René Hanriot
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| Complete name: René Hanriot |
| Birth date: 11.Jun.1867 |
| Birth Place: Vaite, Haute-Saône (70), France |
| Death date: 07.Nov.1925 |
| Death Place: unknown, France |
| Nationality: France |
| Gender: male |
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Notes:
René Hanriot
1867 - 1925
Author: Agence Meurisse. Agence Photographique (France). Bibliothèque Nationale de France collection, public domain.
French industrialist and sportsman, René Hanriot was a builder and racer of motor boats, a race car driver and a pioneer aviator. Born in Vaite, Haute-Saône department, in 1867, he settled in Châlons-sur-Marne – later named Châlons-en-Champagne –, department of Marne, France, and gained fame by earning victories in automobile races shortly after the turn of 20th century. He started competing in a FN, then in a Deckert, before joining the Clément-Bayard, a make founded by Gustave Adolphe Clément at Levallois-Perret, a suburb of Paris, France.
On 24 May 1903 Hanriot was one of the competitors in the disastrous Paris - Madrid race, which was marked by a number of fatal accidents, claiming the lives of Marcel Renault and six other persons. When the race was stopped at Bordeaux, Hanriot’s works Clément-Bayard was already retired due to engine failure, just a few kilometers after the start.
The following year, the Clément-Bayard factory team entered René Hanriot, then aged 37, in the Circuit des Ardennes. He was out of the race after four laps on the 118.251-kilometer (73.5-mile) road course of Bastogne. Two Panhard et Levassor 70s of the winner George Heath and Georges Teste dominated the event. Hanriot’s Clément-Bayard team mate, the founder’s son Albert Clément, finished a remarkable third. Sadly, he would lose his life in 1907, while practicing for the Grand Prix de l'Automobile Club de France, at Dieppe.
On 16 June 1905 Hanriot was entered by the Clément-Bayard factory team in the Eliminatoires Françaises de la Coupe Internationale, the eliminator race for the French entry into the Gordon Bennett Cup, on the 137.36-kilometer (85.37-mile) circuit d’Auvergne, in central France. His race was plagued with bad luck, finishing tenth, not high enough to qualify for the Gordon Bennet event, which was held on the same track three weeks later. Fellow Frenchman Léon Théry in a Richard-Brasier eventually was the race winner.
An airplane enthusiast, René Hanriot started a flying school at Bétheny, a suburb of Reims, in the Marne department in north-eastern France, partnered by his close friend Louis Wagner, the soon-to-be-great champion who later competed for Darracq, Fiat, Delage and Mercedes grand prix racing teams. At the time the pair spent much time together racing and flying for years.
In 1906 Hanriot was offered a drive with Darracq, the French motor vehicle manufacturing company founded in 1896. He did not finish the IX Grand Prix de l'Automobile Club de France, held on 26/27 June at Le Mans, and in the subsequent Circuit des Ardennes, on 13 August 1906 at Bastogne, he fought hard in his Darracq 120HP to a second place finish, less than two minutes behind the winner Arthur Duray in a Lorraine-Dietrich. During the season René Hanriot set a new world record for speed on the road, by reaching 128 km/h (79.5 mi/h), paired by his son Marcel, only thirteen years of age. Hanriot was not so fortunate with Darracq in 1907, suffering engine problems in the early laps of the French Grand Prix at Dieppe. In the second edition of the harrowing Targa Florio, on the 148.823-kilometer (92.49-mile) Madonie Grande Circuito, he suffered a broken half-shaft on the second lap. On the following lap, his team mate Wagner suffered from the same mechanical failure. The owner Pierre Alexandre Darracq was furious and a spat between him and his drivers ensued, which led to the two friends leaving the team. A few weeks later Hanriot received an offer to drive for Germany’s Benz, making his debut in his beloved Circuit des Ardennes at Bastogne, where he finished a fine fourth.
