Instruct: Given a question, retrieve documents that answer the question.
Query: When was the first 24 Hours of Le Mans?
The Le Mans Classic is a biennial vintage sports car event held on the grounds of the 24 Hours of Le Mans, create by Peter Auto and Richard Mille, and associated with Automobile Club de l'Ouest (ACO). It began in 2002 and runs every two years in July on the full 13.65 km circuit also used for the annual modern day 24 Hours of Le Mans. The Le Mans Classic event of 2002 was the first time since 1923 that the full 24-hour Circuit, part of which is public road the rest of the year, was closed specifically for an event other than the annual running of the "24 heures du Mans" with contemporary sportcars and prototypes, thus allowing car owners and gentleman drivers to experience what it must have been to race these cars on this circuit.
The race has also spent long periods as a round of the World Sportscar Championship, although Le Mans has always had a stronger reputation than the World Championship, and is a round of the FIA World Endurance Championship. The race is also known as a leg of the informal Triple Crown of Motorsport which links Formula One, IndyCar, and sports car racing to represent a career achievement for drivers. Additionally, it is seen as a leg of the Triple Crown of endurance racing, which links the three largest sports car races together, with 12 Hours of Sebring and 24 Hours of Daytona forming the other legs. Since 1998, the American Le Mans Series (Now the [IMSA]] Weathertech Sports Car Championship) holds an endurance race, along with the 12 hours of Sebring, every year called "Petit Le Mans", as a 10-hour American version. In 2014, the Weathertech Sports Car Championship (a merger of the races at Sebring; Petit Le Mans in Braselton, Georgia; the 6 Hours of Watkins Glen in Watkins Glen, New York; and the Rolex Sports Car Series' 24 Hours of Daytona) held all four major American endurance classics in preparation for teams to race at Le Mans.
At the 2014 24 Hours of Le Mans, the No. 20 entry, driven by Mark Webber at the time, closed to within one minute of the leading No. 1 Audi R18 e-tron quattro with an hour and a half of the race remaining when the car suffered a broken anti-roll bar. Before the hour was out, Marc Lieb was forced to pit the No. 14 entry with the same issue. Car No. 14 returned to the circuit to complete a ceremonial lap at the end of the race and was classified eleventh overall, but car No. 20 was unable to take to the circuit and was not officially classified as finishing, despite having completed 90% of the winner's race distance.
As early as October 1923, the idea of an automobile championship was discussed at the annual autumn conference of the AIACR (Association Internationale des Automobile Clubs Reconnus) in Paris. However, discussion centered on the increased interest in racing by manufacturers and holding the first European Grand Prix at Monza in 1923. The first World Championship took place in 1925, but it was for manufacturers only, consisting of four races of at least in length. The races that formed the first Constructors' Championship were the Indianapolis 500, the European Grand Prix, and the French and Italian Grands Prix. A European Championship, consisting of the major Grand Prix in a number of countries (named "Grandes Epreuves") was instituted for drivers in 1931, and was competed every year until the outbreak of World War II in 1939 with the exception of 1933 and 1934.
The Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps is a race track that is 7.004 kilometres (4.352 mi) long and has twenty corners. Endurance racing events were first held at the Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps in 1924 with the Spa 24 Hours. Thirty-nine years later, the track began holding World Sportscar Championship races which later expanded to . It was cancelled after the 1975 running because of modern safety concerns. It was resurrected in 1982 on the reconfigured Spa-Francorchamps track layout and remained on the calendar until 1990. Spa-Francorchamps again began holding endurance sports car races from 1999, and the 6 Hour event was made part of the FIA World Endurance Championship in 2012. The race is considered by many as a final preparation event for the 24 Hours of Le Mans.
The 4 Hours of Silverstone was an endurance motor race held at the Silverstone Circuit near Silverstone, England on 10–11 April 2015, and served as the opening round of the 2015 European Le Mans Series, and the first race under the series' new four-hour format. The event shared the weekend at Silverstone with the FIA World Endurance Championship's six-hour event.
France had the notion that people would enjoy watching "stock cars" race. Drivers were frequently victimized by unscrupulous promoters who would leave events with all the money before drivers were paid. In 1947, he decided this racing would not grow without a formal sanctioning organization, standardized rules, regular schedule, and an organized championship. On December 14, 1947, France began talks with other influential racers and promoters at the Ebony Bar at the Streamline Hotel at Daytona Beach, Florida, that ended with the formation of NASCAR on February 21, 1948.
The first car race in Michigan took place on October 10, 1901 between Henry Ford and Alex Winton. The race track was owned by the Detroit Driving Club of Grosse Pointe, Michigan. It had been built in 1894 as a race track for horses. Fifty years later, in the small summer resort town of Petoskey, Michigan, 300 miles north of Detroit, the Petoskey Motor Speedway was born. The northern speedway came during the time of America's new post World War II craze with jalopy stock car racing. It was the same era that Parnelli Jones rose to fame. The track was a one-quarter mile, banked, dirt speedway located on a farm field, just south of Petoskey. For four years, 1954 through 1958, thousands of summer tourists and residents of northern Michigan attended the weekly races from June through September.
