The 1906 Grand Prix de l'Automobile Club de France, commonly known as the 1906 French Grand Prix, was a motor race held on 26 and 27 June 1906, on closed public roads outside the city of Le Mans. The Grand Prix was organised by the Automobile Club de France (ACF) at the prompting of the French automobile industry as an alternative to the Gordon Bennett races, which limited each competing country's number of entries regardless of the size of its industry. France had the largest automobile industry in Europe at the time, and in an attempt to better reflect this the Grand Prix had no limit to the number of entries by any particular country. The ACF chose a circuit, composed primarily of dust roads sealed with tar, which would be lapped six times on both days by each competitor, a combined race distance of . Lasting for more than 12 hours overall, the race was won by Ferenc Szisz driving for the Renault team. FIAT driver Felice Nazzaro finished second, and Albert Clément was third in a Clément-Bayard.
Paul Baras of Brasier set the fastest lap of the race on his first lap. He held on to the lead until the third lap, when Szisz took over first position, defending it to the finish. Hot conditions melted the road tar, which the cars kicked up into the faces of the drivers, blinding them and making the racing treacherous. Punctures were common; tyre manufacturer Michelin introduced a detachable rim with a tyre already affixed, which could be quickly swapped onto a car after a puncture, saving a significant amount of time over manually replacing the tyre. This helped Nazzaro pass Clément on the second day, as the FIAT—unlike the Clément-Bayard—made use of the rims.
Renault's victory contributed to an increase in sales for the French manufacturer in the years following the race. Despite being the second to carry the title, the race has become known as the first Grand Prix. The success of the 1906 French Grand Prix prompted the ACF to run the Grand Prix again the following year, and the German automobile industry to organise the Kaiserpreis, the forerunner to the German Grand Prix, in 1907.
Background
The first French Grand Prix originated from the Gordon Bennett races, established by American millionaire James Gordon Bennett, Jr. in 1900. Intended to encourage automobile industries through sport, by 1903 the Gordon Bennett races had become some of the most prestigious in Europe;Hodges (1967), p. 1 their formula of closed-road racing among similar cars replaced the previous model of unregulated vehicles racing between distant towns, over open roads. Entries into the Gordon Bennett races were by country, and the winning country earned the right to organise the next race.Cimarosti (1986), p. 19 Entries were limited to three per country, which meant that although the nascent motor industry in Europe was dominated by French manufacturers, they were denied the opportunity to fully demonstrate their superiority. Instead, the rule put them on a numerical level footing with countries such as Switzerland, with only one manufacturer, and allowed Mercedes, which had factories in Germany and Austria, to field six entries: three from each country.Hilton (2005), p. 15 The French governing body, the Automobile Club de France (ACF), held trials between its manufacturers before each race; in 1904 twenty-nine entries competed for the three positions on offer.
When Léon Théry won the 1904 race for the French manufacturer Richard-Brasier, the French automobile industry proposed to the ACF that they modify the format of the 1905 Gordon Bennett race and run it simultaneously with an event which did not limit entries by nation. The ACF accepted the proposal, but decided that instead of removing limits to entries by nation, the limits would remain but would be determined by the size of each country's industry. Under the ACF's proposal, France was allowed fifteen entries, Germany and Britain six, and the remaining countries—Italy, Switzerland, Belgium, Austria and the United States—three cars each.Hodges (1967), p. 2
The French proposal was met with strong opposition from governing bodies representing the other Gordon Bennett nations, and at the instigation of Germany a meeting of the bodies was organised to settle the dispute. Although the delegates rejected the French model for the 1905 race, to avoid deadlock they agreed to use the new system of limits for the 1906 race. But when Théry and Richard-Brasier won again in 1905, and the responsibility for organising the 1906 race fell once more to the ACF, the French ended the Gordon Bennett races and organised their own event as a replacement, the Grand Prix de l'Automobile Club de France.
Track
A combined offer from the city council of Le Mans and local hoteliers to contribute funding to the Grand Prix persuaded the ACF to hold the race on the outskirts of the city,Rendall (1993), pp. 46–47. where the Automobile Club de la Sarthe devised a circuit.Clausager (1982), p. 11.Hodges (1967), p. 221. The first and some later layouts had nothing in common with the well known modern track that was first used in 1921.
