injected cars to start the French Grand Prix. Practice/Qualifying There was very little activity in the earlier practice sessions, with the Ferrari team only arriving just in time for the final session. González was the early pacesetter for Maserati, but was eventually outdone by both Villoresi and Ascari for Ferrari. González would again set the fastest time of 2:41.5, but in Bonetto's car, but Ascari would finally take pole position with a time of 2:41.2 late in the session. The front row of the 3-2-3 grid was therefore Ascari, Bonetto and Villoresi, with Fangio and González sharing row two. The fastest six cars were separated by just 1.3 seconds, with the Ferraris and Maseratis clearly quite evenly matched. The first non-Ferrari or Maserati was the Connaught of Prince Bira with 2:53.2, 12 seconds slower than Ascari and around 2 seconds slower than Rosier in the slowest Ferrari. Qualifying classification Notes – González set the second placed time of 2:41.5, however he was driving Bonetto's car. Thus Bonetto started from second place, while González started in fifth with his fastest time in his own car of 2:42.4 Pre-race controversy The Grand Prix was preceded by the 12 hour sportscar race which ran from midnight to midday. During that race, the leading Ferrari, driven by Umberto Maglioli and Piero Carini, was disqualified, ostensibly for receiving a push start, and for switching off sidelights before the appointed time. Many, including Ferrari team manager Ugolini, felt this quite unfair, since the push-start had been to get clear of spilt petrol in the pitlane, and nearly every other car in the race had already switched off their sidelights by the time Maglioli did the same. Many in the crowd also disagreed with the disqualification, with the crowd booing and throwing rubbish at head officials Charles Faroux and Toto Roche. As a result, Ferrari threatened to withdraw their cars from the Grand Prix, which would have surely handed Maserati an easy win. However, after several phone calls between Reims and Modena, the Ferraris were eventually allowed to start in the Grand Prix. Race For the race, González decided to start with half a tank of fuel and make a pitstop in the race, while all of the other main contenders started with full tanks hoping to last the whole distance. This of course meant that González would need to build a large enough gap to make