Raymond Pierre Sommer was a French motor racing driver. He raced both before and after WWII with some success, particularly in endurance racing. He won the 24 Hours of Le Mans endurance race in both 1932 and 1933, and although he did not reach the finishing line in any subsequent appearance at the Le Mans, he did lead each event until 1938. Sommer was also competitive at the highest level in Grand Prix motor racing, but did not win a race. He won the French Grand Prix in 1936, but the event that year was run as a sports car race. After racing resumed in the late 1940s, Sommer again won a number of sports car and minor Grand Prix events, and finished in fourth place in the 1950 Monaco Grand Prix, the second round of the newly-instituted Formula One World Drivers' Championship. He was killed toward the end of 1950, when his car overturned during a race at the Circuit de Cadours.
Jean-Pierre Wimille was a Grand Prix motor racing driver and a member of the French Resistance during World War II. Before the war he drove for the French Bugatti team and after the war for the Italian Alfa Romeo. He died in a crash at the 1949 Buenos Aires Grand Prix. He is considered the best driver of his time and one of the greatest French drivers of all time. Five times World Champion Juan Manuel Fangio himself had taken him as a model.
Maurice Bienvenu Jean Paul Trintignant was a motor racing driver and vintner from France. He competed in the Formula One World Championship for fourteen years, between 1950 and 1964, one of the longest careers in the early years of Formula One. During this time he also competed in sports car racing, including winning the 1954 24 Hours of Le Mans race. Following his retirement from the track Trintignant concentrated on the wine trade.
Endurance racing is a form of motorsport racing which is meant to test the durability of equipment and endurance of participants. Teams of multiple drivers attempt to cover a large distance in a single event, with participants given a break with the ability to change during the race. Endurance races can be run either to cover a set distance in laps as quickly as possible, or to cover as much distance as possible over a preset amount of time.
Gordini is a division of Renault Sport Technologies. In the past, it was a sports car manufacturer and performance tuner, established in 1946 by Amédée Gordini (1899–1979), nicknamed "Le Sorcier". Gordini became a division of Renault in 1968 and of Renault Sport in 1976.
Octave John Claes was a British-born racing driver who competed for Belgium. Before his fame as a racing driver, Claes was also a jazz trumpeter and successful bandleader in Britain.
The 24 Hours of Le Mans is an endurance-focused sports car race held annually near the town of Le Mans, France. It is widely considered to be one of the world's most prestigious races, and is one of the races—along with the Monaco Grand Prix and Indianapolis 500—that form the Triple Crown of Motorsport. Run since 1923, it is the oldest active endurance racing event in the world.
The Circuit des 24 Heures du Mans, also known as Circuit de la Sarthe located in Le Mans, Sarthe, France, is a semi-permanent motorsport race course, chiefly known as the venue for the 24 Hours of Le Mans auto race. Comprising private, race-specific sections of track in addition to public roads which remain accessible most of the year, its present configuration is 13.626 km (8.467 mi) long, making it one of the longest circuits in the world. The capacity of the race stadium, where the short Bugatti Circuit is situated, is 100,000. The Musée des 24 Heures du Mans is a motorsport museum located at the main entrance of the venue.
The 1988 24 Hours of Le Mans was the 56th Grand Prix of Endurance, and took place on 11 and 12 June 1988. It was also the fifth round of the World Sports-Prototype Championship season.
The 1955 24 Hours of Le Mans was the 23rd 24 Hours of Le Mans and took place on 11 and 12 June 1955 on Circuit de la Sarthe. It was also the fourth round of the F.I.A. World Sports Car Championship. During the race, Pierre Levegh crashed into a crowd of spectators, killing 84 and injuring 120 in the deadliest accident in motor racing history.
The 1951 24 Hours of Le Mans was the 19th Grand Prix of Endurance, and took place on 23 and 24 June 1951. It was won by Peter Walker and Peter Whitehead in their works-entered Jaguar C-type, the first Le Mans win for the marque.
The 1950 24 Hours of Le Mans was a motor race for sports cars, staged at the Circuit de la Sarthe, Le Mans, France on 24 and 25 June 1950. It was the 18th Grand Prix of Endurance. The race was won by the French father-and-son pairing of Louis and Jean-Louis Rosier driving a privately entered Talbot-Lago.
The 2012 FIA World Endurance Championship was the inaugural running of the World Endurance Championship. It was co-organised by the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA) and the Automobile Club de l'Ouest (ACO). The series replaced the former Intercontinental Le Mans Cup held by the ACO from 2010 to 2011. The series was open to Le Mans Prototypes and grand tourer-based racing cars meeting four ACO categories. Several championships, cups, and trophies were awarded in the series' four categories following an eight race season, with a World Championship available to the top scoring drivers and LMP1 category manufacturer.
Rebellion Racing was a Swiss racing team that competed in endurance racing. The team competed in the 2011 Intercontinental Le Mans Cup season and won the LMP1 teams' title in the 2011 Le Mans Series season. The team started as an association between Speedy Racing and Sebah Racing, which began in 2008. Rebellion Racing's last team principal was Alexandre Pesci and the team manager was Bart Hayden.
Romain Dumas is a French racing driver and driver for Glickenhaus in the World Endurance Championship. He first started out in karting and single-seater before becoming an expert driver in endurance racing, GT and sport-prototype. He has won the greatest races of the discipline, such as the 24 Hours of Le Mans, the 24 Hours of Spa, the 24 Hours Nürburgring, and the 2008 12 Hours of Sebring. He has been one of Porsche’s factory drivers since 2004.
The Lotus T128 is a Le Mans Prototype 2 (LMP2) designed by former Sauber technical director James Key and built by Advanced Design and Engineering Systems Solutions (ADESS) and Kodewa. It was used by Kodewa in the 2013 FIA World Endurance Championship under the name Lotus. Stéphane Chosse, the founder of ADESS, first proposed building a Le Mans prototype car in March 2011. The vehicle's construction began in February 2013, eleven months after Kodewa acquired two chassis. The T128's aerodynamic study was carried out using a computer-aided software mesh tool from Altair Engineering, and aerodynamics was the main priority in its design, with Chosse taking a similar approach as when he was involved in Formula One. It uses a naturally aspirated V8 engine from the BMW S65, which is also used in the company's M3 model, and produces around 450 horsepower (340 kW).
Greaves Motorsport is a British racing team, currently competing in the European Le Mans Series and the 24 Hours of Le Mans.
Viktor Viktorovich Shaytar is a Russian racing driver. He is a current member of the SMP Racing driver programme.
Thomas Laurent is a French racing driver who currently competes in the FIA World Endurance Championship for French team Signatech Alpine Matmut and in the European Le Mans Series with Graff Racing. He finished second in the 2017 24 Hours of Le Mans and third in the 2018 24 Hours of Le Mans.
The 1000 Kilometres of Paris was an endurance race, mainly for sports cars, which was held at the Autodrome de Linas-Montlhéry in France from 1956 to 1995.
