Race Recap

French Grand Prix (1945) – Absent Friends

Robert Newman
Photo: Courtesy of William Mearns

Tears streamed down a thousand faces in the Bois de Boulogne in Paris on September 9, 1945. Tears for the absent French men and women who had been murdered by the Nazis. Tears for the torture, deprivation and humiliation the living had suffered under the cruel subjugation of the Third Reich’s forces of occupation. Tears of joy that the start of a motor race marked a certain return to normalcy for a war torn people. Tears of a joy that the start of a motor race might mark a certain return to normalcy.

Robert Benoist

Photo: Courtesy of William Mearns

Jean-Pierre Wimille

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