by Unknown
The season was dominated by Bernd Rosemeyer, who won five races for Auto Union and with them the Drivers’ Championship in only his second year of racing. It was an astonishing achievement and one would have thought Caracciola would have had some words of praise for Bernd in his autobiography but no, all he writes is:
‘In 1936 young Bernd Rosemeyer won victory after victory and the European Championship became his.’ And that’s it - no pat on the back for Rosemeyer and no word of explanation for the abject failure of the Mercedes team.
Indeed, what Caracciola leaves out of his autobiography is often more revealing than what he includes and it is hard not to ascribe an inferiority complex to him in this instance. First of all, having to fight off a complete novice on the circuit he called his own in the 1935 Eifel GP must have shaken him to the core. Had it been Nuvolari, Fagioli, Chiron or even von Brauchitsch, fair enough, but Bernd who??? And to add insult to injury Rosemeyer had then declared himself King of the Nurburg-Ring by winning the 1936 Eifel and German Grands Prix.
Clearly, young Bernd had become Rudi’s bete noir. However, help was at hand. Before the season was over Mercedes-Benz withdrew from racing in order to re-group for 1937. They brought in a brilliant, 30 year-old engineer named Rudolf Uhlenhaut as Technical Director and, over the winter, he developed the car - the fabulous W125 – that would enable Caracciola to regain his NurburgRing crown, but not just yet.
Uhlenhaut dispensed with the old, box-section chassis of the W25 and designed an oval tubular frame that was 14 ins/ 35.5 cm longer than before. Front suspension was now by wishbone and coil springs, the rear by de Dion and the engine was an improved version of the old straight-eight, but enlarged to 5.6 litres and producing, initially, a remarkable 580 bhp, with plenty more to come. The new Mercedes won first time out at Tripoli, where Hermann Lang scored the first of his hattrick of victories there.
Auto Union wisely left their wonderful CTypes well alone for 1937 and sent four of them to contest the Eifel GP. For the first time at the Nurburg-Ring, the starting grid was decided by practice times and Rosemeyer won pole position with an astonishing 9 mins 57.0 secs. Beside him on the three-two-three grid were von Brauchitsch and Caracciola, with Lang and Hasse on row two. The Scuderia Ferrari Alfas of Nuvolari and Nino Farina were on row three with the Auto Union of von Delius.
Rosemeyer led from the start, but as they roared past the back of the pits into the North Turn it was the Mercedes of Caracciola in the lead. ‘The speed was terrifying through the curves on the far side of the course.’ wrote Rodney Walkerley in The Motor. ‘Caracciola came along almost broadside, but straightened without effort, foot hard down into the next bend...’
His lead was short-lived, for on lap two Rosemeyer passed him with a lap in 9 mins 58.4 secs, only to be repassed almost at once. On lap three Bernd recorded 10 mins 03 secs to Caracciola’s 10’ 07”, taking the lead again. At the end of lap four Rudi’s challenge faded as he rumbled into the pits with a rear tyre in tatters. His stop for two rear wheels cost 38 seconds, but on the next lap Rosemeyer was detained for less than 30 and rejoined the race some 45 seconds ahead of Caracciola.
Bernd took the chequered flag after 10 laps having extended his lead by another five seconds. He had emulated Caracciola’s feat of three wins in a row at the Nurburg-Ring, but the Mercedes W125 had proved itself to be a real threat to the Auto Union and Caracciola would finally have his revenge in the German GP Six days after the Eifel GP, Rudi married Baby in Lugano, Switzerland. She had long ago divorced Freddie Hoffmann and when Louis Chiron made it clear that he would not marry her, she left him for the man who would. They honeymooned aboard the Bremen and in New York, where Mercedes and Auto Union were contesting the Vanderbilt Cup.
Almost inevitably, it was won by Bernd Rosemeyer.
But Caracciola’s luck was about to change and, almost inevitably, it did so at the NurburgRing where, three weeks later, he won the German Grand Prix. Rosemeyer won pole position with 9 mins 46.2 secs, no fewer than 10 seconds better than his fastest lap of the year before. Beside him were Hermann Lang with 9’ 52.2” and von Brauchitsch on 9’ 55.1”. Caracciola and Nuvolari filled the second row, with 10’ 04.0” and 10’ 08.4” respectively.
