97 replies to this topic

[Barry Boor]

This is the 15th race in my 1952 season - Monza next.

[Michael Ferner]

Can you show us a picture of the Ferrari mounting the Gordini?

[Roger Clark]

 

 

 

 

And before the pedants revolt....  I know that Behra wasn't using his chequered band helmet in 1952: I don't know Alberto Crespo's helmet colour and Jean Lucas' Cooper Bristol probably wasn't dark blue.

 

 

I don't know about La Baule but he was wearing a chequered helmet at Reims and Rouen.

[Tim Murray]

... and also at Spa (photo in Roy Smith’s Gordini book).

[Tim Murray]

Some posts have been removed. Let’s continue this discussion in our usual civil manner. Thanks.

[Roger Clark]

A search of Revs and Christian Huet's book indicate that Behra wore a chequered helmet early in the season but not at the German, Comminges, Dutch and Italian GPs.  Therefore probably not at La Baule.

[10kDA]

Lowering the tone of this thread to its very bottom level, here are the cars from that race.

 

 

And before the pedants revolt....  I know that Behra wasn't using his chequered band helmet in 1952: I don't know Alberto Crespo's helmet colour and Jean Lucas' Cooper Bristol probably wasn't dark blue.

 

:

 

 

  Well done!!!

[Jahn1234567890]

Lowering the tone of this thread to its very bottom level, here are the cars from that race.

 

 

And before the pedants revolt....  I know that Behra wasn't using his chequered band helmet in 1952: I don't know Alberto Crespo's helmet colour and Jean Lucas' Cooper Bristol probably wasn't dark blue.

 

Very impressive Barry, Love it! One things I would like to point out is that the Platé-4CLT's rebuilt to F2 specs did not have the 'regular '4CLT 'heart shaped' grills anymore. The front end was more like that of the early A6GCM's. This is not meant as a criticism in any way. I just happend to notice it. 

[Michael Ferner]

To lower the tone once again, let's return to the vexed question about three hours and finishing...
 
This will be a lenghty post, although some may enjoy the contents - for one reason or another!
 
To begin with, it'll take some time to process the La Baule race data - it's tedious work to enter hundreds of lap times, double check them, triple check and, yes, quadruple check, and then check again (because there's nothing more infuriating than to work with flawed data when you have to shoulder the blame yourself... ), so I thought I'd have a look at the Pau Grand Prix data, and see what I can find. As already mentioned, I'd found that the Pau lap times didn't add up correctly, so how do I know? Usually, first thing I check is the overall times of the race, but since these weren't known (or, at least that was the contention of some here in this thread) I looked at a few other pointers which my specially prepared spread sheet reveals. There's the lap chart info, for instance, which I check against, although lap charts can be faulty, too; race reports can be studied, and for more modern races I look for videos of the TV broadcast, and especially for on-screen timing info (remember 15 Seconds?). Sadly, most of that is not (or only partially) available for a 1952 race, but at least I had a lap chart (warts and all) to work with, and after correcting the three most obvious errors (in green) the spread sheet looks as follows (with red fields highlighting obvious conflicts of information):
 

 
It's big, I know, but I thought some would maybe enjoy seeing every car passage at the start/finish line documented, with all the race positions and gaps - I like those tables, they give a unique insight into how a race develops, and answer lots of questions, besides posing some you never knew you had in the first place*!
 
So far, so good, but what does this tell us about our little conflict of opinion? I decided to distill the data for another, smaller table, which will show the eight finishing cars with the distance covered according to the official results (column labelled "OR"), and next to that my own prediction of how these should look, based on the available lap times in the spread sheet above (column "MF"), followed by a column with the derivation thereof, and then Richard Page's prediction (column "RAP") and his derivation, based on the "last lap" method. The differences between the MF and RAP figures are really small, but boy, do his come close to the OR on a most remarkable five out of eight occasions! I then reversed the process, and calculated (on the basis of the last lap time of each competitor being correct, which is not that much of a leap even when one considers that there are obviously several duff figures in the full data set) hypothetical finishing times from the last lap method (column "PAR", get it?  ) and the difference in seconds to those from the list of lap times, and remarkably (again) most come out as fairly round figures which may be easily explained by simple human error in adding or substracting long columns of figures. For the sake of completeness, I also show the reverse figures of my method (column "FM") and the difference, and though they do not appear too far off, either, I think there's a clear message in there, somewhere - I'll reserve final judgement until I have analysed the La Baule data in a similar manner, but in the meantime, will somebody already start baking a big, fat humble pie? I think I am working up an appetite...
 



