Page 12 - The Le Mans disaster in 1955

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Lance Macklin

The critics of Macklin say that either he looked too long in his mirror at
the two Mercedes (Fangio was right behind Levegh) before looking
ahead at the back of the Jaguar or alternatively that he was looking
ahead at all times but misjudged the distance. Either way, the critics say
that he could have eased his way around the Jaguar, instead of going
into a slide which put him well onto Levegh’s side of the road.
The defenders of Macklin say that he should never have been put in such
a tricky position in the first place, that he did everything he could to stop
in the available space, but at the last moment when he realised he was
going to rear-end Hawthorn, he had no option but to swerve to the left.
Pierre Levegh

The critics of Levegh say that he was too old (49) to be driving such a
potent car, that his lap times in earlier tests showed him to be ill at ease
in the 300SLR and that in any event he was already being lapped. Fur-
ther, he had enough road width to avoid Macklin. The defenders of Lev-
egh say that he was a competent operator, especially at Le Mans.
He had lapped faster than all but two of the works Jaguar drivers
and was driving to a race pace set by Mercedes Above all, he simply
had nowhere to go – as the track was kinking slightly to the right, it was
impossible for Levegh to hold hard to the left of the road.
The ACO

Critics of the ACO (Automobile Club de l'Ouest), say that the
road leading to and passing the pits was too narrow, an opin-
ion previously aired by some drivers. Defenders of the ACO
say that the track was typical of the time, and that the metre-
high embankment should have been enough to stop any way-
ward car.
The Film

Most of those arguments have been advanced on the back of
a series of still photos of the accident unfolding: to study them
is all very detached and analytical. But when John Matthews
“Bigger Picture” company released The Deadliest Crash DVD
in 2009, with staggering head-on footage of the accident oc-
curring and Levegh rearing up straight at the photographer,
the overwhelming sensation is of how quickly it all happened.
Watch the film; draw your own conclusions. (See www.dead-
liestcrash.com)
The legal issues

Leaving aside the actual mechanics of the accident, there are three big underlying themes run-
ning very strongly through all these arguments, which to me is why the event is so interesting.
The first is political. It was only ten years since the end of a very violent war, and Mercedes was
strongly identified with Germany (even today, there is a panel in the Mercedes museum in
Stuttgart apologising for the company’s involvement with the Third Reich…) The marque’s 1-2
at Le Mans three years earlier had been rather less than popular, and one of the reasons the
company decided to withdraw from the 1955 race was to avoid the look of racing to victory over
the bodies of dead Frenchmen.
The shadow of the War falls all over the events in 1955. The second, closely related, issue
is public relations. These days, many people regard the presence of the PR hordes as far too
pervasive in the sport, so it is instructive to see how it was done back in those days.