1955 Le Mans Disaster - Before The Accident

Before The Accident

Pierre Levegh, aged 49, had been hired by Mercedes-Benz as a factory driver that year. Part of his appeal to Mercedes was his determination shown in the 1952 race when he had driven for 23 straight hours, even though the team had a driver who could have replaced him. He failed to win only because of a missed gear change, due to exhaustion, with just 45 minutes remaining, resulting in a failed connecting rod in his Talbot-Lago.

Mercedes-Benz had debuted its new 300 SLR sportscar in the 1955 World Sportscar Championship season, with some notable success, including a win at the Mille Miglia. The 300 SLR featured a body made of an ultralightweight magnesium alloy called Elektron with a specific gravity of 1.8 (for reference, aluminium has a S.G. of 2.7 and steel 7.8). This new material reduced the weight of the car and thus improved its performance, however the car lacked the more efficient state-of-the-art disc brakes featured on the rival Jaguar D-Type, employing instead the traditional drum brake system. The high power of the car forced Mercedes' engineers to incorporate a large air brake behind the driver that could be raised to increase drag and slow the car with sufficient rapidity for most conditions.

Safety measures commonly in place today were relatively unknown in 1955. The Le Mans circuit itself had remained largely unaltered since the inception of the race in 1923, when top speeds of cars were typically in the region of 60 miles per hour (97 km/h). By 1955 top speeds were in excess of 185 miles per hour (298 km/h). The cars had no seatbelts, the drivers reasoning that it was preferable to be thrown clear in a collision rather than be trapped in a burning or damaged car.