* As an interesting aside, my analysis show Villoresi and Manzon crashing during the same lap (the Ferrari obviously crawled back to the pits), and at the end of same Claes also retired at the pits with transmission trouble - I'm willing to bet that those events were all connected in a way. You can also see that everyone else was going much slower as usual during that lap, and that both Trintignant and Behra lost a lot of time in particular, perhaps by spinning on the transmission oil from the yellow Gordini.


EDIT: Sorry, the tables have come up awfully small  - it's too late tonight to do anything about, I'll look into it tomorrow. 

EDIT bis: Better now. If you click on the pictures, they will display even bigger.

Edited by Michael Ferner, 29 June 2022 - 16:45.

[cpbell]

I would love to see mathematical evidence that it is possible that a driver who leads the race before the 3-hour-mark loses the race because of a slow final lap (during which he passes the 3-hour-mark) despite crossing the finish line still in first place. If the second-placed driver is hot on his heels he will pass the leader on the road. If the second-placed driver is so far behind that he fails to overtake the struggling leader he will not be able to add sufficient mileage to surpass the distance covered in 3 hours by the leader.

The only fault of taking to final lap to determine the virtual distance covered in 3 hours is a scenario of the leader passing the 3-hour-mark but dropping out afterwards before the finish line so he never produces a last lap time from which to calculate the virtual distance.

I was wondering that!

[Roger Clark]

I, who made the original statement, and Michael Ferner, who followed up, have both posted that ReWind is correct and my original assertion was wrong.

[D-Type]

Surely this comes down to how the regulations of each race state that the winner should be determined - and not how any of us feel it should have been.

[Roger Clark]

I think Duncan is right except that in this case it may be the championship regulation, not individual races. Any deviation in race results must be human error. 

[ReWind]

I don't think there were any "championship regulation" regarding race results in 1952.
The F.I.A. determined which races counted for the championship and nothing (or little) more.
The races were the sole business of its organizers.

[Roger Clark]

I know that was true generally, and certainly for the world championship, but not for the GPs de France.  We know that he championship organisers, probably the ACF but not the FIA, specified the 3 hour length of all races and that competitors had to be registered before the start of the season.  I don't know whether they also specified how total distance was calculated but I think it more likely than not. 

[Michael Ferner]

I have updated post #59 with BIGGER and BETTER pictures!

 

They should now be legible.

[RAP]

Michael. Brilliant analysis, thank you. 

How strange that some work and some don't.

I suppose the calculations were done long-hand arithmetic or a slide-rule so I suppose we should not be unduly surprised.

 

Richard

[Michael Ferner]

Actually, if your 'prediction' is correct (which is what I've come to expect by now), the times come out pretty good - I've seen much, much worse. This here amounts to about a handful of transcription errors and miscalculations in a set of over a thousand lap times, which is not a lot (it could be a few more, though, because we have no way of checking the retired cars). If we had the cumulative times as well (as in later issues of Autocourse), that would help a lot, but alas and alack. Most of the lap chart errors, I suppose, are the result of the position of the scorer relative to the timing line - like, for example, a car stopping at the pits after passing the lap scorer, but before it trips the timing apparatus (with the pits almost always close to the line, this can and often will be a headache). All in all, it's not too bad.

 

However, meanwhile I have completed calculations of the La Baule lap times, and the results are mixed, actually pretty bad. Though Ascari comes out spot on in the RAP prediction, and 1.1 seconds off in mine, with Villoresi very close (two tenths RAP, four tenths MF), but the rest are far, faaar, faaaaaaaaar off in both prediction models!  There seems to be a pattern to it, but for the moment I'm at a loss to understand. If anyone has the relevant Autocourse, can I ask if there's a lap chart included for the event? Would it be possible to make a copy available to me? I am hoping it will help to understand the issue with these lap times.

