MOTOR RACING.

Press, Volume LXII, Issue 18659, 7 April 1926, Page 14

MOTOR RACING.

THE FRENCH GRAND PRIX. The French Grand Frix this year is to be a straightaway race on the Miramas oral concrete track- Most of the subsidiary Grand Prix races are also on tracks. Both from the sporting, and from the practical point of view, this seems to be a great mistake to anybody who is keenly interested in racing, says the "Autocar." The French Grand Prix is the lineal descendant of the Gordon Bennett, which was the first really international race, and it shares with the Gordon Bennett tho prestige due to a race on ordinary roads. In fact, a Grand Prix on a track ceases to be a Grand Prix at all in the opinion of most of those who have followed the course of racing throughout automobile history. From the technical point of view, a track race develops the wrong type of car for everyday use. The engine may lie tested to the full, the tyres also, but a car developed by track raring may too easilv break tip if its gears and brakes are handled in road racing fashion. Direct comparison between cars built for road racing, and those constructed for track racing was afforded by the Grand Prix d'Eurone, and the Italian Grand Prix of 1924. Tt is regrettable that in France", a country with no restrictions on rood racine, the Grand Prix should be relegated to a track.