WThis is a list of 24 Hours of Le Mans fatal accidents, which consists of all the drivers who have died during a 24 Hours of Le Mans weekend, or in pre-race testing or practice sessions in preparation of the event. It does not include track marshals and spectators other race attendees, including the 1955 disaster which claimed the lives of 83 spectators. In all, a total of 22 drivers have died in and around the Circuit de la Sarthe, with more than half occurring along the circuit's Mulsanne Straight. Sixteen during the race itself, five during pre-race practice and testing sessions, and one en route to the race.
WJean Alavoine was a French professional cyclist, who won 17 stages in the Tour de France - only eight riders have won more stages - and wore the yellow jersey for five days.
WDario Ambrosini was an Italian Grand Prix motorcycle road racer who competed for the Benelli factory racing team. He finished second to Bruno Ruffo in the inaugural FIM 250cc world championship in 1949. He returned in 1950 and claimed the 250cc world championship with three victories including one at the 1950 Isle of Man TT. Ambrosini was killed during official practice for the 1951 French Grand Prix at Albi.
WElio de Angelis was an Italian racing driver who participated in Formula One between 1979 and 1986, racing for the Shadow, Lotus and Brabham teams. He was killed in an accident while testing the Brabham BT55 at the Paul Ricard circuit, near the commune of Le Castellet, France, in 1986. De Angelis was a very competitive and highly popular presence in Formula One during the 1980s, and is sometimes referred to as Formula One's "last gentleman player".
WAntonio Ascari was an Italian Grand Prix motor racing champion.
WJohannes Theodor Baargeld was a pseudonym of Alfred Emanuel Ferdinand Grünwald, a German painter and poet who, together with Max Ernst, founded the Cologne Dada group. He also used the name Zentrodada in connection with Dada.
WFrancis (Frank) Maitland Balfour, known as F. M. Balfour, was a British biologist. He lost his life while attempting the ascent of Mont Blanc. He was regarded by his colleagues as one of the greatest biologists of his day and Charles Darwin's successor.
WAttilio Bettega was an Italian rally driver.
WLucien Bianchi, born Luciano Bianchi, was an Italian born Belgian racing driver who raced for the Cooper, ENB, UDT Laystall and Scuderia Centro Sud teams in Formula One. He entered a total of 19 Formula One World Championship races, scoring six points and had a best finish of third at the 1968 Monaco Grand Prix.
WGerald Hussey Buchanan Birrell was a British racing driver from Scotland, who was killed in an accident during practice for a Formula Two race at Rouen-Les-Essarts.
WAndré Boillot was a French auto racing driver. Born in Valentigney, Doubs, he was the younger brother of race car driver, Georges Boillot. Following in his brother's footsteps, André Boillot began racing cars at a young age. However, World War I not only disrupted his career but claimed the life of his brother in 1916.
WJoakim Bonnier was a Swedish sportscar racing and Formula One driver who raced for various teams. He was the first Swede to both enter and win a Formula One Grand Prix.
WKeith Ronald Campbell was an Australian professional Grand Prix motorcycle road racer.
WPiero Carini was a racing driver from Italy. He was born in Genoa and died in Saint-Étienne, France.
WFabio Casartelli was an Italian cyclist and an Olympic gold medalist who died at 24 in a crash on the descent of the Col de Portet d'Aspet, France, during the 15th stage of the 1995 Tour de France.
WStefano Casiraghi was an Italian offshore powerboat racer, socialite, and businessman. He was the second husband of Princess Caroline of Monaco; he died during a racing accident defending his 1989 Class 1 World Powerboat Championship title.
WCharles VIII, called the Affable, was King of France from 1483 to his death in 1498. He succeeded his father Louis XI at the age of 13. His elder sister Anne acted as regent jointly with her husband Peter II, Duke of Bourbon until 1491 when the young king turned 21 years of age. During Anne's regency, the great lords rebelled against royal centralisation efforts in a conflict known as the Mad War (1485–1488), which resulted in a victory for the royal government.
WOlivier Chevallier was a French professional Grand Prix motorcycle road racer.
WAlbert Clément was a French motor racing driver. In 1904 he won the II Ardennes Cup race and finished third in the III Ardennes Cup race at Bastogne. He also finished second in the Vanderbilt Cup on Long Island. In 1906 he finished third in the inaugural French Grand Prix and 4th in the Vanderbilt Cup. All his driving was in the Clément-Bayard factory team that was owned by his father Adolphe Clément-Bayard.