[Roger Clark]

A search of Revs and Christian Huet's book indicate that Behra wore a chequered helmet early in the season but not at the German, Comminges, Dutch and Italian GPs.  Therefore probably not at La Baule.

Another thought on Jean Behra's helmet: he crashed heavily in practice for Les Sables d'Olonne before any of these, suffering, among other things, head injuries.  It is possible that he damaged his helmet and it took time before he got a proper replacement.  Amedée Gordini wasn't a generous, or even regular, payer.

[68targa]

 

 If anyone has the relevant Autocourse, can I ask if there's a lap chart included for the event? Would it be possible to make a copy available to me? I am hoping it will help to understand the issue with these lap times.

 

No lap chart was printed in Autocourse for La Baule.

[Roger Clark]

It was and I've sent it to Michael.

[Bordino]

Hello,

 

This is my first post here, after years of reading and learning.

I have a copy of the 1952 April number of Action Automobile et Touristique, which was co-organizer of these Grand Prix de France.

There is a paragraph on the 3 hour rule, which may confirm some hypothesis.

Unfortunately I am not able to translate it in good english, but I can send pictures of it to anybody interested in doing it.

 

[RAP]

Hello,

 

This is my first post here, after years of reading and learning.

I have a copy of the 1952 April number of Action Automobile et Touristique, which was co-organizer of these Grand Prix de France.

There is a paragraph on the 3 hour rule, which may confirm some hypothesis.

Unfortunately I am not able to translate it in good english, but I can send pictures of it to anybody interested in doing it.

I would very much like a scan or photograph of anything that helps to understand the regulations of these races.

Could you email me at

formulaoneregister@gmail.com

Thank you very much

Richard

[Bordino]

Richard, I sent you an email.

[70JesperOH]

So far, I haven't seen mention of af maximum time for the last lap. Le Mans has had a max of 30, 20 and 15 minutes during the 1950's-1960's era (from Quentin Spurrings splendig work), evolving to 4 times your qualifying time during the 1980s or later period (from failing memory...). You exeded the allowed time during that last lap and you ended up being not classified, despide you actuallly crossed the finish line.

 

Jesper

Edited by 70JesperOH, 02 July 2022 - 11:41.

[RAP]

Thank you very much Bordino. To put it in context. this is from a full page article in the April 52 edition of Action Automobile et Touristique on the series and the forthcoming Pau race. I have copied the original French and then my translation of it:-

 

Chaque course se disputera sur trois heures et le premier du classement sera la conducteur ayant parcouru la plus grande distance durant ce temps.

 

Le distance totale parcourue sera obrenue en additionnant :

1st La distance représentant le nombre de tours entiers effectués avant la fin des trois heures

2nd La distance représentant la fraction du tour au cours duquel la troisième heure aura été atteinte, cette distance étant calculée d'après la vitesse moyenne realisée sur ce dernier tour, lequel devra etre obligatoirement terminé par le concurrent.

Pour etre classée, chaque voiture devra parcourir un kilmétrage minimum qui sera fixé pour chacque course. Exemple: pour Reims au minimum 25 tours du circuit.

 

Each race will be contested over three hours and the first in the results will be the driver who has covered the greatest distance during this time.

 

The total distance travelled will be obtained by adding:

1st The distance representing the number of full laps completed before the end of the three hours

2nd The distance representing the fraction of the lap during which the third hour will have been reached, this distance being calculated according to the average speed achieved on this last lap, which must be completed by the competitor.

 

To be classified, each car will have to cover a minimum number of kilometres which will be fixed for each race. Example: for Reims at least 25 laps of the circuit.

[RAP note – the Reims winner completed 71 laps at Reims so it would seem that this was not meant to be a stringent test!]

 

It seems to me this removes any lingering doubt that the results were struck at the 3 hr mark  but the helpful addition is that the competitor had to complete the last lap so he could not, for example, crash at 3:00'01" and still win and at least partly answers Jesper's comment. It might well be that each race specified a minimum time for the last lap dependant on the circuit length, but we would need the Race Regs for that.

