After ongoing disputes about the Gordon-Bennett Cup and its limitation to three participants per nation due to the regulations – a circumstance that the French manufacturers in particular found unsatisfactory – the Automobile Club de France (A.C.F.) felt compelled in December 1904 to announce a second major race for 1905 under the name "Grand Prix de l'A.C.F.", combined with the intention of no longer organising a race for the Gordon-Bennett Cup in 1906, even in the event of a French victory in the 1905 Gordon Bennett Race. After difficult consultations with the French car manufacturers and the recently founded International Automobile Association AIACR (Association Internationale des Automobile Clubs Reconnus) – an association of national automobile clubs, the majority of which rejected the unilateral French initiative – a compromise was finally reached to organise the Grand Prix de l'A.C.F. as a replacement for the Coupe Internationale only from 1906.
The race took place on 26 and 27 June 1906 on the Circuit de la Sarthe not far from Le Mans. The 103.18-kilometre triangular course had to be circuited six times on each day, corresponding to a total distance of 1238 kilometres. There were 32 racing cars from 12 manufacturers on the grid, including three Mercedes 125 hp cars driven by Camille Jenatzy, the Italian Vincenzo Florio and the Frenchman Mariaux. After two gruelling days and a total driving time of 12 hours and 14 minutes, Ferenc Szisz won in a Renault; apart from him, only 10 other cars reached the finish line, including the two Mercedes of Alexander Burton and Mariaux. They were the last to come in, however, more than four hours behind the winner. The third Mercedes with Vincenzo Florio had already had to retire on the last lap of the first day after a tyre failure with a rim defect. Burton had replaced Jenatzy at the start of the second day after the latter had had to abandon the race at the end of the first day with badly inflamed eyes. The protective goggles were unable to keep out the fine abrasion particles from the tarmac track, and Jenatzy was so badly affected that he had to undergo eye surgery.
The major time delay with which the two Mercedes crossed the finish line was mainly due to tyre defects. This was also the view of the trade press; the "Allgemeine Automobil-Zeitung" quoted the Paris "New York Herald" in its issue of 8 July 1906: "The two Mercedes that remained for the second day were hopelessly beaten due to tyre damage. Time and time again, Mariaux and Mr Burton (who had stepped in for Jenatzy) were without a tyre on the right rear wheel and they had to drive for miles on the rims. The machines themselves ran well. Mariaux, whom I saw this evening, told me that not the slightest thing had happened to his engine during the whole 1200 kilometres, and Jenatzy, whose eyes were terribly damaged by the dust, told me the same. [...] The removable rim used by the winner Szisz was the main factor contributing to the victory of the Renault car. Szisz changed the pneumatic tyres no fewer than nineteen times during the entire 1200 kilometres, but with the help of the removable rim, barely five minutes were lost each time. There is no doubt that all the machines that completed the race and were officially classified are equally good. If they had all had invulnerable tyres, they might all have reached their destination within very short intervals of each other."