The 1911 French Grand Prix, organised by the Automobile Club de la Sarthe et de l'Ouest and not by the Automobile Club de France, held at Le Mans on Sunday, 23 July of that year, was titled as Grand Prix des Vieux Tacots. The event covered twelve laps over a somewhat triangular circuit of 54,006 kilometers (33.56 miles) crossing the town of Le Mans and surroundings areas. Being the starting line at the Pontlieue hairpin, the course went south along the D388-Route Nationale de Caen à Tours, running anti-clockwise through Ecommoy, Saint-Mars-d'Outillé, Parigné-l'Évêque, Bois Martin and back to Le Mans.
The race started at 07h00 on Sunday, 23 July 1911. Maurice Fournier shared a 1907 Corre-La Licorne with his riding mechanic Georges Louvel, 35-year-old amateur racer, son of a wealthy family that owned a paper mill company in Le Mans, who accepted the invitation by his friend Fournier to race alongside him in the French Grand Prix.
Starting the race from the first slot, Maurice Fournier finished the first lap in third place, behind the Cottin-Desgouttes of Georges Deydier and the Rolland-Pilain of Jacques Fauquet. He jumped to the lead on the second lap. Arthur Duray, driving a Lorraine-Dietrich, overtook Fournier on the fourth lap, but the latter held on to a strong second place until midway the sixth lap, when he was forced to a stop near Pontlieue for a quick supply of water in the radiator, at about 11h20.
After his restart, Victor Hémery in a Fiat, who was three minutes behind him at the end of the previous lap, reached Fournier and tried to overtake him along the fast straight towards the "route d'Arnage". While the two cars running side by side at a speed of more than 100 km/h (62 mi/h), the front axle of Fournier's Corre-La Licorne collapsed on the approach to a slight left-hander near the village of Ruaudin, less than five kilometers south of Le Mans. The car overturned, throwing its two occupants off, ending in a field on the left side of the road, named "champ Les Hunaudières".
Some years later, the place became part of the Circuit de la Sarthe, where the 24 Hours of Le Mans was held since 1923. Actually the accident occurred more or less exactly where the Mulsanne corner is located on today's 24-hour race course, at the end of today's Hunaudières straight.
R.I.P
