Premiéres Grand Prix d'Endurance les 24 Heures du Mans 1923
Coupe Rudge-Whitworth - Circuit Permanenthe de la Sarthe, Le Mans, France
Date: May 26/27, 1923
Track Length: 17,262 metres
Track Distance: 2209.536 km
Conditions: Hailstorm, heavy rain, windy
Fastest Lap: John Duff (or Frank Clement ?), Bentley, 9'39" = 107.328 km/h
Average Speed: 92.064 km/h
The city of Le Mans is best known for its connection with motorsports. There are actually two separate racing tracks at Le Mans, though they share certain portions. The smaller is the Bugatti Circuit (named after Ettore Bugatt), a relatively short permanent circuit which is used for racing throughout the year. The longer and more famous Circuit de la Sarthe is composed partly of public roads, which are closed to the public when the track is in use for racing, and has been host to the famous 24 Hours of Le Mans sports car race since 1923.
At a time when Grand Prix racing was occurring throughout Europe, Le Mans was envisioned as a different test from motorsports at the time. Instead of focusing on the ability of a car company to build the fastest machines of the time, the 24 Hours of Le Mans would instead concentrate on the ability of manufacturers to build sporty yet reliable cars. This would drive innovation in not only reliable but also fuel-efficient vehicles, since the nature of endurance racing requires as little time to be spent in the pits as possible.
At the same time, due to the design of Le Mans, a drive would be created for better aerodynamics and stability of cars at high speeds. While this was shared with Grand Prix racing, few tracks in Europe featured straights the length of the Mulsanne. The fact that the road is public and therefore not maintained to the same quality as some permanent racing circuits also puts more of a strain on parts, causing more emphasis on reliability.
The first Le Mans race was held on May 26th and 27th, 1923, and has since been run annually in June, with exceptions occurring in 1956, when the race was held in July, and 1968, when it was held in September, due to nationwide political turmoils earlier that year. The race has been cancelled twice: once in the year 1936 (Great Depression) and from 1940 to 1948 (World War II and its aftermath).
Beginning in the late 1970s, the demand for fuel economy from around the world led the race to adopt a fuel economy formula known as Group C in which competitors were given a set amount of fuel, from which they had to design an engine. Although Group C was abandoned when teams were able to master the fuel formulas, fuel economy would still be important to some teams as alternative fuel sources would appear in the early 21st century, attempting to overcome time spent during pit stops.
These technological innovations have had a trickle-down effect, with technology used at Le Mans finding its way into production cars several years later. This has also led to faster and more exotic supercars due to manufacturers wishing to develop faster road cars for the purposes of developing them into even faster GT cars.