Running through farmlands and forests, the 1906 track, like most circuits of the time, formed a triangle. It started outside the village of Montfort, and headed south-west towards Le Mans. Competitors then took the Fourche hairpin, which turned sharply left and slowed the cars to around , and then an essentially straight road through Bouloire south-east towards Saint-Calais. The town was bypassed with a temporary wooden plank road, as the track headed north on the next leg of the triangle. Another plank road through a forest to a minor road allowed the track to bypass most of the town of Vibraye, before it again headed north to the outskirts of La Ferté-Bernard. A series of left-hand turns took competitors back south-west towards Montfort on the last leg of the triangle, a straight broken by a more technical winding section, near the town of Connerré.Hilton (2005), p. 16Hodges (1967), p. 222 Competitors lapped the circuit twelve times over two days, six times on each day, a total distance of .
To address concerns about previous races, during which spectators crowding too close to the track had been killed or injured by cars, the ACF erected of palisade fencing around the circuit, concentrated around towns and villages, and at the ends of lanes, footpaths and roads intersecting the track. The planking used to avoid the towns of Saint-Calais and Vibraye was installed as an alternative to the system used in the Gordon Bennett races, where cars passing through towns would slow down to a set speed and were forbidden to overtake.Pomeroy (1949), p. 21. Several footbridges were erected over the track, and a 2,000-seat canopied grandstand was built at the start and finish line at Montfort. This faced the pit lane on the other side of the track, where the teams were based and could work on the cars. A tunnel under the track connected the grandstand and the pit lane. The road surface was little more than compacted dust and sharp stones which could be easily kicked up by the cars, and to limit the resulting problem of impaired visibility and punctures the ACF sealed the entire length of the track with tar. More was added to the bends of the track after cars running on them during practice broke up the surface.
Entries and cars
Ten French manufacturers entered cars in the Grand Prix: Clément-Bayard, Hotchkiss, Gobron-Brillié, Darracq, Vulpes, Brasier (the successor to Richard-Brasier), Panhard, Grégoire, Lorraine-Dietrich and Renault. Two teams came from Italy (FIAT and Itala) and one (Mercedes) from Germany. With the exceptions of Gobron-Brillié and Vulpes, which each entered one car, and Grégoire, which entered two cars, each team entered three cars, to make a total field of thirty-four entries.Hodges (1967), p. 14 No British or American manufacturers entered the Grand Prix. The British were suspicious that the event was designed as propaganda for the French automobile industry; British magazine The Motor quoted French daily newspaper Le Petit Parisien as evidence of this supposed lack of sportsmanship.Hilton (2005), pp. 15–16.
The ACF imposed a maximum weight limit—excluding tools, upholstery, wings, lights and light fittings—of , with an additional allowed for a magneto or dynamo to be used for ignition.Cimarosti (1986), p. 25.Pomeroy (1949), p. 20. Regulations limited fuel consumption to . Every team opted for a magneto system; all used a low-tension system except Clément-Bayard, Panhard, Hotchkiss, Gobron-Brillié, and Renault, which used high-tension. Mercedes, Brasier, Clément-Bayard, FIAT and Gobron-Brillié used a chain drive system for transmission; the rest used drive shafts. All entries were fitted with four-cylinder engines; engine displacement ranged from for the Grégoire to for the Panhard.Hodges (1967), pp. 13–14 Exhaust pipes were directed upwards to limit the dust kicked up off the roads. Teams were allowed to change drivers and equipment, but only at the end of the first day's running, not while the race was in progress.Hilton (2005), p. 22
Michelin, Dunlop and Continental supplied tyres for the race.Hilton (2005), p. 17. In the Grand Prix's one major technical innovation, Michelin introduced the jante amovible: a detachable rim with a tyre already affixed, which could be quickly swapped onto the car in the event of a puncture. Unlike in the Gordon Bennett races, only the driver and his riding mechanic were allowed to work on the car during the race, hence carrying the detachable rims could save time and confer a large advantage. The conventional method of changing a tyre, which involved slicing off the old tyre with a knife, and forcing the new tyre onto the rim, generally took around fifteen minutes; replacing Michelin's rims took less than four.Rendall (1991), p. 58. The FIATs each used a full set, while the Renaults and two of the Clément-Bayards used them on the rear wheels of their cars. As carrying each rim added to the weight of the car over conventional wheels and tyres, some teams—such as Itala and Panhard—could not carry them without exceeding the weight limit.
The Grand Prix name ("Great Prize") referred to the prize of 45,000 French francs to the race winner.Grand Prix century – The Telegraph, 10 June 2006 The franc was pegged to the gold at 0.290 grams per franc, which meant that the prize was worth 13 kg of gold.
Race
Roads around the track were closed to the public at 5 am on the morning of the race.Hodges (1967), p. 15 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.