Back in the 1930s the pit board was a driver’s sole means of communication with his team. So when the Alfa team signalled to Frenchman René-Louis Dreyfus that he was comfortably leading the Le Mans 24-Hour Race in the closing stages, he eased off accordingly to preserve the car. Imagine his horror therefore when at 4p.m. as the cars crossed the finish line, Dreyfus discovered that his crew had blundered. Instead of winning, he was five minutes behind in second place and had missed the opportunity to close the gap. The Alfa camp would not have been a happy place that Sunday night.
There were 58 starters, 36 of them British, including six Rileys and seven Aston Martins. Alfa Romeo had won the previous four races but the team proved less reliable this year … and not only in terms of their pit signals. Nevertheless it was the four supercharged Alfas who set the early pace, the Brian Lewis/Earl Howe car leading for the first six laps before stopping for a change of distributor. The Luigi Chinetti/Gastard Alfa then took over but dropped back after the first hour, having been delayed by a wheel change. This opened the way for a third Alfa with the experienced Raymond Sommer at the wheel. Sommer was having to drive solo as his co-driver, de Sauge, had been conveniently taken ill! Sommer built up a lead of two laps but as a wet evening gave way to a wet night, he lost seven laps due to a blocked fuel line and eventually retired early on Sunday morning. At midnight there was a new leader – the 4.5-litre British Racing Green Lagonda driven by John Hindmarsh and Louis Fontes – but both the Lewis/Howe and Dreyfus/Stoffel Alfas were on the same lap, as was a 4.9-litre Bugatti.
The Alfas’ tale of woe continued when the Chinetti/Gastard car retired after twice going off the road and Earl Howe’s car broke a piston. This left just one Alfa running. Dreyfus and Stoffel lost valuable time, too, having their shock absorbers changed, and by midday on the Sunday appeared to have little chance of catching the Lagonda. A British victory to end the run of Italian domination seemed a foregone conclusion at the start of the final hour, only for the Lagonda to hit trouble. Fontes was forced to make several stops with fading oil pressure, allowing the Alfa to close right up. When Dreyfus passed the stricken Lagonda as it sat in its pit, the Alfa team signalled that he was now in the lead. In fact he was still a lap behind and, making no attempt to speed up, remained in that position at the chequered flag.
With a British victory and 22 of the 28 finishers being British, there was much celebration in the bars and cafés of Le Mans that night. But for Alfa, Italy and an unhappy French driver, it was the race that got away.