Pierre Levegh

Pierre Levegh
  • Surname
    Levegh (Bouillin)
  • First name
    Pierre Eugène Alfred
  • Date of birth
    22.12.1905
  • Date of death
    11.06.1955

Born in Paris, the son of a businessman, Levegh trained as an antiquarian and initially made a name for himself internationally as an ice hockey and tennis player. A far-reaching connection to motorsport is that his uncle Alfred Velghe competed in races in the early days of the car. Out of sympathy, Bouillin also adopted his driver's name Levegh (an anagram of his surname) as a pseudonym.

At his own expense, the Frenchman first drove for Bugatti in 1937. He is best known for his appearances in the 24 Hours of Le Mans in 1939 and 1940 and between 1951 and 1954, he was always at the wheel of Talbot-Lago cars. In 1952, as the strongest competitor of the Mercedes-Benz 300 SL racing sports cars, he held his own for a long time against the later winners Hermann Lang and Fritz Riess. Bouillin underwent this ordeal alone, without being relieved by his team-mates. He led by a few laps until the last hour, when he suffered an engine failure in his Talbot-Lago T26 GS, presumably because the completely overtired driver had made an error when changing gear.

Not least because of this remarkable performance, Daimler-Benz invited him to start at Le Mans three years later, as a guest driver in the 300 SLR racing sports car. The race on 11 June 1955 ultimately turned into one of the darkest chapters in motorsport history and overshadowed the sport for a long time. In the course of a chain reaction of unrelenting consequence triggered by eventual winner Mike Hawthorn, Bouillin's 300 SLR was forced off the start-and-finish straight and catapulted into the crowd of spectators. More than 80 people lost their lives in the disaster – among them the Frenchman himself.

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