WTom Cole was a British racing driver who made a name for himself in the early 1950s, but died in a crash in 1953.
WSergio Cresto (USA) was the co-driver of Henri Toivonen at the Lancia Martini team for the 1986 World Rally Championship season. He was also a former co-driver for fellow Lancia employee Attilio Bettega, who died in an accident during the 1985 Tour de Corse on May 2, 1985. His co-driver Maurizio Perissinot survived the crash uninjured. This event happened exactly one year before the accident that claimed the lives of both Sergio Cresto and his driver by then Henri Toivonen on May 2, 1986.
WAntoine Demoitié was a Belgian cyclist, who rode professionally between 2011 and his death in 2016.
WLuce Douady was a French climber. She made her debut professional appearance on the IFSC Climbing World Cup circuit, where she finished in fifth place, and became youth world champion in 2019. She also won the bronze medal at senior level at the 2019 IFSC Climbing European Championships in Edinburgh.
WIván Fandiño Barros was a Spanish bullfighter.
WMarc-Vivien Foé was a Cameroonian professional footballer, who played as a defensive midfielder for both club and country. Foé had success in France's Division 1 and England's Premier League, before his sudden death, due to hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, during an international match, an event which shocked the football community worldwide. He was posthumously decorated with the Commander of the National Order of Valour and had his jersey number 23 retired by Manchester City.
WMichael Goolaerts was a Belgian cyclist who rode for Vérandas Willems–Crelan. During the 2018 Paris–Roubaix, Goolaerts suffered cardiac arrest. He was airlifted to a hospital in Lille, where he died hours later.
WHenry II was King of France from 31 March 1547 until his death in 1559. The second son of Francis I, he became Dauphin of France upon the death of his elder brother Francis III, Duke of Brittany, in 1536.
WJacques Herbrand was a French mathematician. Although he died at age 23, he was already considered one of "the greatest mathematicians of the younger generation" by his professors Helmut Hasse, and Richard Courant.
WAndrei Mikhailovich Kivilev was a professional road bicycle racer from Taldykorgan, Kazakhstan. In March 2003, he crashed during the Paris–Nice race and subsequently died of his injuries. His death was the trigger for the UCI to implement the compulsory wearing of helmets in all endorsed races.
WPauline Lafont was a French actress. She was the daughter of film star Bernadette Lafont and Diourka Medveczky, a Hungarian sculptor.
WMarie Delphine Macarty or MacCarthy, more commonly known as Madame Blanque or, after her third marriage, as Madame LaLaurie, was a New Orleans Creole socialite and serial killer who tortured and murdered slaves in her household.
WLoïc Leferme was a French diver who was the world free diving record holder until 2 October 2005, when he was surpassed by Herbert Nitsch. Loic was also a founder of AIDA in 1990 with Roland Specker and Claude Chapuis in Nice. In 2002 he set the world free diving record without any breathing apparatus at 162 meters. His first world record was 137 meters (1999). On 30 October 2004, he extended his own world record to 171 meters in the no limits free-diving category. The premier advocate of this type of freediving which has come to be known as Chapuis Style Freediving.
WMarcel Lehoux was a French racing driver and businessman.
WLéon Level was a French professional road bicycle racer.
WLouis X, called the Quarrelsome, the Headstrong, or the Stubborn, was King of France from 1314 to 1316, succeeding his father Philip IV. After the death of his mother, Joan I of Navarre, he was also King of Navarre as Louis I from 1305 until his death in 1316.
WGuy Mairesse was a French racing driver. He participated in three Formula One World Championship Grands Prix, debuting on 3 September 1950. He scored no championship points.
WJean-Pierre Maréchal was an engineer and racing driver who died after his Aston Martin team car crashed in the first postwar running of the 24 Hours of Le Mans endurance race.
WLuigi Musso was an Italian racing driver. In 1955 he joined the Ferrari team, entering into a fierce rivalry with Mike Hawthorn and Peter Collins, which boosted the performance of the team, but also encouraged greater risk-taking. According to Musso's fiancée, he was deep in debt by the time of the lucrative 1958 French Grand Prix, where he was fatally injured, somersaulting into a ditch while chasing Hawthorn.
WBenoît Nicolas Musy was a Swiss Grand Prix motorcycle road racer and Maserati race car driver.
WDaan Myngheer was a Belgian cyclist. He died in a hospital two days after suffering a heart attack during the first stage of the 2016 Critérium International.