Richard

[Michael Ferner]

Meanwhile, I have mulled over the La Baule lap times without much in the way of enlightenment. There does not appear to be a lap chart (a misunderstanding, it seems), but it doesn't matter that much since I suspect it won't explain away the issues anyway, so I used the standings from the calculated lap times, which will be near enough, I suppose. The following table will show my calculations of the official results, RAP and MF 'predictions' with derivations, much as before with the Pau GP, and the only reasonable explanation for the huge derivations of the distances and times for finishing positions 3 to 10 I can come up with is that, for whatever reason, each of those finishers got credited with one lap more than he actually drove! As you can see in the second table, where I have substracted one lap from the official figures (green fields), they then match the RAP prediction extremely well again, so I think that has to be the solution. However, it's such an extraordinary mistake to make for the race officials and timekeepers that I can scarcely believe it. How can they go to those extraordinary (and, in my opinion still, very foolish)  lengths of calculating the virtual distance based on the last lap time, and then get the relatively simple and straightforward number of completed laps wrong?    It's a puzzle!

 

 

[Michael Ferner]

It seems to me this removes any lingering doubt that the results were struck at the 3 hr mark  but the helpful addition is that the competitor had to complete the last lap so he could not, for example, crash at 3:00'01" and still win and at least partly answers Jesper's comment. It might well be that each race specified a minimum time for the last lap dependant on the circuit length, but we would need the Race Regs for that.

Richard

 

I still do not agree with that. Those results "struck at the 3 hour mark" are only a hypothetical distance, and the rules expressly stipulated that each driver had to complete the lap he was on while the three-hour limit elapsed. Furthermore, without the elapsed time from that lap, it would be impossible to calculate the hypothetical distance at the 3 hour mark. Hence, despite all the intentions of the rule makers, the race effectively ended at the finishing line at the end of the lap during which the three hour limit elapsed. Everything else is just smoke screen.

[Ray Bell]

Not in every case, Michael...

 

Hypothesising, if the second place man and third place man were close at the finish of their last lap before the 3-hour limit, then the second place man had, say, extreme fuel surge on that extra lap so that he was 20 seconds slower than his normal lap time while the third place man passed him and kept up his regular lap time schedule, then second and third places would change.

 

Which would be unfair if the three hours ran out only a small part of the way into that lap...

[Michael Ferner]

Yes, Ray. In that case, you'd have to explain to the public that the man who (ostensibly) came in second was really only third, which does make (sort of) sense if the second man place lost his time linearly. But what if he slowed gradually? Or, if he spun on the last lap, long before the three hours had elapsed? All of these scenarios are not very likely, but they are possible, and could then lead to awkward situations for the organizers. This rule was neither fair nor was it possible to police effectively, but that's not our problem. The problem I see is that of saying the race ended at the stroke of three hours, when the rules dictate that the cars have to complete the lap they're on, and when the time of that lap is material in determining the end result. I still maintain that it is not possible to end a race other than at the finishing line (i.e., effectively the timing line. We have seen yesterday at the Grand Prix that this still holds true, when the race was red flagged after the first start and not all of the cars had passed the first timing line, so they had to revert to the original starting line-up).

[Ray Bell]

Didn't we go through this back in the sixties at Le Mans?

 

A different winner to the one who crossed the line first at the end of the lap...

[Michael Ferner]

I do recall a Le Mans discussion with this topic, but I don't recall the particulars. @Tim Murray, can we call upon you again to find the thread?

[Collombin]

A similar discussion occurred in the thread called "Amon/McLaren win at Le Mans 1966" but linking threads from a phone is beyond me I am afraid, and I'm not certain it's the same thread that you are thinking of anyway.

I know of no occasion on which such a situation occurred at Le Mans in the 1960s. The recent film about the Le Mans 1966 race gives a false picture of what really happened. McLaren/Amon won because they crossed the finish line ahead, simple as that.

[Tim Murray]

Here’s the thread mentioned by Collombin:

Amon/McLaren win at Le Mans 1966

This thread also discussed Le Mans finish timings:

Weird Le Mans finish

If it’s neither of these, let me know and I’ll have another furkle through the back catalogue.

