Leveg, Pierre

Pierre Buyen was born on December 22, 1905 in Paris.

A year earlier, his uncle, Alfred Velg (Alfred Velghe), who since 1898 has performed quite successfully in various races of the time under the name Alfred Leweg, even having won several of them, died. In 1923, Pierre attended the Le Mans race for the first time and since then his thoughts were only about performing there. In 1938, his dream came true - he took part in Le Mans behind the wheel of a Talbot T150C, but did not make it to the finish line due to a technical breakdown. For the same reason, his Talbot-Lago SS did not make it to the finish line the following year. Before the war, Levega's best auto racing achievement was the 3rd place in the race in Anver in 1939.

Leveg even took part in the Grand Prix Races, but he practically didn’t succeed there. Six starts in the seasons of 1950 and 1951. on own Talbot Lago T26C and 7th place on the GP of Belgium'1950 as the best result - you can briefly describe its achievements in Formula 1.

However, his success in other series was more significant. In 1951, in Le Mans at the Talbot factory, he finished fourth, but was unhappy with the car and decided next year to go to the start on his own car, all the costs of which preparation he was carrying himself. And all the costs were practically justified - he drove the car alone for more than 22 hours and was the undoubted leader, four laps ahead of the nearest pursuer when the checkpoint failed and then the engine. His dream of victory, which, it seemed, was about to become a reality, was not destined to come true ... Races 1953 and 1954 also did not bring success. Pierre Leveg died on June 11, 1955 during his last race at Le Mans.

June 11, 1955 is the date of the most terrible tragedy in the history of motor racing, which had consequences for many decades to come. A terrible accident occurred at the end of the 35th lap of the famous 24 Hours of Le Mans race on June 11, 1955. The Mercedes-Benz 300 SLR, which was driven by French racer Pierre Leveg, chased the then leading Briton Mike Hawthorne on the Jaguar D-Type, ran into the Austin-Healey 100S overtaken by Lance MacLin.

Suddenly, for going back, Hawthorne decided to go to the pit lane for refueling and left no room for the maneuver of the car, Maclean. Macklin, dodging Jaguar to the right, turning over the outside of the track, and trying to bring the car back and drive around the Hawthorne just ahead of him, shifted to the left, thereby unsuccessfully cutting Mercedes Levega. From a collision, the Mercedes-Benz 300 SLR soared over the track. He flew over the fence and flew straight into the stands with the audience, simultaneously spilling debris and engine parts on them. Seat belts were not used at the time - they appeared only in the 60s. Therefore, Leveg flew out of the car and died as a result of damage to the skull. The explosion of the fuel tank caused a very serious fire, which, together with the debris, killed 82 spectators. More than 100 people were injured. The fire situation was also aggravated by the fact that the magnesium body of the Mercedes was tried to be extinguished with water, which led only to a strengthening of the flame. The car burned for several hours. The race was not stopped to prevent panic among nearly a quarter of a million viewers. In addition, spectators leaving the race would inevitably block access roads for ambulances. Not everyone understood how terrible the tragedy occurred: many simply saw that the fire started after the accident - that's all.

Juan-Manuel Fangio, who was driving right behind Levegh, Hawthorne and the "circular" McLean, witnessed this terrible disaster. Fangio said that Pierre at the last moment, realizing that he could not do anything, raised his hand up, which gave Fangio a signal - and he managed to slow down so as not to crash into the cars ahead. Thus, perhaps, Leveg saved the life of Fangio.

When the preliminary number of casualties was announced at night, Alfred Neubauer, the chief of the Mercedes-Benz racing team, who invited Levega to participate in the race, decided to remove his team’s cars from the race. By that time, Fangio, team mate Levega, was leading the race. However, this was not so important. In the end, the winner of the Le Mans of 1955 was Mike Hawthorne on the Jaguar. Alfred Neubauer said that Pierre voiced a strange premonition right on the starting line on that ill-fated day at Le Mans. Premonition did not disappoint, unfortunately.

After Le Mans 1955, many other competitions were canceled, including four Formula 1 races of the 1955 season (GP of France, Germany, Spain and Switzerland), due to which the season was reduced to 6 races. At the end of 1955, the Mercedes-Benz team left motor racing, until 1987. The American Automobile Association (AAA), under pressure from the public, after the accident at Le Mans and the death of Bill Vukovich on the Indy-500 race a couple of weeks earlier, refused to do any car racing, passing the baton to specially created auto-sports associations such as USAC.

After this accident in Switzerland, a law was passed, according to which a ban was imposed on the holding of any kind of contests involving motor vehicles. This ban lasted for 52 years unchanged. Only on June 7, 2007, the ban was partially lifted by 97 votes to 77 (voting was held in the state parliament). However, the Grand Prix race in Switzerland is still formally prohibited.

• Pierre Leveg (Rus.) On the site wildsoft.motorsport.com
• Le Mans 1955 accident: Raw footages of the crash in HD on YouTube