It was the 21st Spanish Grand Prix since the race was first held in 1913. It was the fourth, and last, Grand Prix to be held on the Montjuïc street circuit. The race was shortened to 29 of its scheduled 75 laps, a race distance of 109 kilometres. The race was won by German driver Jochen Mass driving a McLaren M23. It would be the only Formula One win of his career. Mass had just a second lead over the Lotus 72E of Belgian driver Jacky Ickx when the race was declared. Argentine racer Carlos Reutemann was declared third in his Brabham BT44B, a lap behind the race leaders after a penalty was given to Jean-Pierre Jarier. This was the final win by a German driver until Michael Schumacher won the 1992 Belgian Grand Prix.
In earlier years, the European Grand Prix was not a race in its own right, but an honorific title given to one of the national Grands Prix in Europe. The first race to be so named was the 1923 Italian Grand Prix, held at Monza, and the last was the 1977 British Grand Prix at Silverstone.
Silverstone Circuit was first used for motorsport by an "ad hoc" group of friends who set up an impromptu race in September 1947. One of their members, Maurice Geoghegan, lived in nearby Silverstone village and was aware that the airfield was deserted. He and eleven other drivers raced over a two mile circuit, during the course of which Geoghegan himself ran over a sheep that had wandered onto the airfield. The sheep was killed and the car written off, and in the aftermath of this event the informal race became known as the "Mutton Grand Prix".
It is generally acknowledged that the first really practical automobiles with petrol/gasoline-powered internal combustion engines were completed almost simultaneously by several German inventors working independently: Karl Benz built his first automobile in 1885 in Mannheim. Benz was granted a patent for his automobile on 29 January 1886, and began the first production of automobiles in 1888, after Bertha Benz, his wife, had proved – with the first long-distance trip in August 1888, from Mannheim to Pforzheim and back – that the horseless coach was absolutely suitable for daily use. Since 2008 a Bertha Benz Memorial Route commemorates this event.
Silverstone is the current home of the British Grand Prix, which it first hosted in 1948. The 1950 British Grand Prix at Silverstone was the first race in the newly created World Championship of Drivers. The race rotated between Silverstone, Aintree and Brands Hatch from 1955 to 1986, but relocated permanently to Silverstone in 1987.
The European Grand Prix was created as an honorific title by the AIACR, the FIA's predecessor in the organisation of motor racing events. The first race to receive the title was the Italian Grand Prix, in 1923; the French Grand Prix followed in 1924 and the Belgian Grand Prix in 1925. After a hiatus in 1929, the Belgian race received the title in 1930, becoming the last race to do so before World War II.
Built in the Magdalena Mixhuca public park in 1959, the circuit hosted its first Formula One Grand Prix in 1962, as a non-Championship race. The following year the Mexican Grand Prix became a full World Championship event. The circuit remained part of the F1 calendar through 1970, when spectator overcrowding caused unsafe conditions. When the track re-opened in 1986, the circuit boasted a new pit complex, as well as improved safety all around. In 2001 CIE and Forsythe Racing tasked D3 Motorsport Development with revamping the circuit. A redesign to include the Foro and a complete upgrade of the circuit was done. It saw a record crowd of 402,413 people attend a round of the CART Championship in 2002. As of 2018, the Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez has been the only venue for the F1 Mexican Grand Prix.
The first Spanish Grand Prix in 1913 was not actually run to the Grand Prix formula of the day, but to touring car rules, taking place on a 300-kilometre road circuit at Guadarrama, near Madrid, on the road to Valladolid.
Between 1924 and 1948, the European Grand Prix was not a race in its own right but just an honorific title; one of the national Grands Prix was also designated as the European Grand Prix. The first race to be so named was the 1924 Nations Grand Prix, held at the Monza circuit in Italy. Until 1937, the winners of the race designated the European Grand Prix were awarded the title of European champion. In 1938, the European championship became decided over a series of races and the European Grand Prix designation was not used again until 1947, although no longer awarding the European championship title.
The event was initially created as a stop-gap. In 1983, the Formula One schedule originally featured a race near Flushing Meadows in New York City. When the race was cancelled three months before the event, track organizers at Brands Hatch were able to create a European Grand Prix at the track in its place. The success of the event, buoyed by a spirited battle for the World Championship, led to the event returning on the schedule the following year.
The 2014 6 Hours of Silverstone was an endurance sports car racing event held at the Silverstone Circuit near Silverstone, England on 17–20 April 2014. The event served as the opening round of the 2014 World Endurance Championship, and overall race winners were awarded the annual Tourist Trophy by the Royal Automobile Club. Toyota became the first Japanese manufacturer to win Silverstone's endurance race, with Anthony Davidson, Sébastien Buemi, and Nicolas Lapierre leading the team's second TS040 Hybrid to a 1–2 finish. The race, which had run under mixed weather conditions, was stopped in the final half-hour of competition due to heavy rains and not restarted.