As was his wont, Caracciola won the race by stealth, rather than bravado. He left the latter to Rosemeyer and Lang, who took off like scalded cats to lead the first few laps. Then early on lap four Rosemeyer hit a bank and lost a rear wheel nut. As a result the tyre shredded and he had to make a lengthy pit stop to repair the damage and replace the wheel.
Caracciola now led and was never headed for the rest of the race. After six laps the Grand Prix appeared to be a Mercedes benefit, with Caracciola leading von Brauchitsch, Lang and Dick Seaman. Sadly, on the very next lap Seaman was involved in a high-speed crash with the Auto Union of Ernst von Delius. Seaman was hospitalised with cuts and bruises, but the popular von Delius subsequently died of his injuries.
Meanwhile Rosemeyer was driving like a man possessed in an effort to make up lost time, enjoying a fierce battle with Nuvolari (Alfa Romeo) and eventually beating him to third place, behind Caracciola and von Brauchitsch.
‘Rudi Caracciola did not set up any records,’ noted Alfred Neubauer in Speed Was My Life. ‘He drove an exemplary race, cool and calculated, a tactical masterpiece that wasted not an inch on the bends and strained neither the engine or the tyres.
The German Grand Prix of 1937 was his wedding present to his blonde wife, Baby. The year before it had been Bernd Rosemeyer’s. That was the tenth German Grand Prix. Five of them had been won by Mercedes and on all five occasions Rudi Caracciola was the winning driver.’ (Not so - Caracciola had won four for Mercedes and one for Alfa Romeo. Otto Merz had scored Mercedes’ fifth victory.)
For Caracciola himself it was not just the wedding present that made the victory so sweet – he was King of the Nurburg-Ring once again, having beaten his bete noir, Bernd Rosemeyer, at the fourth attempt. This time he made his feelings clear in A Racing Driver’s World: ‘I had won the Grand Prix of Greater Germany and with it the coveted Adolf Hitler prize. It was a great, heavy bronze trophy... The trophy was given to me after the race at the Nurburg-Ring. Bernd Rosemeyer stood next to me. He was chewing on his cigarette and spitting out specks of tobacco. Never before had I seen him so disappointed and dejected.’
Revenge is sweet, indeed and it became even sweeter when Caracciola won three more races, to 1938 Italian GP. Caracciola’s car is #12 regain the European Drivers’ Championship from Rosemeyer. But feelings of revenge were swept away in January, 1938, when Bernd was killed while trying to beat Caracciola’s new speed record on the Frankfurt-Darmstadt autobahn. In his autobiography Rudi recalled going to the 20th anniversary memorial service for Bernd. ‘I imagined him with us again, the slim blond boy, laughing and joking in his customary fashion...
‘In that hellish tempo we imposed upon each other everything was mercilessly hard. We did not give a second to each other. It was his wild, stormy youth against the experience of an opponent ten years older. I was thirty-seven then, Rosemeyer twenty-seven. He wanted to push me off my throne, whereas I wanted to sit there a while longer, at least until a new generation of racing drivers came along.’ And sit there he did, until the end of the decade.
There was a new Formula in 1938, as the powers-that-be had decided that the current cars, with no limit on engine size, were becoming too fast. For 1938-39 they imposed a maximum weight of 850 kg, with a maximum engine capacity of 4.5 litres unsupercharged or 3 litres supercharged. It was no surprise that both Mercedes-Benz and Auto Union opted for the latter. Mercedes produced the W154 and Auto Union the D-Type, which was designed by Professor Robert Eberan von Eberhorst, as Professor Porsche’s contract with Auto Union had expired. There was no Eifel GP in 1938 but for the German GP Mercedes sent four cars for Caracciola, von Brauchitsch, Lang and Seaman. Auto Union were still shattered by the death of Rosemeyer, but one legend was replaced by another when Tazio Nuvolari joined t
he team in time for the Grand Prix. The other cars were for Stuck, Muller and Hasse, so once again it was, in reality, one Auto Union against the four Mercedes.
