The Grand Prix at 100.
100 Years of Grand Prix Racing
Renault’s win on Isle Notre Dame in the last week of June was, by their reckoning, their 100th win in Grand Prix Racing. As Fernando Alonso pulled himself out of his car, its Michelin tires covered in the bits of rubber and dust picked up in his victory lap, it seems the stars aligned. How? June also marked another important hundred – the centenary of Grand Prix racing itself.
Organized by the French Automobile Club and staged around Le Mans , the race held on the 26th of June, 1906, was the first of the tradition of which today's Formula One world championship is a continuation. And that race was won by a Renault, on Michelin tires.
Renault's First Grand Prix Winner
While ‘Grand Prix’ racing did indeed start in France in 1906, the French (though not Renault the company) were already established as savvy competitors in international motorsport when the event took place.
That first Grand Prix was inspired by a series that had run the previous five years, the brainchild of newspaper publisher James Gordon Bennett Jr. The scheduling of the first Grand Prix was the result of rule disputes, and because fatalities in the 1903 Paris-Madrid race - including the death of Marcel Renault, one of Renault’s founders – resulting in pressure to hold motor races on closed circuits. Bennett's enthusiasm for sports extended to his sponsoring of several highly popular events amongst the wealthy of the time that allowed his newspapers the inside story and exclusive interviews with the events participants. After seeing a Polo match in England , Bennett returned to the United States and established the Westchester Polo Club on May 6, 1876 , the first ever in America . In addition, he established the Gordon Bennett Cup as a trophy in international yachting and in 1900 the Gordon Bennett Cup for automobile races that would be the precursor to Grand Prix motor racing.
In 1906, Bennett provided the funds and trophy for a gas balloon competition, launched with great fanfare from the Tuileries Gardens in Paris. As he did with his automobile races, the subsequent ballooning event would be hosted by the country of the most recent winner. The Coupe Aéronautique Gordon Bennett continues to this day. Later, Bennett also gave a trophy for airplane racing.
The latest in a long line of winners
Much has changed in the 100 years since that first Grand Prix: two world wars, the establishment and failure of many manufacturers and teams, the establishment of Formula 1 racing in 1950, and the rise and fall of one world champion after another – their careers often ending in tragedy. And the cars themselves could hardly be more different. Other than exploding fuel in a combustion chamber and a four-wheeled configuration, today’s Formula 1 racer employs technology well beyond the capabilities of the finest engineers and scientists working at the dawn of the previous century. Computers, alloys, composites, telemetry – today’s car would be difficult to fathom for Ferenc Szisz (the 1906 winner) and his team.
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