1949 24 Hours of Le Mans

1949 24 Hours of Le Mans
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The 1949 24 Hours of Le Mans was the 17th Grand Prix of Endurance, and took place on 25 and 26 June 1949. Luigi Chinetti won the race for a third time in the first Ferrari barchetta by driving 22.5 hours. This race also saw the death of British driver Pierre Maréchal when his Aston Martin DB2 was involved in an accident at Maison Blanche late in the race.

This was the first race held at the circuit following the end of World War II. Even though the war had ended four years prior, major infrastructure reconstruction throughout France meant that the return of the race was of secondary concern, and thus was not run until after France had established itself again. Following the end of the war the circuit needed extensive repairs. During the war the RAF, then the Luftwaffe, had used the airfield by the pits, as well as the 5 km Hunaudières straight as a temporary airstrip (thereby also making it a target for Allied bombing). So it was four years before the Automobile Club de l'Ouest (ACO) was in a position to revive the great race. Assisted with money from the government, the pits and grandstand had been rebuilt, a new 1000-seat restaurant and administration centre built and the whole track was resurfaced. However one section of the hinterland was still off-limits as it had not yet been cleared of landmines. Likewise, in that time the car manufacturers had also been rebuilding.

But still, most of the entry list for this year's race was from cars built before the war. The ACO put preference to those entered in the last, 1939, race for the Biennial Cup. So there were twelve cars from that race back for the Cup. Otherwise, there were fourteen entries from manufacturers - although "works" entries effectively, many were one-car small companies.

The regulations used by the ACO were based on those of the new FIA, created in 1946. There were ten classes, based on engine size, and at least ten cars had to have been produced before the entry was submitted. Supercharged engines’ equivalence was calculated at 2:1 for engine capacity. However, for this new start, sportscar prototypes were now given admission for the first time, "as an exceptional measure to contribute towards a faster revival of automobile manufacture" by the French Service des Mines (Vehicle registration authority), or its foreign equivalent That was, in a sense, just formalising an unofficial practice started in the 1930s, when race-specific cars were entered at Le Mans and other races for the win with no intentions of going into full production. The ACO reserved the right to disqualify a car not entered 'in the spirit of the regulations'.

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