The 1958 24 Hours of Le Mans was the 26th running of the 24 Hours of Le Mans, Grand Prix of Endurance, and took place on 21 and 22 June 1958, on the Circuit de la Sarthe. It was also the fifth round of the 1958 World Sports Car Championship, which was running to new regulations introduced at the beginning of the season. Some 150,000 spectators had gathered for Europe's classic sports car race, around the 8.38-mile course. The prospect of an exciting duel between 3 liter cars of Ferrari, Jaguar, Aston Martin plus giantkiller Porsche with half the engine size plus tiny 750cc cars was enough to draw large crowds to the 24 Hours race.
The race was dominated by fifteen hours of rain, three of which were torrential, marking a bad summer solstice.Moity 1974, p.69 There were thirteen accidents, one killing gentleman-driver Jean-Marie Brussin. It marked the first ever overall win for an American and a Belgian driver and was the third win for the Scuderia Ferrari. The works Testarossas took over the lead in the third hour when, this year, it was the British challenge that ran out of steam. After their 1957 rout, the Italians took their revenge as Osca also won the Index of Performance.
Regulations This year, the second under the new FIA Appendix C rules, a revision put a maximum engine size of 3.0 litres. This was an effort to limit the very high speeds of the new Maserati and Ferrari prototypes (and, indirectly ruling out the Jaguars) in the Sportscar Championship. The equivalence for forced-induction engines (supercharged or turbo) was reduced from x1.4 down to only x1.2 to encourage manufacturers to utilise that technology.
For the race itself, the Automobile Club de l'Ouest (ACO) allowed an increase of a driver's stint to a maximum of 40 laps (from 36), although the 14-hour total limit was still in place. Pushing a car anywhere on the track, aside from in the pit-line, was now no longer allowed.Spurring 2011, p.310
Following Colin Chapman's example for Lotus in the previous year, many cars adopted the 'wraparound' windscreen to meet the official dimension requirements. This year Chapman introduced tonneau-covers for the passenger seat to reduce draught and air resistance.
Entries A total of 70 cars registered for the event, of which 59 were allowed to practice, to qualify for the 55 starting places event.Spurring 2011, p.308
Category Classes Entries Large-engines S-300021 (+2 reserves) Medium-engines S-2000 / S-1500 15 (+2 reserves) Small-engines S-1100 / S-750 19 (+3 reserves)
The duels of the previous years between Jaguar and Ferrari were trimmed back by the new engine restriction. Although those manufacturers arrived with new engines, it also made Aston Martin (fresh from their triumph on the 1000km of Nürburgring) much more competitive, already with its tried and tested 3-litre engine. In the main class, only Ferrari and Aston Martin sent works entries.
Although defending champions Jaguar had no works team, they developed the new short-stroke 3-litre XK-engine, using carburettors not fuel-injection, to meet the 3.0L regulations for their customer teams.Clausager 1982, p100 It operated at around 5500–7000rpm, instead of the 4500–5800rpm of the previous bigger engines.Spurring 2011, p.322 Winners of the past two races the Ecurie Ecosse team had two cars, for Ninian Sanderson/'Jock' Lawrence and Jack Fairman/Masten Gregory The three other privateers included former winners Duncan Hamilton driving with Ivor Bueb. Also using the new 3-litre Jaguar motor was the new, small British manufacturer Lister, with two cars. Brian Lister had already been very successful in Britain however his lead driver, Archie Scott-Brown had been tragically killed at a sports-car race at Spa-Francorchamps just three weeks earlier.
Ferrari again arrived with a mighty force with no less than eleven cars for their works and private teams. Just prior to the meeting, Enzo Ferrari decided not to enter his latest two prototypes, reasoning that his well proven 3-litre 12-cylinder Testa Rossa was just the car for the circuit, and his best drivers. The pairings mostly came from the Ferrari F1 works team: Mike Hawthorn/Peter Collins, Phil Hill/Olivier Gendebien and Wolfgang von Trips paired with fellow German Wolfgang Seidel who had raced for Ferrari at the Targa Florio and was called in to replace Luigi Musso who was injured in the previous weekend's Belgian Grand Prix. A fourth car was planned but Gino Munaron was also injured. The factory was backed up by no less than six other privately entered Testa Rossas, including two for Luigi Chinetti's new North American Racing Team (NART) and single entries for Le Mans regulars Equipe Nationale Belge and Equipe Los Amigos. A 2-litre Ferrari was entered for the Mexican Rodriguez brothers. However, Ricardo was judged to be too young (16 years old) by the ACO, and not allowed to start so he was replaced by José Behra (Jean Behra's brother).
Without its big engines and now in serious financial trouble, Maserati did not put in an effort this year, with only two private entries: in the 3-litre and a 2-litre classes.Laban 2001, p.125
The new regulations suited Aston Martin very well, as they had already been running 3-litre cars for several years. They entered three of their updated DBR1s, as well as a privateer entry for the Whitehead brothers running a three-year-old Aston Martin DB3S (the runner-up car in 1955Spurring 2011, p.317). The strong driver line-up in the works team consisted of Stirling Moss/Jack Brabham, Tony Brooks/Maurice Trintignant and Roy Salvadori/ Stuart Lewis-Evans.
