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1914 Grand Prix season
Grand Prix season From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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The 1914 Grand Prix season consisted of Grand Prix races across Europe and the United States until abbreviated by the outbreak of World War I.
The Vanderbilt Cup and the American Grand Prize were held again after a year’s abeyance, this time raced at Santa Monica, California. European cars arrived in force to contest the Indianapolis 500. French cars dominated the race taking the top four places with victory going to René Thomas in a Delage. The unofficial AAA national championship would be awarded to Ralph DePalma.
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The French Grand Prix was in Lyon, this time with a maximum engine size of 4.5-litres. Held in the shadow of political crisis in Europe, it was hailed as the greatest race to date, after an epic battle between the Peugeot and Mercedes. After Georges Boillot had engine problems on the last lap, it left the German team with a dominating 1-2-3 finish, led by Christian Lautenschlager who had won the race before, in 1908.
It proved to be the last major race before war overtook Europe in August 1914.
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Major races
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Regulations and technical
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The three main American races all ran to different regulations: the Vanderbilt Cup’s engine limits were 301 – 600 cu in, Indianapolis had a maximum engine size of 450 cu in, while the Grand Prize had an open formula.[5]
Hoping to minimise the impact of the big-engined cars of foreign manufacturers, the ACF changed its regulations again for the first time to impose a maximum engine size[6] – of 4.5-litres, along with an allowable weight range of 800-1100kg (excluding fluids and tools). This tended to favour those companies that had invested in voiturette racing, Peugeot, Delage and Sunbeam.[7] There was also an entry limit of five cars per manufacturer.[8]
For this, Peugeot unveiled its new EX-5 from Ernest Henry, with a twin-overhead cam 4.5-litre four-cylinder engine. Both the Delages and Peugeots had four-wheel brakes for the first time, along with FIAT.[9] In response, the Mercedes 18/100 GP, designed by Paul Daimler, developed 115 bhp. The 4.5-litre engine had four valves per cylinder and a single overhead camshaft.[10][11] Gone was the chain-drive, instead a lighter live rear-axle was used. However, they did persist with rear brakes only.[7] Despite a better top-end speed from the Peugeot’s streamlined rear-end,[12] the Mercedes’ lower centre-of-gravity and better road-holding gave it an edge over the French cars.[10]
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