#03 | One Man’s 23 Hours of Le Mans

Pierre Bouillin raced under the name Levegh—a reshaped echo of his maternal grandfather Alfred Velghe, a pioneer driver at the dawn of motorsport.

It was more than a tribute. It was a self-fashioned myth, a commitment to legacy so intense that Bouillin discarded his own name in favour of the past.

He was driving with Velghe—fused in name, history, and perhaps fate.

Racing as Levegh was an act of inheritance, but also one of obsession. It colored everything that followed: the loner’s determination, the defiance of team instructions, the near-messianic drive in ’52 to go it alone. Not just to win, but to fulfil something. He wasn’t just driving against Mercedes that day. He was driving with Velghe—fused in name, history, and perhaps fate.

By the time the 1952 24 Hours of Le Mans rolled around, Pierre Levegh was already a man apart. Not factory-supported in the traditional sense, his Talbot-Lago T26C-GS was a heavy, outdated machine with an inline-six engine and pre-war DNA. It was robust but outclassed on paper by the might of the returning Mercedes-Benz works team, running state-of-the-art W194 Gullwings.

Levegh, paired with co-driver René Marchand, had other ideas. Once the race began, he simply never got out of the car.

It was the stuff of folklore—a privateer fending off a dominant German works squad. But folklore and physics rarely coexist for long.

Hour after hour, through the long summer day and into the night, Levegh drove a solitary vigil. He ignored rest, resisted food, and passed by every opportunity to hand over to Marchand. His belief—perhaps shaped by years of racing in underdog machinery—was that only he could extract the full potential of the ageing Talbot. That handing over could mean losing rhythm, or worse: losing everything.

As the hours wound down and others faltered, the Talbot improbably led. It was the stuff of folklore—a privateer fending off a dominant German works squad. But folklore and physics rarely coexist for long.

On his 23rd hour behind the wheel, with less than 90 minutes to go, disaster struck. The Talbot’s engine stuttered and then gave out. Post-race analysis suggested a missed gear change over-revved the engine, fatally stressing the crankshaft.

In the aftermath, the heroic narrative was cemented. A man alone. A broken machine. A near-miracle undone.

Marchand, it’s said, had pleaded to take over the car earlier. When Levegh again refused, Marchand went further—he physically tried to prise him out of the cockpit. But Levegh, perhaps out of obsession, pride, or sheer exhaustion, resisted.

In the aftermath, the heroic narrative was cemented. A man alone. A broken machine. A near-miracle undone. But between the lines was something more complex. A man haunted by legacy, driven beyond limits—not just of engineering, but of self.

Three years later, Levegh would return. And in 1955, he would die in the most catastrophic accident in Le Mans history.

But that fire—the white fire of magnesium alloy and human will—was first lit in ’52. Not in the crash, but in the hours before. In the choice not to let go. In the refusal to be relieved. In a name inherited and rewritten in gasoline.

Legacy, it turns out, can burn too.