After its success in the previous year, Lotus returned with four works cars and two private entries. It was only a month after Cliff Allison came sixth after the team's auspicious F1 début at the Monaco Grand Prix. For this race, they put at least one car in 4 classes. The new Lotus 15 was designed by Frank Costin and carried several Coventry-Climax engine options: a 2-litre, 1.5-litre or even 750cc (for the affiliated Equipe Lotus France privateer team). Colin Chapman got Coventry Climax to develop a new 741cc engine based on their 650cc lightweight boat engine. Finally, there were also a pair of older Lotus 11 models to contest the S-1100 class
The S-2000 class had a diverse group of eight entries: aside from the new Lotus and the privateer Maserati, AC returned with two entries, one based around a John Tojeiro design. NART had a Ferrari 500 TR, and the British company Peerless entered a true GT car, with a Triumph engine.
Porsche, having dominated the S-1500 class, now broadened their focus by uprating two of their three works 718 RSKs with 1.6L version of the Porsche Type 547 DOHC "Fuhrmann" engine. The 718RSK in the S-1500 was supported by three privately entered 550A cars. As well as a works Lotus there were two Alfa Romeo Giuliettas from the Italian Squadra Virgilio Conrero team.
The reduced S-1100 class was the preserve of the Coventry Climax engine – two Lotuses and a car from the new specialist designer John Tojeiro. There was a big field in the smallest S-750 class and dominated by works entries: defending champions Lotus had two cars; from France were three from Deutsch et Bonnet, four from Monopole and one from specialist VP-Renault. Italy had a pair of OSCAs and four from Stanguellini
Practice After the success of the vintage cars in the previous year, this year on the Friday evening the ACO held a 1-hour regularity trial for classic Le Mans race-cars.
Qualifying was held over three sessions for a total of 660 minutes over the Wednesday and Thursday. Most of the qualifying runs took place on a dry track and the best time was achieved by Moss, who pushed his Aston Martin around in time of 4:07, averaging 121.7 mph. Next quickest were Brooks and most of his Aston Martin teammates, ahead of the rest of the field. Fastest Jaguar went to Fairman, who did 4 min 13 sec, a time matched by Hawthorn in his Ferrari. The others Ferraris were around the 4 min 20 sec mark.
The 2-litre Lotus 15 proved remarkably quick – Allison and debutante Graham Hill had the 4th and 5th fastest times in practice in a car virtually half the weight of the Ecosse Jaguars. In contrast the small works Lotus broke its new engine and had to switch to an FWC-spare.Spurring 2011, p.326
As a comparison, some of the lap-times recorded during practice were:Clarke 2009, p.11: Road & Track Oct 1958 Class Car Driver(s) Best Time S-3000 Aston Martin DBR1/300 #2 Moss 4min 07.3sec S-2000 Lotus 15 #26 G. Hill 4min 12.7sec S-3000 Jaguar D-Type #6 Fairman 4min 13sec S-3000 Ferrari 250 TR/58 #12 Hawthorn 4min 13sec S-2000 Porsche 718 RSK #29 Behra 4min 20.5sec / 4min 29sec S-1500 Porsche 718 RSK #31 Barth 4min 31sec S-1100 Lotus 11 #38 Frost/Hicks 5min 10sec S-750 OSCA 750S #42 de Tomaso 5min 19sec
Race Start It was a hot and sunny afternoon when the French tricolour fell at 4 pm. The first driver away was Moss in his Aston Martin – as lightning-quick off the line as usual – chased by his teammate Brooks and the Jaguars and Ferraris. Just 4½ minutes after his standing start, Moss came past at the end of the first lap with a quarter-mile, five-second, lead on Hawthorn, Brooks, von Trips, Gendebien and the Aston of Salvadori. The best Jaguar was tenth.Clarke 2009, p.12: Motor Jun25 1958 At the end of the second lap, Sanderson brought in one of the Ecosse Jaguars with a broken piston. Five laps later, his teammate Fairman arrived with the same terminal problem. The rapid Allison/Hill 2-litre Lotus, so fast in practise, had also retired after only three laps with a blown head-gasket.Spurring 2011, p.327
Moss was very fast – extending his lead by 3 seconds a lap over the pursuing Ferraris. Hawthorn, leading the pack, tried his hardest – setting the fastest lap of the race at 4min 08sec. After the first hour, Moss was leading Hawthorn by 26 sec. Then came von Trips, Brooks, Gendebien and Hamilton in his Jaguar, with only the first three on the lead lap.Clarke 2009, p.12: Road & Track Oct 1958 Behra's uprated Porsche was leading the 2-litre class, running in 11th ahead of bigger Ferraris, Jaguars and Listers and well ahead of the rest of their class. Meanwhile, the two OSCAs were leading the S-750 class as well as the Index of Performance. The Ecosse Jaguars were gone – the team blaming the 'official' fuel for burning out the pistons though it was traced to defective valvegear operation.
Such was Moss's pace, all the competitors with exception of the first three leaders, had been lapped at least once. In the next hour Moss extended his lead to 95 seconds. Hawthorn tried to keep up, but his car was now suffering from a slipping clutch, with von Trips and Brooks rapidly closing in on him. Then at 6.10pm just a lap before the first pit-stops were due, Moss stopped at the Mulsanne corner with a broken conrod. Hawthorn went to the pits for an extended stop and it was the other works Ferraris – Hill ahead of von Trips – who took up the lead positions, ahead of Brooks' Aston Martin and Hamilton's Jaguar.
Soon after, the weather (which was to dominate the rest of the race) suddenly changed as an enormous storm swept across the circuit, flooding the track and reducing the visibility to nil. The track was soon awash and a terrible series of accidents began: between 6.30 and 10pm, no less than a dozen cars were involved in crashes. In the 3rd hour Maurice Charles lost control of his Jaguar in the downpour at Maison Blanche and was taken to hospital after being hit by two other cars. In the 5th hour as a second downpour started, Stuart Lewis-Evans tangled the second Aston Martin with a back-marker at Dunlop Curve doing terminal damage.