Motorsports Trivia Thread!

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In 1949 Lord Selsdon of Croydon purchased a Ferrari for LeMans. The owner drove for 20 minutes, the legendary Luigi Chinetti driving the remainder of the 24 hours, the initial victory of the Ferrari marque there.
 
Dotini
In 1950 Lord Selsdon of Croydon purchased a Ferrari for LeMans. The owner drove for 20 minutes, the legendary Luigi Chinetti driving the remainder of the 24 hours, the initial victory of the Ferrari marque there.
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I had to look this up.

Lord Selsdon is down as 32nd and not classified on Wiki along with his partner Jean Lucas. The winners Jean-Louis Rosier and Louis Rosier are down as having driven 2 laps and 254 laps respectively in their Talbot-Lago.

But still... 24 hours of solid endurance driving? That is an incredible achievement. Absolutely astonishing.
 
Is my mind playing tricks on me or did I see 1950 at first? Never mind. Both stories stack up.

That's pretty interesting in its own way; two years in a row the winners of the 24 Hours of Le Mans were where one driver did near as makes no difference 24 hours solid driving. Wonder why they didn't switch? It can't be because the other driver was so rubbish; the gains from a 24 hour stint versus employing a better second driver must be negligible in terms of fitness and concentration. Then again, that's twice in a row where it worked.
 
TheBook
Didn't Kristensen, et al., win with a privateer-entered R8 in '05?
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Yes, the team got factory support in 2006, but that was a year after their Le Mans win.
Liquid
I think one of the Peugeot 908s was an Oreca win, too.
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The 908 won the race once with Peugeot Sport, but Oreca has never won the overall race.
Dotini
In 1949 Lord Selsdon of Croydon purchased a Ferrari for LeMans. The owner drove for 20 minutes, the legendary Luigi Chinetti driving the remainder of the 24 hours, the initial victory of the Ferrari marque there.
Click to expand...
Yes, that was a privateer entry.

Seven winners found.
 
'51: Peter Walker with Jaguar

'75: John Wyer again with a Mirage -Cosworth

'95: Kokusai Kaihatsu Racing won with McLaren F1GTR
 
Funnily enough, I was researching some early Le Mans results the other week. With sports cars of the time, it's sometimes difficult to know whether there was factory support or not. For example, in the mid 30s (1934?) an Alfa Romeo 8C won but I have no idea what the team entry was or whether it had official support or not. By comparison, all of Bentley's wins between 1925-1933 were definitely factory efforts.
 
Liquid
Funnily enough, I was researching some early Le Mans results the other week. With sports cars of the time, it's sometimes difficult to know whether there was factory support or not. For example, in the mid 30s (1934?) an Alfa Romeo 8C won but I have no idea what the team entry was or whether it had official support or not. By comparison, all of Bentley's wins between 1925-1933 were definitely factory efforts.
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An Alfa 8C won 4 times in the '30's.
Only one was entered by Alfa Romeo.
 
Dotini
'51: Peter Walker with Jaguar
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Correct.
'75: John Wyer again with a Mirage -Cosworth
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I consider that as a factory entry, as Mirages were built by J. W. Automotive Engineering (John Wyer), but that's arguable.
'95: Kokusai Kaihatsu Racing won with McLaren F1GTR
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That was definitely privateer entry.

Liquid
Funnily enough, I was researching some early Le Mans results the other week. With sports cars of the time, it's sometimes difficult to know whether there was factory support or not. For example, in the mid 30s (1934?) an Alfa Romeo 8C won but I have no idea what the team entry was or whether it had official support or not. By comparison, all of Bentley's wins between 1925-1933 were definitely factory efforts.
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I considered that those were too difficult, so I decided to ask just races since 1949.
Legro
Non-factory winners of Le Mans 24H after WW2?
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Liquid
Funnily enough, I was researching some early Le Mans results the other week. With sports cars of the time, it's sometimes difficult to know whether there was factory support or not. For example, in the mid 30s (1934?) an Alfa Romeo 8C won but I have no idea what the team entry was or whether it had official support or not. By comparison, all of Bentley's wins between 1925-1933 were definitely factory efforts.
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'Official Factory Team' or even 'factory support' are misleading statements anyway. The 95' winning McLaren was a factory car loaned to an independent team for that one race. Audi's 'factory' dominance of Le Mans in recent times has been run by Joest Racing but under the 'Audi Factory' banner.
 
There was the '65 NART Ferrari, hardly a classic privateer, but not the factory. Their 275LM was not a front line racing car, and was a real upset winner.

And we mentioned '50 Rosier Talbot-Lago.
 
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Dotini
There was the '65 NART Ferrari, hardly a classic privateer, but not the factory.
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This is a hard one to say. Again, arguable.

And we mentioned '50 Rosier Talbot-Lago.
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Looks like I missed the time it was mentioned.

Didn't even known that the Kokusai Kaihatsu McLaren was a privateer entry before today. The overall count is actually 11. One left to find.
 
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Dotini
There was the '65 NART Ferrari, hardly a classic privateer, but not the factory. Their 275LM was not a front line racing car, and was a real upset winner.
Click to expand...

Was that the same time Lola dropped the ball and Ford gave control of the GT40 project to Carroll Shelby? That might have been the last Ferrari win at Le Mans, too.
 
Liquid
Was that the same time Lola dropped the ball and Ford gave control of the GT40 project to Carroll Shelby? That might have been the last Ferrari win at Le Mans, too.
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Yes, but the potent Ferrari 330 P2's were the heavy favorites. Versions of the P2 won many of the classics that year.
 
Okay. Don't think we've had this one before but should be a fairly easy one.

Q) Which female driver has made the most starts at Le Mans. How many starts did she make. What was her best result. What is her other, slightly infamous, motorsport claim to fame?
 
Odette Siko started 4 times and had a 4thn place finish and a class win.
She competed in rallies and still holds some autodrome records.
 
Dotini
Odette Siko started 4 times and had a 4thn place finish and a class win.
She competed in rallies and still holds some autodrome records.
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There's been a maybe surprising amount of female Le Mans entrants over the years, considering how few you see in top-line motorsports these days. But Odette Siko is still someway off the record.
 
What is the record run in Formula One for consecutive world champions without repetition of a driver?

e.g

Farina > Fangio > Ascari > Ascari - 3
Prost > Piquet > Senna > Prost - 3

There are two possible sequences, each sharing the record number.
 
Before my time then, thought it would be a long shot given that modern F1 usually sees a car and its driver dominate a couple of seasons (at least) at a time...
 

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