1957 24 Hours of Le Mans

1957 24 Hours of Le Mans
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The 1957 24 Heures du Mans was the 25th running of the 24 Hours of Le Mans, Grand Prix of Endurance, and took place on 22 and 23 June 1957, on the Circuit de la Sarthe. It was also the fifth round of the F.I.A. World Sports Car Championship. Some 250,000 spectators had gathered for Europe’s classic sports car race, around an 8.38-mile course. The prospect of an exciting duel between Ferrari, Maserati, Jaguar, Aston Martin and Porsche was enough to draw large crowds to the 24 Hours race, now back at its usual date and reintegrated into the World Championship.

Never before had a single nation sweep the board so completely as Britain did in 1957. The great success of the Jaguars in taking first four and sixth places became all the more significant when it is considered that all of the cars were privately entered (albeit with some factory support), and matched against the works entries of some of the greatest sport car manufacturers.

After the major changes in the previous year, the ACO relented on its engine-size limitation – prototypes were again an open limit. They did, however, address body-shape requirements: the token second seat. Cars now had to have at least two doors and both seats had to be the same size, in a cockpit a minimum 1.2m wide. The minimum windscreen height was reduced from 20 to 15 cm, maximum fuel-tank size was 120 litres, and the total fuel usage restrictions were removed a year after they were imposed. One of the oldest regulations was removed – of having to carry all spares and tools on the car, allowing them to be left in the pits.

This all re-aligned with the FIA/CSI, who themselves issued a major new Appendix C to the Sports Car regulations based closely on the 1956 ACO regulations. Therefore, the Le Mans race was drafted back into the World Sportscar Championship.

The number of starters was fixed at 55. The maximum drive time stayed at 14 hours, but drivers were now limited to a maximum single stint of 36 laps, down from the previous year’s 72 laps. The interval between refuelling was reduced for the first time, down to 30 laps from 34 laps. This year, for the Index of Performance, the target distances for nominal engine sizes were set as follows (according to a specific formula):

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