Ten memorable non-24 Hour races at Le Mans

Although it will indelibly be associated with the 24 Hour race that has taken place since 1923, Le Mans has also played host to major motorsport events including Formula 1 and motorcycle world championship races, and acted as a crucial platform for future F1 world champions to ply their trade in lower formulae.

Autosport delved through over a century of history to pick 10 of Le Mans' most significant races that didn't take a full day to complete, although nine-time 24 Hour race-winner Tom Kristensen still found a way to creep onto the list...

1906 French Grand Prix

The race that is recognised as history's first grand prix started at 6am on a Tuesday in late June, was run in sweltering conditions that exceeded 40C, had a fastest lap of over 52 minutes - yet was decided on tyre strategy and tactics.

Replacing the nation-based Gordon Bennett Cup races, the race was open to manufacturer teams that were allowed to enter up to three cars with a maximum weight of 1000kg. A 64-mile course laid out on public roads to the east of Le Mans was surfaced prior to the race, but the French heatwave combined with the local traffic meant the asphalt was already getting worn out by the time of the race.

The course wasn't all asphalt though - wooden railway sleepers were in place at one corner of the route to bypass the town of Saint-Calais.

Renault and its tyre supplier Michelin developed detachable rims, which took only four minutes for the driver and riding mechanic to change, as opposed to the 15-minute stops to change a tyre and tube. Armed with this technology, Hungarian Ferenc Szisz took his Renault to victory in a race that took place over an aggregate of two six-lap parts, one on the Tuesday and one on the Wednesday. He finished 32 minutes ahead of the Fiat of Felice Nazzaro.

Third was Albert Clement, who went against the wishes of his father - the proprietor of the Bayard-Clement team - and eschewed the use of his detachable rims. Had he not done so, the time saved arguably would have resulted in him winning the race.

Thanks to the course breaking up, Mercedes drivers Vincenzo Florio and Camille Jenatzy both suffered eye injuries from flying stones, while Szisz's Renault team-mate J Edmond was almost blinded by melting tar in his eyes. In an early example of the vast tome of Motorsport Silly Rules, he wasn't allowed to replace his broken goggles as this was regarded as changing equipment.

1921 French Grand Prix

Jimmy Murphy didn't deserve this. As the Californian crossed the line to win the 1921 French Grand Prix, his Duesenberg hobbled by a holed radiator from flying stones and two flat tyres, the partisan crowd broke into a chorus of boos. An American car and driver had beaten the best France had to offer, and those watching weren't too happy about it.

Ironman Murphy had beaten the odds just to start the race. He'd been practising on the 10.7-mile unpaved circuit a week earlier when he locked the brakes and somersaulted the Duesenberg. Both Murphy and team-mate Louis Inghibert, who'd been riding with him, were hospitalised.

While Inghibert was ruled out of the race with broken ribs, Murphy discharged himself and, bandaged from waist to shoulders, was helped into his car to race. Despite internal injuries, he kept going for seven-and-three-quarter gruelling hours to win.

The race boiled down to a battle between Duesenberg pair Murphy and Joe Boyer plus Jean Chassagne on the French Ballot. A burst fuel tank put Chassagne out of the lead, Boyer took over but soon suffered a mechanical failure, allowing Murphy in front. He beat fellow American Ralph DePalma by 15 minutes, with Jules Goux third, both on Ballots.

This was the first race on what has evolved to be the current Circuit de la Sarthe, which also hosted the French GP in 1929. Back then it went from the start-finish line into Le Mans city, before turning sharp right at the Sarthe Pontlieue bridge and heading down the straight Avenue Georges Durand, rejoining the current layout at Tertre Rouge.

1967 French Grand Prix

In recent years, the French GP had taken place at the flat-out Reims, the fast, swooping Rouen road course, and the twisty mountain roads of Clermont-Ferrand. So it's fair to say that the bland Le Mans Bugatti Circuit was a bit of a letdown, exacerbated by a meagre crowd of 20,000. Sacre bleu, even the official programme cover showed action from a previous race for Formula 3, the main support category.

The Ford Cosworth DFV-powered Lotus 49s had made their debut in the previous month's Dutch GP, and Graham Hill put his on pole. Both Hill and Jim Clark led in the early stages for Lotus, but each stopped with transmission failure.

That put Jack Brabham in front in his Brabham-Repco, and he cruised to victory ahead of team-mate Denny Hulme, who would go on to claim the world championship. Hulme relied on a high rate of attrition to get up to second, with a fuel-pipe problem dropping Dan Gurney's Eagle-Weslake out of the position not long after Hulme had overtaken fellow Kiwi Chris Amon, whose Ferrari's throttle cable broke.

