Talk:1952 French Grand Prix

Winner's time

Various sources differ regarding the winner's time:

Source	Time
ChicaneF1, FORIX (subscription site), F1 Pulse, F1 Stats	3:02:42.6
formula1.com, grandprix.com, Mike Lang's Grand Prix! Vol 3	3:00:00.0
StatsF1	3:00:20.2
silhouet.com	3:03:46.3

I'm inclined to go with ChicaneF1 and FORIX - I find it very hard to believe that the race time was exactly 3 hours. Other opinions? DH85868993 (talk) 12:00, 26 September 2016 (UTC)

And it gets weirder: According to Motorsport Magazine, the average speed was 129 kph, which would mean the Ascari should only have taken a little more than 2 and a half hours... Zwerg Nase (talk) 12:13, 26 September 2016 (UTC)

May be ask the Automobile Club France, the organisers of the race? Their site is here: https://www.automobileclubdefrance.fr/archives-historiques. There is a contact emailaddress: e.piat@sgacf.com but would they have the correct answer??? Regards Saschaporsche (talk) 12:17, 26 September 2016 (UTC)

(edit conflict):Just for info, I would normally have great faith in Motor Sport (magazine)'s contemporary report; (unsigned but probably Denis Jenkinson). Unfortunately the PDF scan of the article at their archive has not read the winner's time properly. It states 77 laps (3.17 mile) at a speed of 129.0 kph(!) It is unlikely that the race finished exactly on the time-limit of three hours mentioned in their first para. Or Ascari was just given the time of three hours as that was the limit and everyone else was plus seconds, minutes or laps as applicable. Eagleash (talk) 12:26, 26 September 2016 (UTC)

3.17 miles for 77 laps = 390km, at 129 kph = 3.02 hrs. Eagleash (talk) 12:33, 26 September 2016 (UTC)

Actually, thinking about it further, I suspect the non-"exactly 3 hours" times have been "reverse engineered" from the 3 hour time-limit and the quoted average speed, and the variation between the times is a reflection of the accuracy with which the calculations were performed. Consider that 77 laps x (3.17 miles / lap) * (1.60934 km / mile) / (129.0 km / hr) = 3.045145 hours = 3:02:42.5, which is almost identical to the FORIX/ChicaneF1 time. Perhaps we should list the winner's time as 3:00:00.0 and add an explanatory note that (unlike every other WDC race) this race had a specified duration rather than a specified distance? DH85868993 (talk) 12:54, 26 September 2016 (UTC)

Your calculation agrees with mine above. Weren't all races limited to three hours at the time just as there is a time limit of 2hrs in modern GP racing? Races just normally finish(ed) within the limit (unless it rains at Monaco!) Eagleash (talk) 13:16, 26 September 2016 (UTC)

I think the distance of most Grands Prix was determined so that they would last "about 3 hours" but this one was different, and actually specified a duration rather than a set number of laps. For example, Lang specifies the length of the 1952 races as follows:

• Swiss GP: Distance: 62 laps
• Belgian GP: Distance: 36 laps
• French GP: Duration: 3 hours
• British GP: Distance: 85 laps
• German GP: Distance: 18 laps

etc. DH85868993 (talk) 13:33, 26 September 2016 (UTC)

I think it was (max) 300 miles or 3 hours (modern 200 or 2hrs) but it's academic to this discussion. It's similar to Le Mans....race for a set number of hours, leader after set time is the winner. Winning time isn't important, so a note that, unusually, this race was over a set time rather than distance, would be appropriate. Eagleash (talk) 13:49, 26 September 2016 (UTC)

Le Mans (or indeed any endurance racing) doesn't work like that. Who completed the most of laps after set time is the winner. Tvx1 15:35, 26 September 2016 (UTC)

Le Mans doesn't work like what? I already noted that the winner is the leader, I.e. whoever has completed the most laps. Eagleash (talk) 16:28, 26 September 2016 (UTC)

That it doesn't look a race times. Tvx1 17:16, 26 September 2016 (UTC)

IP boy could have written that! :) No-one said it did but it's still similar; 24 hours for Le Mans, 3 hrs for the GP under consideration. This race was also without a winning race time & that's why, after looking into it further, Motor Sport left the time out of the results table. Eagleash (talk) 19:41, 26 September 2016 (UTC)

F1.com's version seems to indeed corroborate that. The results there are similar to the endurance racing ones with the number of completed laps, rather than time difference being listed. Tvx1 23:11, 26 September 2016 (UTC)

David Hodges "The French Grand Prix" claims the race was run over 3 hours, along with 8 other Grand Prix in 1952 (but it doesn't say which other ones, only that the French GP was the 5th of 8. Looking quickly at the races with results on Wikipedia my guess is that some of the others were the Swiss, Belgian, German and Pau Grand Prix. I think it would be good to add this somewhere in this article at the very least. A7V2 (talk) 05:03, 24 December 2018 (UTC)