24h Le Mans
24 HOURS CENTENARY – PEOPLE AND MACHINES ⎮ From André Rossignol to Tom Kristensen, we look back at the record number of wins at the 24 Hours of Le Mans and six conquering drivers who together accumulated 27 victories between 1925 and 2013.
For many drivers, winning the 24 Hours of Le Mans is the pinnacle of their career. Winning several times propels them into another league. And claiming the record for the most Le Mans wins confers them a very special status among race fans and in motor racing history.
Between 1925 and 1930, not long after the creation of the 24 Hours of Le Mans, two drivers stood out after clinching several wins.
The first to claim two victories was Frenchman André Rossignol. Paired with Gérard de Courcelles in 1925 then with Robert Bloch in 1926, his double triumph also meant two Le Mans crowns for manufacturer Lorraine Dietrich.
The next four races were marked by the domination of British carmaker Bentley and its “Bentley Boys”, a fearless and strong-willed crew of drivers, most of whom had forged their characters in the hellish conditions of the First World War. Among them was the first three-time winner of Le Mans: Woolf Barnato. He was the first to achieve a 100% track record at the 24 Hours: competing in 1928, 1929 and 1930, he took three wins on all three entries!
When the 24 Hours resumed in 1949 after the Second World War (there were no races from 1940 to 1948), victory went to Luigi Chinetti. After two wins in 1932 and 1934, he thus became the second three-time winner in the history of the 24 Hours… and the only driver to have won the race before and after the war.
Woolf Barnato and Luigi Chinetti remained joint holders of the victory record until 1962. In the early 1960s, Ferrari reigned supreme in La Sarthe. After three victories in 1949, 1954 and 1958, the Prancing Horse scored six wins in a row from 1960 to 1965. Among the winning Ferrari drivers at that time, one crew stood out: Belgian Olivier Gendebien and American Phil Hill, who were the first pairing to take three wins together, in 1958, 1961 and 1962. Gendebien then clinched a further victory with fellow Belgian Paul Frère in 1960, thus breaking the record for the number of Le Mans wins.
For almost twenty years, Gendebien’s record four wins looked unbeatable. Between 1963 and 1976, two drivers came close, taking three victories each: Henri Pescarolo and Jacky Ickx. With wins in 1969, 1975 and 1976, Ickx finally equalled Gendebien’s tally in 1977, after an incredible exploit.
When forced to abandon his Porsche 936 at the very start of the race, he joined Jürgen Barth and Hurley Haywood for the rest of the race. When he took the wheel, the car had fallen back to 40th place, plagued with mechanical issues. Ickx then embarked on an extraordinary comeback which saw him beat the lap record three times in the night. On the Sunday morning, the #4 Porsche 936 was back in second place, then took the lead when the frontrunner, a Renault-Alpine, retired.
At the 1981 24 Hours, a fifth win made Ickx the most successful driver at that point in the race’s history, a status confirmed with a sixth victory the following year. Courtesy of Gendebien then Ickx, Belgium held this record for 43 years, from 1962 to 2005.
1997–2013: TOM KRISTENSEN AT THE TOP OF HIS GAME
On 15 June 1997 on his first outing in La Sarthe, Tom Kristensen joined the select club of 24 Hours winners. The Dane established himself as the endurance driver to beat in the early 2000s. From 2000 to 2005, he then achieved an astounding six straight wins, thus beating the record set by Ickx..
At the time, that gave Kristensen a success rate of seven wins in nine 24 Hours races. In comparison, Gendebien achieved four wins in eight races, while in 1982 Ickx set his record of six wins after thirteen starts.
Kristensen went on to win a further two races, in 2008 and 2013. At his final 24 Hours in 2014, a few months before he retired from the sport, he was in the lead on the Sunday morning, chasing a tenth victory, but finally had to settle for the second step on the podium.
It took 32 years, from 1930 to 1962, to see Gendebien beat the three-win record set by Barnato – or 22 races if we account for the fact that the race wasn’t held in 1936 or from 1940 to 1948. The Belgian then held the record for 19 years, until Ickx’s fifth win. In turn, Ickx held on to his record for 24 years, until Kristensen’s seventh triumph. That record will have stood for 18 years by the time of the Centenary race in 2023. How long much longer will it stand? Probably at least fifteen years or so because Kristensen’s successor – records are made to be broken, after all – will have to reach the 10-win milestone if he or she is to become part of the Le Mans legend.
PHOTOS: LE MANS (SARTHE, FRANCE), CIRCUIT DES 24 HEURES, 24 HOURS OF LE MANS – FROM TOP TO BOTTOM (COPYRIGHT: – ACO ARCHIVES): André Rossignol (at the wheel in 1926), the first driver to take several wins; flowers for Woolf Barnato (seated right in his Bentley) after this third straight win in 1930; in 1961, the Ferrari driven by Olivier Gendebien on track towards his third win of four; in 1981, Jacky Ickx claimed his fifth victory after starting from pole; in 2002, Tom Kristensen scored his fourth win, the third in a row, alongside Frank Biela and Emanuele Pirro.