WHenri Oreiller was an alpine ski racer and Olympic gold medalist from France. He won two gold medals and a bronze at the 1948 Winter Olympics, becoming the most successful athlete those Games in St. Moritz, Switzerland.
WHenri Piet was a French Lightweight boxer. He is notable for his EBU lightweight challenge against Freddie Welsh, winning the French welterweight belt in 1912. He died in the boxing ring in 1915, aged 27.
WMarcel Renault was a French racing driver and industrialist, co-founder of the car maker Renault. He was the brother of Louis and Fernand Renault.
WLouis Rosier was a racing driver from France.
WMathieu Schiller was a French bodyboarder. Crowned French champion in 1993, he later won the team event of the European championships in 1995. He died in a shark attack off Saint-Gilles, Réunion. The attack was likely caused by multiple tiger shark or bull sharks. The presence of sharks and turbulent conditions forced rescuers to abandon an immediate attempt to retrieve his body; his remains were never recovered.
WJoseph Schlesser was a French Formula One and sports car racing driver. He participated in three World Championship Grands Prix, including the 1968 French Grand Prix in which he was killed. He scored no championship points. He was the uncle of Jean-Louis Schlesser who himself became a Formula One driver in the 1980s.
WAllan Simonsen was a Danish racing driver, born in Odense. He died after a crash during the third lap of the 2013 24 Hours of Le Mans.
WTom Simpson was a British professional cyclist, one of Britain's most successful of all time. At the time of the 1967 Tour de France, he was the undisputed leader of the British team. In the 13th stage of that race, he collapsed and died during the ascent of Mont Ventoux.
WThomas Simpson was one of Britain's most successful professional cyclists. He was born in Haswell, County Durham and later moved to Harworth, Nottinghamshire. Simpson began road cycling as a teenager before taking up track cycling, specialising in pursuit races. He won a bronze medal for track cycling at the 1956 Summer Olympics and a silver at the 1958 British Empire and Commonwealth Games.
WRaymond Sommer was a French motor racing driver. He raced both before and after WWII with some success, particularly in endurance racing. He won the 24 Hours of Le Mans endurance race in both 1932 and 1933, and although he did not reach the finishing line in any subsequent appearance at the Le Mans, he did lead each event until 1938. Sommer was also competitive at the highest level in Grand Prix motor racing, but did not win a race. He won the French Grand Prix in 1936, but the event that year was run as a sports car race. After racing resumed in the late 1940s, Sommer again won a number of sports car and minor Grand Prix events, and finished in fourth place in the 1950 Monaco Grand Prix, the second round of the newly-instituted Formula One World Drivers' Championship. He was killed toward the end of 1950, when his car overturned during a race at the Circuit de Cadours.
WLionel Terray was a French climber who made many first ascents, including on the 1955 French Makalu expedition in the Himalaya and Cerro Fitz Roy in the Patagonian Andes.
WHenri Pauli Toivonen was a Finnish rally driver born in Jyväskylä, the home of Rally Finland. His father, Pauli, was the 1968 European Rally Champion for Porsche and his brother, Harri, became a professional circuit racer.
WPeter Nield Whitehead was a British racing driver. He was born in Menston, Yorkshire and was killed in an accident at Lasalle, France, during the Tour de France endurance race. A cultured, knowledgeable and well-travelled racer, he was excellent in sports cars. He won the 1938 Australian Grand Prix, which along with a 24 Heures du Mans win in 1951, probably was his finest achievement, but he also won two 12 Heures internationales de Reims events. He was a regular entrant, mostly for Peter Walker and Graham Whitehead, his half-brother. His death in 1958 ended a career that started in 1935 – however, he was lucky to survive an air crash in 1948.
WJohn Woolfe was a British racing driver from England, who specialised in sports car racing. He was killed as a result of crashing on the first lap of the 1969 24 Hours of Le Mans race, an event which caused the traditional "Le Mans start" to be abolished the following year.
WWilliam Eliot Morris Zborowski, Count de Montsaulvain was a racing driver. Born in Elizabethtown, New Jersey, USA, he was the son of Martin Zborowski and Emma Morris.
WPaolo "Paul" Zuccarelli was an Italian racecar driver. Zuccarelli graduated in engineering in Brescia and took on racing shortly afterwards. In 1910 he moved to France. He was killed while testing a car prior to the 1913 French Grand Prix at Amiens.