A lapped Jackie Stewart inherited third for BRM, one of only six classified finishers - just five of which were still running at the end.

1989 Formula 3000

International single-seater racing returned to Le Mans in 1986, with the Bugatti Circuit hosting a round of the Formula 3000 championship. For a six-year run from 1986-91, the venue featured on the F3000 calendar in late September. For the 1989 running, Jean Alesi arrived at this, the penultimate round, needing just a fourth place to wrap up the title with a race to spare.

Already making waves in F1 with Tyrrell, Alesi had just taken back-to-back F3000 wins in his Eddie Jordan Racing Reynard at Birmingham and Spa to add to his success at Pau. But it was the DAMS Lolas that were dominant this weekend. Eric Bernard and outside title contender Erik Comas claimed the front-row positions, but Bernard made a poor start, putting Comas into a lead he would not lose.

With Alesi's closest title rival Marco Apicella spinning out early on, Alesi now only needed sixth place to become champion. As Comas won from Eric van de Poele, the recovering Bernard, Eddie Irvine and Stephane Proulx, Alesi pipped EJR team-mate Martin Donnelly to the final point. Damon Hill was a lapped 16th in the uncompetitive Japanese Mooncraft chassis.

PODCAST: Jean Alesi's Race of My Life

Most importantly, Alesi was champion, and now he could concentrate on his F1 career.

2003 Le Mans 1000Km

The Le Mans 1000Km, which took place on a gloomy wet November Sunday in 2003 on the Bugatti Circuit was a significant race - marking the starting point of the journey to the rebirth of the World Endurance Championship the best part of a decade later.

The non-championship race was a bridging point between the FIA Sportscar Championship, in which GT svengali Stephane Ratel had taken an involvement, and the Le Mans Endurance Series that would arrive in 2004.

With the promise from the organising ACO of automatic entries for each class winner for the following year's 24 Hours, a strong 37-car field was assembled. Class of that entry was the Team Goh Audi R8.

As a curtain raiser to the Japanese squad's victory in the 2004 24 Hours, Tom Kristensen and Seiji Ara had an untroubled run to victory through the murk, splashing to honours with a three-lap margin over the Pescarolo Sport Courage-Peugeot of Stephane Sarrazin, Franck Lagorce and Sebastien Bourdais. The Racing for Holland Dome-Judd of 1988 24 Hour winners Jan Lammers and Andy Wallace pressured the Courage early on, but was hampered by a long brake pedal and fell away in third.

Honours in the GTS class fell the way of the Veloqx-run Care Racing Ferraris, which took a 1-2 headed by two winners of the McLaren Autosport BRDC Award, Jamie Davies and Darren Turner. Davies would finish second in the 24 Hours the following year, while Turner would go on to win three times in the GT1/GTE-Pro class.

The weather had meant the race had been halted after six hours, and never got to 1000km, but its legacy would reshape the world of top-class championship sportscar racing.

2006 Formula 3 Euro Series

An unforced error from Sebastian Vettel giving him a mountain to climb in a championship fight... If that sounds familiar, the template was set on the Le Mans Bugatti Circuit in October 2006, when he was in the midst of a season-long fight with ASM team-mate Paul di Resta for the Formula 3 Euro Series crown.

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The duo arrived at Le Mans with di Resta leading Vettel by four points, with only the finale to follow at Hockenheim at the end of October. Vettel and di Resta were down in sixth and seventh respectively in qualifying, but grid penalties for Vettel and third-qualifier Kamui Kobayashi for previous transgressions meant di Resta would start fifth, with Vettel 11th.

Poleman Giedo van der Garde's driveshaft broke on the warm-up lap, and then first-lap chaos at the Dunlop chicane resulted in Sebastien Buemi punting Romain Grosjean into a spin, and Jonathan Summerton getting delayed.

Suddenly di Resta was leading from Summerton, while Vettel pulled off a brave pass on Guillaume Moreau to take third. While di Resta drove to victory, Vettel spun at the last corner at one-third distance, relegating him to 11th. He recovered to ninth, but crucially that was one place short of the top eight that would be reversed to form the grid for the second race.

Vettel passed di Resta in that second race, but slid into the gravel and finished outside the points in ninth, while di Resta claimed sixth. That set the Scot up to claim the title at Hockenheim.

2007 French Motorcycle GP

The 2007 MotoGP French Grand Prix proved to be a historic event. Changeable weather conditions, with the race starting dry before the wet weather rolled in, led to the first use of MotoGP's new flag-to-flag rule, under which riders would change bikes depending on weather conditions, instead of the race being red-flagged.

