Why Le Mans Still Matters
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by Chris Bright

I won’t admit how much time I spent watching the 24 Hours of Le Mans this weekend, but it's substantial. It held particular interest for me this year because a Portland kid named Josh Pierson was competing. When I say “kid,” I mean it: he became the youngest driver in Le Mans history at 16 years old. His team finished sixth in the highly competitive LMP2 class, so you might want to remember that name.

Unfortunately, the 2022 race, like many before it, was a big ol’ snoozefest, with few lead changes or on-track action. It was won by Toyota Gazoo Racing for the fifth year on the trot, but the competition at the top was desperately thin. 

In spite of that, the 24 Hours of Le Mans is one of the most important races because it is as vital today as when it first started 99 years ago. Rather than “Selling on Monday,” the 24-hour race is about “Race on (Saturday and) Sunday. Produce on Monday.”
 

Competing on Reliability

With Le Mans, or any other endurance race, for that matter, excitement is not the point. The cars are the point, and more specifically research and development. In fact, it was stated when Georges Durand and the ACO (Automobile Club de l’Ouest) founded the 24 Hours of Le Mans in 1923 (pictured below) that it was to “contribute to the technological progress by testing technical solutions.” 

Le Mans is still going today, and is the oldest active endurance event. Many brands we revere and that collectors drool over today made their reputations on the Circuit de la Sarthe. Bentley, Alfa Romeo, and Bugatti in the 1920s and 30s, and Ferrari, Jaguar, Aston-Martin, Porsche, and Audi after the war, including powerhouse U.S. teams from Ford and Chevrolet, are known today in large part due to Le Mans success.

Other forms of motorsports are also built on innovation, but they tend to aim for extreme speed and power. This makes for a great spectacle,

but not necessarily a great road car. Formula One might sell supercars, but unlike endurance racing, precious little trickles down to mainstream consumers.

Winning is not decided on raw speed, but on the ability to operate reliably for 24 hours straight. As former Le Mans winner turned commentator Anthony Davidson pointed out, Le Mans is more transferable to production cars because “the main challenge is reliability. Building an intricate modern…racing car to undergo 24 hours of hard racing without the slightest of glitches seems like an impossible task, but that’s what is needed to take victory at Le Mans.” 
 

The final decision was the
only logical one. F1 was an alternative, but the road relevance is not there.

Wolfgang Hatz, 
Former Porsche R&D Head

In 2013, Porsche was weighing an endurance program or getting into Formula One. Their head of R&D at the time Wolfgang Hatz said, “The final decision was the only logical one. F1 was an alternative, but the road relevance is not there.” F1 aerodynamics  are “so extreme that it cannot result in any development in our road car understanding.”
 

‍Le Mans Innovations

The French race stimulates engineering teams at manufacturers around the world to implement groundbreaking ideas. While far from exhaustive, here are innovations that Le Mans helped birth:

Aerodynamic bodies (1925-present). Early on, engineers realized lower drag meant higher speed, which led to the Chenard-Walcker Tank in 1925. The Porsche 917K was the most famous aerodynamic car when it set the distance record in 1971, and held that record until 2010.

Radial tires (1951). Michelin shod a Lancia Aurelia B20 with recently patented tires that had been strengthened with cords. The Lancia won its class, which proved the new design, thus launching it into mainstream use.

Fuel injection (1952). The Mercedes gull-winged W194 designed by Rudolf Uhlenhaut (the precursor to the 300 SL) won in 1952 using Bosch’s fuel injection pump.

Odds & Ends

Objects of Desire