Driving a works Benz he scored third places in the Coppa Florio at Brescia on 01 September 1907, and in the French Grand Prix, at Dieppe, on 07 July 1908. In November of 1908 the Benz team sent its three factory drivers, 32-year-old Victor Hémery, René Hanriot and the engineer Fritz Erle, who had been racing with Benz since 1901, to the United States, for the first Grand Prize Race of the Automobile Club of America, to be held at Savannah, Georgia, one of the most colorful events in motorsport history. Came race day and Wagner in a Fiat was the winner, followed by Hémery’s Benz and Felice Nazzaro’s Fiat. Erle crashed on 11th of the 16-lap race, and Hanriot came very close to a podium finish, but he ran out of fuel along the final straight. He pushed with his riding mechanic his Benz 150HP, crossing the finish line in fourth place. There was much drama after the race was over, when Hanriot put some more fuel in the car and set off to drive to the team camp. But he had his car’s tyres and fuel tank shot out by a policeman, Captain R. J. Davant, when he refused to stop going backwards on the front straightaway. Hanriot apologized for breaking the rules, and in an appreciation for a job well done by the militia in patrolling the course, he sent his gloves and goggles as a peace offering to the man who shot at his car.
Hanriot designed his first aircraft, a frail, single-seat monoplane in 1907 after a one-year delivery delay of his originally ordered Léon Levasseur’s Antoinette monoplane, and subsequently displayed it at the Salon de l’Aeronautique in 1909. Powered by a single, 50-hp Buchet engine, featured an open framework fuselage mated to two rectangular wings. In 1910 he founded in Bétheny the Aéroplanes Hanriot et Cie., an aircraft manufacturing company, later known as Hanriot-Dupont, which survived in different forms until 1936, when it merged with Farman to become the Société Nationale de Constructions Aéronautiques du Centre (SNCAC).
In 1911 Hanriot was hired by Lion-Peugeot to drive in the Coupe des Voiturettes, held at Boulogne, France. He experienced tyre problems midway through the race and was forced into a withdraw. He returned to race only a year later, in the XII Grand Prix de l'Automobile Club de France, on 25/26 June 1912 at Dieppe, driving a Lorraine-Dietrich. On 10th of the 20-lap race, his car caught fire, though Hanriot escaped unscathed. Thereafter he abandoned motor racing permanently and turned his attention more to his aviation business. He made regular appearances at air shows in France and Europe, until his lifelong friend Louis Wagner was signed up as test pilot and his son Marcel Hanriot, born in 1894, became the youngest holder of a flying license worldwide, barely 15 years of age, joining his father's team as a competition flyer. From then on, René Hanriot quit competition flying and concentrated himself on the construction of aircrafts. He also opened an Automobiles Grégoire dealership.
After the end of World War I, René Hanriot moved to Paris and in 1919 he founded a pilot school, located on the grounds of Mourmelon-le-Grand, Champagne-Ardenne region. Then he created a school of aeronautics engineers in Courbevoie, very close to the centre of Paris, France. His aircraft company became Hanriot-Dupont, partnered with the engineer Pierre Dupont, who he had engaged in 1916. In 1924, the company moved to Carrières-sur-Seine, departement of Yvelines, Île-de-France.
René Hanriot died suddenly on 07 November 1925, at the age of 57. His son Marcel succeeded him and remained director of the family company until 1938.
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Career Summary:
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Sources:
- Book “The First American Grand Prix: The Savannah Auto Races, 1908-1911” by Tanya A. Bailey, McFarland, 2014, ISBN 978-0786476978.
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Book "Settant'anni di gare automobilistiche in Italia" by Emanuele Alberto Carli, Automobile Club d'Italia-L'Editrice dell'Automobile, Italy, 1967.
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Newspaper The Atlanta Constitution (Atlanta, GA, United States), issue of 27 November 1908, page 5.
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Website Old Rhinebeck Aerodrome, article “THE HANRIOT MONOPLANE” by Robert G. Waldvogel, page http://oldrhinebeck.org/ORA/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/hanriot_monoplane.pdf .
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Website Hydroretro.net, page http://www.hydroretro.net/etudegh/marcelhanriot.pdf .
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Website Skytamer.com, page http://www.skytamer.com/Hanriot-1910.html .
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Website The GEL Motorsport Information Page by Darren Galpin, page http://www.dlg.speedfreaks.org/archive/gen/1904/1904.html .
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