In the early stages, Kawasaki's Randy de Puniet and the Tech3 Yamaha of Sylvain Guintoli gave the partisan crown cause for celebration as they ran at the head of the field. But French hopes of a first premier-class win since 1999 would be put on ice when both crashed out.

As the rain fell harder and the bike swaps had taken place, it was Suzuki's Chris Vermeulen who found himself in a commanding position. The Australian kept his GSV-R upright and pointed in the right direction to secure his maiden MotoGP triumph by over 12 seconds from the chasing Gresini Honda of Marco Melandri.

Little did we know at the time, but this would prove to be Suzuki's last MotoGP win until the 2016 British Grand Prix. Such was the chaos of that day, only the top eight finished on the lead lap.

2008 DTM

It looked all over for Paul di Resta. This was the DTM's second visit to the Bugatti Circuit, and Mercedes' leading contender for the 2008 title had, along with most of his stablemates, started this penultimate round on the wrong tyres on a slippery track.

It was drying out, and di Resta and the other C-class drivers were forced to stop for slick rubber before the pit window opened, meaning they still had to make what was then two mandatory tyre changes. Series leader Timo Scheider was serene at the front in his slick-shod Audi, with team-mate Mattias Ekstrom behind. Although Ekstrom claimed the lead at the first pitstops, second would be enough for Scheider to be crowned champion.

Then, as Scheider was taking his second stop for slicks, it rained again. Di Resta hadn't yet taken his second mandatory stop, and now was his chance to get back onto grooved rubber, while the Audis had to stop again for treaded tyres. The Scot was now fourth, ahead of Scheider, and he carved through to take second behind Ekstrom, as Alex Premat completed the podium in a year-old Audi.

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Scheider ran wide in the closing stages, dropping to sixth behind Mercedes talisman Bernd Schneider, and it left him just four points ahead of di Resta going into the Hockenheim finale.

Scheider won that race to claim the first of his two DTM crowns, but Le Mans meant di Resta had made him wait longer than he thought he'd have to.

2015 Formula Renault 3.5

Le Mans had been a fixture of the World Series by Renault schedule in its early seasons in the mid to late 2000s, with future Indianapolis 500 winner Will Power and one-time grand prix winner Pastor Maldonado among those to notch victories. But 2015 featured a return to the Bugatti Circuit for the first time since Bertrand Baguette secured a double in 2009.

This was the year when Oliver Rowland swept all before him, and he entered the late-September weekend odds-on to secure the Formula Renault 3.5 title with the last round at Jerez still to come. Rowland, driving for Fortec Motorsport, had been engaged in a season-long fight with Frenchman Matthieu Vaxiviere, the Charouz-run driver a Lotus F1 Junior.

Sure enough, the duo did battle in the Saturday race, and matters came to a head when Vaxiviere nerfed Rowland's left-rear tyre with his front wing into the Dunlop chicane, debris flying but both cars continuing. Rowland could see in his mirror that he had a cut tyre, but the Michelin stayed intact and he went on to win by 4.2s.

Vaxiviere dropped back to focus on defending from Egor Orudzhev, and repeated chicane-cutting offences resulted in a post-race time penalty that dropped him down the field.

Track-limits offences scuppered Rowland in qualifying for Sunday's race, and he started down in 14th, but eighth place in the race was enough for him to be crowned, as Orudzhev beat Vaxiviere to victory after an entertaining battle.

2017 French Motorcycle GP

Maverick Vinales was the man of the moment when MotoGP rolled into Le Mans for the 2017 French Grand Prix. A near-plug-in-and-play replacement at Yamaha for Jorge Lorenzo (who'd departed for Ducati), former Suzuki rider Vinales had won the first two races of the season and appeared to be on course to strengthen his points lead after sealing pole, in which he led Yamaha's first qualifying 1-2-3 since Qatar 2008.

In the race, Vinales and Yamaha team-mate Valentino Rossi duked it out for the victory, with the pair evenly matched as the race entered its closing stages. A mistake for Rossi at the double-apexed right-handers at Garage Vert allowed Vinales into the lead again on the last lap, with the Italian crashing a handful of turns later in a desperate attempt to beat his younger team-mate.

Rossi's crash promoted home hero Johann Zarco to second, his maiden podium after putting his Tech3 Yamaha on the front row in qualifying.

It would be 18 months before Vinales won again, as Yamaha steadily began a decent into a nadir that would take until last season to engineer its way out of.