The legendary Ford Mustang, the first of the "pony" cars, was developed and introduced in 1964 under the guidance of Lee Iacocca (Lehigh Class of 1946), former general manager of Ford Motor Company's Ford Division. Still in production, the Mustang combined fun, performance and styling at a low price and had the most successful first year sales of any automobile. In its first two years of production, three Ford Motor Company plants produced nearly 1.5 million Mustangs, a record unequaled before or since.
1985 was to see Keke Rosberg set the all-time Formula 1 qualifying lap record for 17 years after posting fastest qualifying time for the race with an average speed of 258.983 km/h (160.92 mph). Silverstone, which was already a very fast circuit, was becoming faster and faster and the cars were lapping the circuit in the low 1-minute range. The race was an exciting one with Brazilian rising star Ayrton Senna making a great start from 4th and taking the lead by the first corner. He led until late in the race, when his car was running out of fuel while Prost was pushing him hard; Senna eventually ran out of fuel and Prost went on to take victory. 1986 saw a huge crowd thanks to Mansell being a favourite to win; his newly found fame and place in a competitive team would help the British Grand Prix to see huge crowds for several years. This race saw 42-year-old Jacques Laffite get involved in a first corner accident and slam head-on into the barriers, breaking both his legs and ending his Formula One career. Nigel Mansell, whose car broke at the start of the first race, got into his teammate Piquet's spare car and won the race; although this was the last F1 race at Brands Hatch. A number of people had concerns about the speeds of the cars on the small track; particularly the European Grand Prix held at Brands Hatch the previous year. The southern English circuit was getting to be very fast- now with these 1,000+ hp, 1,180 pound cars, pole sitter Piquet's average qualifying speed was 140.483 mph (227.583 km/h) and his lap time was in the 1 minute 6-second range, compared to the 1 minute 20-second range in 1976. But Brands Hatch's demise was for political reasons- the international motorsports governing body at the time, FISA, had instituted a policy of long-term contracts for one circuit per Grand Prix. Brands Hatch was perceived as a poorer facility, and considering most of the track was located in a very old forest it did have very little run-off and room to expand, something Silverstone had in acres. Silverstone and the BRDC had signed a seven-year contract with Formula 1 and FISA at some point in 1986, to run from 1987 to 1993.
The 1958 24 Hours of Le Mans was the 26th running of the 24 Hours of Le Mans, Grand Prix of Endurance, and took place on 21 and 22 June 1958, on the Circuit de la Sarthe. It was also the fifth round of the 1958 World Sports Car Championship, which was running to new regulations introduced at the beginning of the season. Some 150,000 spectators had gathered for Europe's classic sports car race, around the 8.38-mile course. The prospect of an exciting duel between Ferrari, Jaguar, Aston Martin and giantkiller Porsche was enough to draw large crowds to the 24 Hours race.
The race was dominated by fifteen hours of rain, three of which were torrential, marking a bad summer solstice. There were thirteen accidents, one killing gentleman-driver Jean-Marie Brussin. It marked the first ever overall win for an American and a Belgian driver and was the third win for the Scuderia Ferrari. The works Testarossas took over the lead in the third hour when, this year, it was the British challenge that ran out of steam. After their 1957 rout, the Italians took their revenge as Osca also won the Index of Performance.
The 1966 24 Hours of Le Mans was the 34th Grand Prix of Endurance, and took place on 18 and 19 June 1966. It was also the seventh round of the 1966 World Sportscar Championship season. This was the first overall win at Le Mans for the Ford GT40 as well as the first overall win for an American constructor. It was also the debut Le Mans start for two significant drivers: Henri Pescarolo, who went on to set the record for the most starts at Le Mans; and Jacky Ickx, whose record of six Le Mans victories stood until beaten by Tom Kristensen in 2005.
The 1995 24 Hours of Le Mans was the 63rd Grand Prix of Endurance, and took place on 17 and 18 June 1995 in one of the wettest races in the event's history with about 17 hours of steady rain.
The race was won by the #59 McLaren F1 GTR driven by JJ Lehto, Yannick Dalmas and Masanori Sekiya entered in the GT1 category. This was the first Le Mans win for a driver from Finland and for a driver from Japan. It was also McLaren's first win, at its first attempt. Such was the marque's dominance that its cars filled four of the first five places - Ferrari did it with its two cars in 1949, but other manufacturers like Jaguar, Porsche, Ford or Audi achieved their Le Mans fame only after 2, 3 or more years attempting their first win.
The 1949 24 Hours of Le Mans was the 17th Grand Prix of Endurance, and took place on 25 and 26 June 1949. Luigi Chinetti won the race for a third time in the first Ferrari barchetta by driving 22.5 hours. This race also saw the death of British driver Pierre Maréchal when his Aston Martin DB2 was involved in an accident between Arnage and Maison Blanche around 1:00 a.m. Marechal had attempted to pass another car there and he hit an embankment and the hapless Briton was crushed by the overturning car.