Le Mans
24 Heures Du Mans
With 245,000 spectators packing Circuit de la Sarthe, and 24 hours of intense racing, the 2013 Le Mans 24 Hour Race on June 22 / 23, promised to be one of the highlights of the sportscar racing season. Sadly, it will be remembered more for a tragic fatal accident. David Harrison reports.
In years gone by, the Le Mans 24 Hour Race had the reputation for being one of the most dangerous motor races in the world. To underline that fact, in 1955 the Circuit De La Sarthe is still credited with the most catastrophic accident in motorsport history, when Eighty-three spectators, along with driver Pierre Levegh, died when the Frenchman’ s Mercedes-Benz 300 SLR flew into a crowd of spectators near the pit lane entrance. It was a devastating accident,
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and one that would result in new safety measures being introduced at racing circuits all over the world. Of course, no matter what improvements are made, it is impossible to eliminate all risk from any form of motorsport, and the very nature of the Le Mans 24 Hour Race means that serious accidents are almost inevitable. Despite all that, fatalities at Le Mans had become rare in recent times. Before this year’ s race, the last fatal accident was in 1997, and the