racers. The Italian teams had built new cars for the season and all had strong driver line-ups. Ferrari entered two lightweight Ferrari 340 MM Berlinettas powered by the company's big 280 bhp 4.1 litre V12 engine built for a challenge at Mille Miglia, All had Pinin Farina-designed bodies. Ascari and Luigi Villoresi were to share another lightweight coupé 375 MM converted to 4.5-litres, while brothers Paolo and Gianni Marzotto (winner of the 2nd round of the championship: the Mille Miglia) and Giuseppe Farina and debutante Mike Hawthorn were down to drive the 340 MMs. A third 340 MM Spyder was entered by American Ferrari agent Luigi Chinetti for himself, with Anglo-American Tom Cole (who had finished 3rd with Allard in 1950) as his co-driver. Such was the quality of the entry list that six other Ferraris could not make the starting list. Alfa Romeo was back at Le Mans for the first time since the war and fielded the beautiful new 6C/3000CM (‘’Cortemaggiore’’) powered by a 3.5L S6 engine (developing 270 bhp and 245 km/h) for Fangio and Onofre Marimón and Consalvo Sanesi and Piero Carini. The third car was driven by Mercedes-Benz works-drivers Karl Kling and Fritz Riess who also had their team manager, Alfred Neubauer, in the pits with them. Lancia this year stepped up to the big class with three new D.20 Coupés. Having just won the non-Championship Targa Florio with a 3.0L V6 engine, team manager Vittorio Jano instead decided to install supercharged 2.7L engines. This proved to be a mistake as the small increase in power (to 240 bhp) increased unreliability and gave away over 20 km/h top speed to the rival Jaguars and Ferraris. GP-racers Louis Chiron and Robert Manzon, Piero Taruffi and Umberto Maglioli were in the team, with José Froilán González and endurance-race specialist Clemente Biondetti in the reserve car. Jaguar returned with their C-Types and after the debacle of the previous year, were determined not to repeat those mistakes, having undertaken a lot of development work. Team manager ‘Lofty’ England employed the same driver pairings as 1952, with Peter Walker and Stirling Moss, Peter Whitehead and Ian Stewart, and Tony Rolt and Duncan Hamilton. The cars reverted to the aerodynamic design prior to that of the 1952 Le Mans cars, whose revised nose and tail had adversely affected stability at speeds over 120 mph. For 1953 the cars were lighter and