Which driver won three Le Mans races from his first three starts by 1930?

Woolf Barnato won three Le Mans races from his first three starts by 1930.

Barnato’s winning sequence began in 1928, when he shared a Bentley 4½ Litre with Bernard Rubin. He won again in 1929 with Tim Birkin in a Bentley Speed Six, then completed the hat-trick in 1930 with Glen Kidston, also in a Speed Six. These were his only Le Mans entries, giving him a perfect three-wins-from-three-starts record.

The achievement made Barnato one of the leading “Bentley Boys,” the group of wealthy and highly competitive British drivers associated with Bentley’s early endurance-racing success. His 1930 victory was especially hard-fought: the Bentley overcame the challenge of the Mercedes-Benz driven by Rudolf Caracciola and Christian Werner after that car retired with electrical problems.

A common mix-up is to credit Barnato’s 1929 victory solely to Bentley’s famous “Old Number One” or to confuse his teammates. Birkin partnered him in 1929, while Kidston was his co-driver in 1930.