[Michael Ferner]

Thanks for the help, Ian and Tim! I'll have to read those threads later on, and we don't know yet if Le Mans used the same rules.

 

But, to put a little meat on the discussion, let's look at an example of how things can go wrong: Say, the leader has completed 60 laps of a 6 km circuit in 2:59'00", and then takes four minutes to make another tour. He will be flagged off at 3:03'00", and his officially covered distance will be 361.5 km. Then, there's driver B, who completes 60 laps in 2:59'30", but takes only 3 minutes for his last lap, being flagged off first at 3:02'30", but finishing only second with 361.0 km covered in three hours. That'll be already a little difficult to explain to the crowd, but fair enough if driver A only took his sweet time to complete the last lap, in the knowledge that his victory was secure if he finished it within 6 minutes or less. Yet, what if he stopped at his pits for a minute when commencing that last lap, or spun off at the first turn, and took a minute to get going again? Then, driver B would have been leading at the stroke of three hours, flagged off first but still only second in the official results! And, can we then say the race finished at the stroke of three hours?

Edited by Michael Ferner, 04 July 2022 - 10:36.

[Ray Bell]

No need to read it all...

 

Just go to the post by AJB, the last post in the first thread above. There he links a Denis Jenkinson explanation of the rules which, I am sure, comes straight from the rule book.

[Collombin]

That's just the last post of the first page, which prompts a great discussion on the page after that.

[Michael Ferner]

I thought DSJ's interpretation of the rules was especially bizarre!
 

Unless a car arrives at the timing line exactly at 4 p.m. it must have covered a certain number of whole laps plus a portion of a lap, and most drivers try to judge their last lap to make the portion as near as possible to a complete lap

 
Not sure whether I ever noticed that, but the question remains as to why they should do so!?
 
In any case, the post by Louis Monnier of the ACO Heritage Committée on the next page clearly shows that the penultimate lap had nothing to do with it, because in that case McLaren would have won the race five minutes before 4 o'clock already...

[RAP]

Whatever the method, distance completed in a set time can only be an estimate.

 

Nor should we kid ourselves that the "end of the lap" system is free of anomalies. Time penalties are virtually meaningless if a car is almost lapped. I witnessed a race recently where the following very nearly happened.

2 cars fighting for the class win were a few lengths apart, the leading car had a penalty for track limits that would put him back to 2nd. The overall race leader came up to lap them just as the race ended. Had he crossed the line splitting the two, then the class leader's penalty would not have cost him a place as he did an extra lap. 

 

My reason for this is simply to say that all methods can have flaws.

 

Richard 

Edited by RAP, 04 July 2022 - 18:11.

[Ray Bell]

Originally posted by Michael Ferner
I thought DSJ's interpretation of the rules was especially bizarre!

Jenks wrote an explanation, not an interpretation.
 
 

.....In any case, the post by Louis Monnier of the ACO Heritage Committée on the next page clearly shows that the penultimate lap had nothing to do with it, because in that case McLaren would have won the race five minutes before 4 o'clock already...

He quotes from the lap charts, not the rules.

[RAP]

"He quotes from the lap charts, not the rules."

 

Indeed, a lap chart will always show complete laps.

The Results are in kms that do not represent complete laps eg from Autosport (they did not give the decimal places, these are from https://www.experien...titors_Results)

3rd 4681.57 k = 347.79 laps

4th 4562.13 k = 338.91 laps

 

Circuit 13.461 (https://www.racingci...ce/le-mans.html)

 

Monnier either did not understand the real question or did not understand the rules (it happens - ask Lewis Hamilton)

Edited by RAP, 05 July 2022 - 09:39.

[Michael Ferner]

I think Louis Monnier understood the question very well; he quoted the post in which ensign14 had pointed out the logical anomalies of Jenks's interpretation, and showed that the real life figures of the 1966 race lead to the exact same anomaly. Which basically knocks the whole article by Jenks into the long grass, quod erat demonstrandum (or, q.e.d. as the English say  ).

