Competition history
Jaguar D-Types fielded by a team under the leadership of Jaguar's racing manager Lofty England were expected to perform well in their debut at the 1954 24 Hours of Le Mans race. In the event, the cars were hampered by fuel starvation caused by problems with the fuel filters, necessitating pit stops for their removal,[4] after which the entry driven by Duncan Hamilton and Tony Rolt speeded up to finish less than a lap behind the winning Ferrari. The D-Type's aerodynamic superiority is evident from its maximum speed of 172.8 mph on the Mulsanne Straight compared with the 4.9 litre Ferrari's 160.1 mph.[4] Three weeks later the D Type won the Rheims 12 hour endurance race.
For 1955 the cars were modified with long-nose bodywork and engines uprated with larger valves. At Le Mans, they proved competitive with the Mercedes-Benz 300 SLRs, which had been expected to win. Mike Hawthorn's D-Type had a narrow lead over Juan Manuel Fangio's Mercedes when another Mercedes team car was involved in the most catastrophic accident in motorsport history.[6] Driver Pierre Levegh and more than 80 spectators lost their lives, while many more were injured.
Mercedes withdrew from the race. Jaguar opted to continue, and the D-Type driven by Hawthorn and Ivor Bueb went on to win. Mercedes withdrew from motorsport at the end of the 1955 season, and Jaguar again entered Le Mans in 1956. Although only one of the three factory-entered cars finished, in sixth place, the race was won by a D-Type entered by the small Edinburgh-based team Ecurie Ecosse and driven by Ron Flockhart and Ninian Sanderson, beating works teams from Aston Martin and Scuderia Ferrari.
In America, the Cunningham team raced several D-Types. In 1955, for example, a 1954 works car on loan to Cunningham won the Sebring 12 Hours in the hands of Mike Hawthorn and Phil Walters, and in May 1956 the team's entries for Maryland's Cumberland national championship sports car race included four D-Types in Cunningham's white and blue racing colors. Driven by John Fitch, John Gordon Benett, Sherwood Johnston and team owner Briggs Cunningham, they finished fourth, fifth, seventh and eighth, respectively.
Although Jaguar withdrew from motorsport at the end of the 1956 season, 1957 proved to be the D-Type's most successful year. 3.8-litre engine Jaguar D-Types took five of the top six places at Le Mans, and Ecurie Ecosse, with considerable support from Jaguar, finished first and second, the best result in the D-Type's racing history.
Rules for the 1958 Le Mans race limited engine sizes to three litres for sports racing cars, which ended the domination of the 3.8-litre D-Type. Jaguar developed a 3.0 litre version to power D-Types in the 1958, 1959 and 1960 Le Mans races, but it proved unreliable, and by 1960 no longer produced sufficient power to be competitive.
The D-Type never again achieved a podium finish at Le Mans. Its success waned as support from Jaguar decreased and cars from rival manufacturers became more competitive, although from 1960 the D Type continued for a further three years or more to be one of the cars to beat in club racing and national events.
