Pierre Levegh
Pierre Levegh ( born December 22, 1905 in Paris when Pierre Eugène Alfred Bouillin, † June 11, 1955 in Le Mans) was a French Formula 1 and sports car racing driver.
Pseudonym of " Mr. Driver"
Pierre had instead of his actual surname Bouillin ( sometimes spelled wrongly broth) a pseudonym gained in order to pay tribute to his uncle Levegh who had accomplished in the early years of motor sport with the legendary Mors pioneering work a certain respect. The outspoken gentleman's gentleman or driver was very athletic, was regarded as an excellent skater and could even refer to international missions in ice hockey, and tennis.
Racing career
However, its F1 operations decreased to six races behind the wheel of the clunky 4.5 -liter Talbot -Lago, whose design dated from the pre-war years, in the early years of the competition. With the face of the dominance of Alfa Romeo inferior car to reach a seventh place at the Grand Prix of Belgium, in the course of which was all the pilots of the Talbots, as Raymond Sommer and Louis Rosier auftrumpften, his best result. For all other three starts mostly a technical defect prevented better placement.
The Le Mans disaster
His real domain was the use of sports cars and as Mercedes -Benz invited the designated veteran, in that fateful year of 1955 as a guest driver and substitute for Hans Herrmann to pilot a 300 SLR in the 24- hour race at Le Mans.
At the end of the 35th about 300 rounds of competition, against about 18:20 clock, outsell Mike Hawthorn (Jaguar D- Type) Levegh and Lance Macklin (Austin- Healey ) on the home straight in a train. Juan Manuel Fangio (Mercedes), with whom he gave a tough fight since the start, literally sat him in the neck. At the end of the overtaking maneuver viewed Hawthorn got carried to an unreasonable action and cut braking before the two overtaken across slopes to reach for refueling the boxes that were not yet physically separated from the circuit.
Despite a screeching halt the Briton came only 80 meters behind his pit crew to a halt, which illustrated the folly of his actions. But behind him he had a drama triggered: Lance Macklin was able to avoid him with an equally daring move yet, but thus took the old veteran Levegh the proverbial " room for survival ."
After a slight collision with the rear of Austin at 240 km / h hit Leveghs car into the balustrade exploded and took the worst accident in the history of motor sport alongside his driver 83 viewers life. The Mercedes team management called then from their racing cars from the further running competition.
For incomprehensible today, the race organizers, the race is not broke and declared Levegh - in contrast to the journalists present view, the trade press and the public - to the " scapegoat ", which itself was seen by the British public otherwise. The actual polluter, Mike Hawthorn was able to win the race for themselves. The riders were not informed about the scale of the disaster by the race until the end.