 

It's interesting, by the way, that calculating the results from those timing figures provided by LM, using the last lap method and a circuit length of 13.46 km (not 13.461), they come out exactly like the official result, i.e 4843.09 km for McLaren/Amon and 4843.07 km for Miles/Hulme. Using DSJ's method, Ford #2 would have been the winner regardless of whatever happened in the last five minutes of those 24 hours; indeed it could still be crawling around on that last lap today, more than half a century later, and would still beat the best that Ford #1 could ever have achieved on its own last lap, including and even exceeding supersonic speed* 

 

Do you still think DSJ understood the rules, and we should increase our efforts to study his "explanation"?

 

 

 

* actually, that's not true: at supersonic speed Miles could have made an extra lap before 4pm - I was exaggerating for effect   

Edited by Michael Ferner, 05 July 2022 - 14:27.

[Doug Nye]

Jenks's restricted interest in sports car racing per se would certainly not have extended to lengthy study and consideration of the ACO's extensive regulations.  I would be pretty confident that what he wrote would instead have been based upon conversation he'd had with involved team members and certain of his fellow trackside observers.  So (even) I would not regard him as a reliable commentator on something as abstruse as the fine-tuning of 24-Hour race timings.

 

DCN

[Ray Bell]

Do you really think, Doug, that such an issue had never come up previously in his experience reporting that race?

 

And, therefore, have been the subject of discussions with people other than those from the Ford teams...

[Michael Ferner]

That's what I call 'unshakable trust"

[Doug Nye]

Quite how many same-lap finishes have there been at Le Mans with a tenth of a second separating the first two finishers?

 

DCN

[Roger Clark]

Absence of proof is not proof of absence. 

[RAP]

It is with some trepidation that I resurrect this discussion, but I now have the programme & regs for the GP Rouen 1960 which was a time sports car race of 2 paets of 2 hours each. This is in the style that we discussed and I think it provide the way the French did these things so that the results of all finishers was measures at the time (in this case 2 hours) not the completion of whole aps after the elapse of the time.

I quote below the regs in French then my translation

Article 24 Classement

L’arrivee sera controlee sur une ligne situee en face du poste de chromometrage. Le premier du classement, se chaque manche, sera celiu qui aura parcouru la plus grand distance pendant la duree dr 2 heures. La distance totale parcourue sera obtenue en additionnat :

 

1st La distance representant le nombre de tours entiers effectues avant la fin de 2 heures

 

2nd La distance representant la fraction du tour au cours duquel ce temps aura ete atteint, cette distance etant calculee d’apres la vitesse moyenne realisee sur ce dernier tour, lequel devra obligatoirement etre termine par le concurrent. Le maximum de temps accorde pour ce dernier tour, est de 10’ comptant de l’heure du dernier passage precedant l’expiration de 2 heures.

 

Les concurrents ayant terminee le kilometrage indique ci-apres devront demeurer en course jusqu’a l’expiration de 2 heures. Ils devront obligatoirement achever le tour du circuit au cours duquel expire 2 heures afin qu’il puisse etre fait etat du kilometrage parcouru par eux, en 2 heures. Les memes dispositions seront appliquees pour la deuxieme manche.

 

Toute voiture ayant mis plus de 10’pour effectuer son dernier tour sera elininee.

 

Le vainqueur du classement general sera celui qui aura obtenu le meilleur classement cumule dans les deux manches.

 

The finish will be controlled on a line located in front of the timekeeping station. The first position, for each heat, will be the one who has travelled the greatest distance during the 2 hour period. The total distance travelled will be obtained by adding:

 

1st The distance representing the number of full laps completed before the end of 2 hours

 

2nd The distance representing the fraction of the lap during which this time will have been reached, this distance being calculated according to the average speed achieved on this last lap, which must be completed by the competitor. The maximum time granted for this last lap is 10 minutes counting from the time of the last pass preceding the expiration of 2 hours.

 

Competitors who have completed the mileage indicated below must remain in the race until the expiry of 2 hours. They will have to complete the lap of the circuit during which 2 hours expire so that the mileage covered by them, in 2 hours, can be reported. The same provisions will be applied for the second round.

 

Any car that has taken more than 10 minutes to complete its last lap will be eliminated.

 

The winner of the general classification will be the one who has obtained the best cumulative classification in the two heats.