1906 French Grand Prix - Race

Race

Roads around the track were closed to the public at 5 am on the morning of the race. A draw took place among the thirteen teams to determine the starting order, and assign each team a number. Each of a team's three entries was assigned a letter, one of "A", "B", or "C". Two lines of cars formed behind the start line at Montfort: cars marked "A" in one line and cars marked "B" in the other. Cars assigned the letter "C" were the last away; they formed a single line at the side of the track so that any cars which had completed their first circuit of the track would be able to pass. Cars were dispatched at 90-second intervals, beginning at 6 am. Lorraine-Dietrich driver Fernand Gabriel (numbered "1A") was scheduled to be the first competitor to start, but he stalled on the line and could not restart his car before the FIAT of Vincenzo Lancia, who was next in line, drove away. Renault's lead driver, the Hungarian Ferenc Szisz, started next, and behind him Victor Hémery of Darracq, Paul Baras of Brasier, Camille Jenatzy of Mercedes, Louis Rigolly of Gobron-Brillié and Alessandro Cagno of Itala. Philippe Tavenaux of Grégoire, scheduled next, was unable to start; the only other non-starter was the sole Vulpes of Marius Barriaux, which was withdrawn before the race when it was found to be over the weight limit. The last of the thirty-two starters—the Clément-Bayard of "de la Touloubre", numbered "13C"—left the start line at 6:49:30 am.

Itala driver Maurice Fabry started the fastest of the competitors; he covered the first kilometre in 43.4 seconds. Over the full distance of the lap Brasier's Baras was the quickest; his lap time of 52 minutes and 25.4 seconds (52:25.4) moved him up to third position on the road and into the lead overall. A mechanical problem caused Gabriel to lose control of his car at Saint-Calais; he regained control in time to avoid a serious accident but was forced to retire. Baras maintained his lead after the second lap, but fell back to second the next lap as Szisz took over the lead. As the day grew hotter—it reached a high of 49 °C (120 °F)—the tar began to melt, which proved to be a greater problem than the dust; it was kicked up by the cars into the faces of the drivers and their mechanics, seeping past their goggles and inflaming their eyes. The Renault driver, J. Edmond, was particularly affected: his broken goggles allowed more tar to seep past and rendered him nearly blind. His attempts to change the goggles at a pit stop were rejected by officials on the grounds that equipment could not be replaced mid-race. Nor could another driver be substituted; he continued for two more laps before retiring.

FIAT driver Aldo Weilschott climbed from fourteenth on lap three to third on lap five, before his car rolled off the planks outside of Vibraye. Szisz maintained the lead he had gained on lap three to finish the first day just before noon in a time of 5 hours, 45 minutes and 30.4 seconds (5:45:30.4), 26 minutes ahead of Albert Clément of Clément-Bayard. Despite a slow start, FIAT driver Felice Nazzaro moved up to third position, 15 minutes behind Clément. Seventeen cars completed the first day; Henri Rougier's Lorraine-Dietrich finished last with a time of 8:15:55.0, two-and-a-half-hours behind Szisz. All the cars that were competing the next day were moved into parc fermé, a floodlit area guarded overnight by members of the ACF, to prevent teams and drivers from working on them until the following morning.

The time each car set on the first day determined the time they set off on the second day, hence Szisz's first-day time of 5 hours and 45 minutes meant he started at 5:45 am. Following the same principle, Clément began at 6:11 am and Nazzaro at 6:26 am. This method ensured that positions on the road directly reflected the race standings. A horse, which had been trained before the race to be accustomed to the loud noise of an engine starting, towed each competitor out of parc fermé to the start line. As neither driver nor mechanic could work on their car until they had been given the signal to start the day's running, Szisz and Clément began by heading directly to the pit lane to change tyres and service their cars. Clément completed his stop more quickly than Szisz, and Nazzaro did not stop at all, and so Clément closed his time gap to Szisz and Nazzaro closed on Clément. Jenatzy and Lancia, who were both suffering eye problems from the first day, had intended to retire from the race and be relieved by their reserve drivers. As planned, "Burton" took over Jenatzy's car, but Lancia was forced to resume in his street clothes when his replacement driver could not be found when the car was due to start.

Hotchkiss driver Elliott Shepard, who finished the first day in fourth, less than four minutes behind Nazzaro, spent half-an-hour working on his car at the start of the second day, fitting new tyres and changing liquids. On the eighth lap, he ran off the wooden planking at Saint-Calais but was able to resume; a wheel failure later in the lap caused him to run into a bank of earth and forced him to retire. Panhard driver Georges Teste crashed early in the day and retired, as did Claude Richez of Renault; the sole Gobron-Brillié of Rigolly suffered radiator damage on lap seven and was forced out of the race. After two laps' running on the second day, second-placed Clément had established a 23-minute lead over Nazzaro, but this was reduced to three minutes on the following lap. Despite Nazzaro passing Clément on lap ten, a refuelling stop for the FIAT soon after put Clément back in front. Nazzaro passed again, and led Clément into the last lap of the race by less than a minute.

Szisz's Renault suffered a broken rear suspension on the tenth lap, but his lead was so great (more than 30 minutes) that he could afford to drive cautiously with the damage. He took the black flag of the winner at the finish line after a combined total from the two days of 12:12:07.0; he had also been quicker on the straight than any other driver, reaching a top speed of 154 kilometres per hour (96 mph). He finished 32 minutes ahead of second-placed Nazzaro, who was in turn 3 minutes ahead of Clément. Jules Barillier's Brasier was fourth, ahead of Lancia and Panhard driver George Heath. Baras—whose first lap was the fastest of any car during the race—was seventh, ahead of Arthur Duray of Lorraine-Dietrich, "Pierry" of Brasier, and "Burton". The last finisher, the Mercedes driver "Mariaux", was eleventh, more than four hours behind Szisz. Rougier, who had set the fastest lap of the day with a time of 53:16.4, had retired on lap ten after a long series of punctures. Of the other retirements, Hémery, René Hanriot and Louis Wagner of Darracq suffered engine problems; the radiators on the cars of Rigolly of Gobron-Brillié, Xavier Civelli de Bosch of Grégoire and Cagno of Itala failed; Pierre de Caters of Itala, Shepard and Hubert le Blon of Hotchkiss, A. Villemain of Clément-Bayard and Vincenzo Florio of Mercedes withdrew after wheel failures; Gabriel of Lorraine-Dietrich, "de la Touloubre" of Clément-Bayard and Henri Tart of Panhard retired because of other mechanical problems; and Fabry of Itala, Weilschott of FIAT, Teste of Panhard, Richez of Renault and Jacques Salleron of Hotchkiss suffered crash damage. Edmond of Renault was the only competitor whose retirement was the result of driver injury.