula – scoring before even Mercedes-Benz arrived – and the new Maserati sports cars were artistic and quick. Lancia left its Mille Miglia-winning D24 roadsters home as well, ignoring the doings on the Sarthe, plotting F1 revolution.

It was Coventry who had stolen the headlines. The stunning new Jaguar D-Type was a brilliant derivative of the glorious C-Type. It was created for just one purpose, to win Le Mans, and England had aimed three of them at the Sarthe. Moss was teamed with ’51 winner Peter Walker, whose ex-partner, Peter Whitehead, was assigned the No. 15 D-Type with Ken Wharton while '53 winners Tony Rolt and strong man Duncan Hamilton drew the No. 14 D-Type. Behind them were Jacques Swaters and Roger Laurent in the Belgian Ecurie Francorchamps C-Type.

Aston Martin had a trio of DB3Ss plus a V12 Lagonda based on a pair of DB3 straight-sixes. Briggs Cunningham brought two 5.5-liter cars bearing his name, plus a white and blue Ferrari for the fast and reliable pairing of John Fitch and Phil Walters. Fon Portago made his Le Mans debut in a private Maserati A6GCs. Le Mans-obsessed Pierre Levegh was back to try his 4.5 Talbot one more time.

Impressive, but the race was a pure and polarized Ferrari vs. Jaguar fight from the minute the cops closed the roads for practice at midnight Wednesday. The standing records were erased almost instantly.

At 3:45 p.m., June 12, the precursor to Radio Le Mans came on the air with a live report from the Press Stand complete with the proper tones of Britain’s voice of motor racing, the Raymond Baxter. The brief program was scheduled for just 25min and was entitled "The Start". Few ad-libs were necessary.

Manzon’s Ferrari was first away, and when the leaders returned for the first lap photo-op, Ferraris were one (Gonzalez)-two (Manzon)-three (Marzotto) with an impassive Moss at their heels. Then a large and silent gap to the mob, Rolt, Wharton, who had crumpled a fender on the opening lap, and big Bill Spear’s booming Cunningham and the rest of the spear carriers, wannabes followed by the under card challengers.

When Baxter left the air at 4:15 p.m. European Summer Time, Moss was hounding the Ferraris at his leisure, while his teammates began to move up to join the Ferrari-Ferrari-Ferrari-Jaguar formation.

At 5:00 p.m., Moss (pictured above) had shrugged off a brief shower and put his D-Type ahead of Manzon and was annoying Marzotto at close quarters, probing for a weakness he knew was there and reminding the red cars that, regardless of their plans, he was playing a waiting game. Suddenly Moss ripped off a new lap record and put himself ahead of Gonzalez who was blandly unimpressed and moved back in front without much force.

Marzotto pitted first. Then Rolt stopped and handed over to Hamilton. Manzon stopped and gave the 375 Plus No. 5 to Louis Rosier. Gonzalez was in two laps later but stayed in the leading No. 4 Ferrari. With the grand prix to the first pit stop run, the race settled down to a straight fight between Jaguar and Ferrari.

By the time Raymond Baxter welcomed his English-speaking radio audience back to Le Mans for his two-minute report, Levegh had damaged the suspension on his Talbot and retired, and the rain had stopped. But the big news concerned the D-Types. After the first stops they all began to misfire and complain. Walker was stranded on the back of the course. His primitive repairs cost over 45min. The other D-Types were called to the pits for somewhat quicker but, still, time consuming repairs to change plugs and clear the fuel filters.

Gonzalez was still in the cockpit of the leading Ferrari at the four-hour mark, and all three red works cars were on schedule. The only Ferrari out was Porfirio Rubirosa’s 4.5-liter 375 MM, which went during the second hour. But the urbane Porfirio had brought a bored Zsa Zsa Gabor along for a peek at le ronde infernale, so his day was hardly over.

Neither was the rain, which made Le Mans’ agonizingly slow gloaming hours miserable. Full dark was no better, and the conditions were rotten to worse. The first blow to Ferrari came before midnight: Maglioli pitted the second-place Ferrari with a cracked transmission and had the No. 3 375 Plus taken from him and pushed to the dead car park.

Gonzalez now had a two-lap lead on the Wharton/Whitehead D-Type. Moss was in the pits again, this time it was brake trouble. The brake booster failed approaching Mulsanne, obliging Moss to make a long fast run down the escape road. He collected his wits and control, but the D-Type was sent to join the Maglioli Ferrari behind the pits.

As time distilled the reality of the race, it became a two-car fight between the leading Ferrari of Gonzalez and Trintignant (mostly Gonzalez) and the Jaguars. What with the rain and the dark and the torque, the Argentine was the only man who could exploit the glories of the 4.9 375 MM. Trintignant provided physical relief for Gonzalez, who had taken a whopping 11sec off Ascari’s '53 lap record. But the relentless Britons had taken a lap of Gonzalez’s lead during one of Trintignant’s stints.

Then it began to rain again. Seriously.

By 9:30 a.m., it was teeming, but so was Gonzalez. The stopwatches said he barely noticed. As the rain abated, Gonzalez responded, the wet roads soaking the big drum brakes and providing some cooling relief. Happily, for the Ferrari, about half of the 57 starters were parked, and traffic was one less thing to worry about. So Gonzalez’s one lap-plus-a-bit lead was steady. The rain returned after lunch, and the race began anew.

Gonzalez pitted. It was a routine stop and should have seen him through until the end. But when he depressed the starter button the engine refused to light. The mechanics checked everything. All seemed well. Still no spark. Then Rolt pitted the D-Type. He was too early and totally unexpected. New goggles, he cried, not realizing that the leading Ferrari, pitted nearby, was in trouble. He was sent back to the course, frantically, now on the same lap as the stricken red car.

The Ferrari mechanics worked like demons. Nello Ugolini held his bowed head, lips moving. He seemed to be praying. Gonzalez sat inert and expressionless on the pit counter watching the mechanics. Eyes that weren’t fixed on the Ferrari stared toward Maison Blanch; was the next car green? No? The next? The next?

Gonzalez moved with speed belying his bulk. The big engine finally fired, and he was gone. A minute-and-a-half later, Rolt screamed by. At the 23-hour mark, the Argentinean had put another 22sec between himself and the '53 winners. Hamilton took over the English car from Rolt and left the pits with a grim expression and his chin well down. He took 20sec back from Gonzalez, who seemed to be slowing. Then he went faster again. What trouble now?

Gonzalez had neither slept nor eaten since before 4:00 o’clock Saturday, and he was now feeling the effects. But he was a bigger man in many ways and, through sheer force of will, set aside his considerable physical discomfort and beat the Jaguar by less than two-and-a-half miles.

The lap record had been pulverized, and even with the rain the total distance raced was nearly the same as the previous year. The ungainly Bristol’s had won the 2.0-liter class for England with a stylish three-car formation finish. The 2.5-liter Gordini was sixth overall and first in the 3.0-liter class for France. Bill Spear and Sherwood Johnson won the big displacement class with a fine third for Briggs Cunningham. Jacques Swaters was fourth in the year old C-Type for Belgium.

Only bad luck and teething troubles had prevented a maiden win by the alarmingly fast new Jaguar D-Type. Certainly they would have to be on the short list of favorites for the '55 24 Hours. At least that was a kernel of wisdom in Raymond Baxter’s brief 15min Le Mans "Summing Up" BBC broadcast at 10:15 that evening.