page_title: 1927 Grand Prix season
section_title: Season review
hierarchical_section_title: 1927 Grand Prix season / Season review
caption_attribution_description: Français&#160;: Robert Benoist vainqueur du Grand Prix de Grande-Bretagnee en octobre 1927 sur Delage.
context_page_description: The 1927 Grand Prix season was the third AIACR World Manufacturers' Championship season and the second run to a 1.5-litre engine limit. In a dominant display, the championship was won by Delage, with team driver Robert Benoist winning four of the five Grand Prix.
  The championship opened with the Indianapolis 500 – once again a contest between Duesenberg and Miller engines. Previous year's winner Frank Lockhart started on pole position and led for over half the race until his car suffered a broken con-rod. Rookie George Souders, driving Peter DePaolo’s 1925 race-winning Duesenberg, came through and took a comfortable victory with an eight lap margin. DePaolo went on to secure the season's AAA Championship with three wins and four second places.
  After major re-working over the close season to sort out the chronic exhaust and heating issues, the Delages proved unbeatable. They were the only manufacturer to enter the requisite three races to qualify for the championship. Bugatti and Talbot challenged them at the next Grand Prix, in France, but then the Talbot team was shut down.
context_section_description: A new event in March started the racing season. Four young gentleman-drivers (including Conte Aymo Maggi and Franco Mazzotti), wanting to restore Brescia's former pre-eminence in Italian motorsport, put a proposal to the government for a national road-race that was promptly approved. The race for touring and sports-cars harked back to the city-to-city races from the turn of the century. Called the Mille Miglia, as it covered a non-stop run across one thousand miles of public roads. It ran from Brescia to Rome via Bologna, before crossing the Apennines to Ancona and back to Brescia via Ferrara, Padua and Vicenza. It attracted many of the top Italian drivers and captured the imagination of country. Aymo Maggi himself, driving an Isotta Fraschini with Alfieri Maserati, was the first away at 8 am as the largest car in the field. Although Gastone Brilli-Peri in his Alfa Romeo led into Rome, after 21 hours, it was Ferdinando Minoia who arrived at Brescia first. In OM's finest hour, their cars finished 1-2-3 in the inaugural race of this iconic event, made all the better as the cars were built in Brescia.
  The Targa Florio, in April, was the opening round of the new Italian Championship. Peugeot and Bugatti returned to renew their rivalry. This year Peugeot only had a single 174 S 4-litre sports car for André Boillot. Former Targa winner Bartolomeo Costantini was now the Bugatti team manager and brought four cars.  Caberto Conelli had a 1.5-litre Type 37A, while the other drivers, veteran Jules Goux and Ferdinando Minoia, Emilio Materassi and liqueur-heir André Dubonnet, had the new 2-litre Type 35C. They were supported by a squadron of seven privateers making up half the field. In the absence of Fiat and Alfa Romeo, Italian honour would be upheld by Maserati. Alfieri Maserati drove the new Tipo 26B himself, while his brother Ernesto and Aymo Maggi had older Tipo26s.
  As the initial car was a non-starter, the first car left at 8:04 am. At the beginning Dubonnet and Boillot duelled for the lead. Conelli was first to arrive back at the line, but on elapsed time, Minoia had a five-second lead over Dubonnet with Materassi and female Czech driver Eliška Junková less than a minute behind. But going into the second lap, the order changed significantly. A third of the way around, Junková slid off the road when the steering rod broke. Soon after, Minoia retired with a broken universal joint and Dubonnet was having engine problems. Materassi set a new lap record opening a 6-minute lead over Maserati (who pitted with a flat tyre) and Conelli. Three Bugattis were fighting with the three Maseratis with Boillot's Peugeot in seventh. Rain started falling on the fourth lap making the roads treacherous, and causing several drivers to go off the road. But Materassi kept control throughout with he and Conelli getting a comfortable 1-2 victory for Bugatti, the third straight win for the team. Alfieri Maserati was twenty minutes back with Boillot in fourth, over fifty minutes behind the winner. Only six of the 22 starters were classified at the finish. Two weeks later, another race - the Coppa Messina - was held on the mountain roads of Sicily. Materassi crashed his Bugatti in practice but bought one of the works Maseratis to race instead. A Bugatti won again, but Alfieri Maserati was severely injured when he crashed, blinded by dust, overtaking two other cars. Several major newspapers mistakenly reported his death, however he did slowly recover despite losing a kidney.
  
  Once again, the Indianapolis 500 would be a two-way contest between Duesenberg and Miller. All cars had either of those two engines. Harry Miller had dramatically developed his engine to an impressive 230 bhp. Rookie Charles ‘Dutch’ Bauman drove the works car, while a number of customer teams backed them up with experienced drivers like previous winners Frank Lockhart and Peter DePaolo, as well as Ralph Hepburn, Leon Duray, Harry Hartz and Eddie Hearne. The Duesenberg brothers had three works cars for Wade Morton and rookies Babe Stapp and Benny Shoaff. Another ten rookies started th
caption: Benoist in his Delage at the British GP
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