Caracciola qualified fourth fastest, failing to break 10 minutes yet again, but practice times were never very important to him. Hermann Lang, however, recorded a sensational 9 mins 48.4 secs, which was just 2.2 sees outside Rosemeyer’s pole time the previous year in the 6-litre Auto Union.
Lang led from the start, followed by Seaman, Caracciola and von Brauchitsch, Nuvolari having gone off the road on the opening lap. Caracciola was feeling unwell, however, and on lap 10 handed his car to Lang, whose own Mercedes was suffering from oiled plugs. Manfred von Brauchitsch looked set for victory until his car caught fire in the pits and so Dick Seaman inherited the lead, becoming the first Englishman to win the German GP Nothing daunted, Rudi went on to win his third Drivers’ Championship.
Although Bernd Rosemeyer was no longer around to pressure him, the 38 year-old Caracciola now had two other younger men snapping at his heels, and both were in his own team. Hermann Lang and Dick Seaman were extremely talented and each knew that he had the talent to be the best. Lang made this very clear in the 1939 Eifel Grand Prix when he won pole position and the race.
No fewer than 13 Silver Arrows appeared at the Nurburg-Ring for the meeting. Both teams planned to run five drivers, but Auto Union brought seven cars and Mercedes six. For the former the drivers were to be Nuvolari, Stuck, Hasse, Muller and newcomers Ulli Bigalke and Schorsch Meier who, like Muller, was a motorcycle ace. Mercedes entered Caracciola, von Brauchitsch, Lang, Seaman and Walter Baumer.
In practice Lang won pole position with a stunning 9 mins 55.2 secs. Caracciola broke the 10-minute barrier for the first time with 9’ 57.4», but was 0.2 secs slower than Nuvolari. (At 47, Tazio was nine years older than Rudi, but still very much a threat in the Auto Union). The Mercedes of Seaman and von Brauchitsch filled the second row with 9’ 58.3» and 9’ 58.9» respectively.
It seems the crowd was not as large as usual, for Adolf Hitler had proclaimed that Sunday to be Mothers’ Day, and thousands of Germans spent the weekend with their families, rather than go to the Nurburg-Ring.
At the end of the opening lap Lang led by 13 seconds from von Brauchitsch, who was six seconds ahead of Caracciola. Seaman was already out of the running with a defective clutch. On lap two Caracciola went round in 9’ 59.0», passing von Brauchitsch in the process, and then recorded 9’54.0», just shy of Rosemeyer’s outright record of 9’53.4». Nuvolari now passed von Brauchitsch and Lang made an early pit stop on lap four, but the Mercedes mechanics changed his rear wheels, refuelled him and had him back in the race after 32 seconds, so he now lay second, between Caracciola and Nuvolari.
Rudi pitted on lap six, but his stop took 37 secs, which left him in third place. Next time round and Lang broke Rosemeyer’s outright record with a lap in 9’ 52.2”. Nuvolari strove mightily, but he could do nothing about Lang, who won the race by 12 seconds from the Italian, with Caracciola third.
Still not recovered from the death of Bernd Rosemeyer, the Grand Prix world was dealt another blow in June when Dick Seaman was killed while leading the Belgian GP in the rain at Spa.
In the circumstances, it was of very minor importance that Caracciola, the Regenmeister, should spin off the road in that race. However, when he crashed out of the French GP at Reims on the opening lap two weeks later, there were many who felt that his powers were waning under the increasing attacks of Hermann Lang, who had won the first four races of the season and was clearly the fastest driver in the world now. Characteristically however, Rudi re-asserted his authority in the next race - the German Grand Prix at the Nurburg-Ring.
By now the political situation was such that it was clear that this was not only going to be the last German GP of the decade, but for some time to come and maybe forever, unless Adolf Hitler came to his senses. This did not prevent a large crowd from attending the race, although in The Motor, Rodney Walkerley noted that it was ‘much smaller than usual - at least 250,000 people.’
Mercedes entered only four cars this time, for Caracciola, Lang, von Brauchitsch and Heinz Brendel, but Auto Union presented five, for Nuvolari, Stuck, Muller, Hasse and Meier. The ‘opposition’ comprised an 8С Alfa for Raymond Sommer and two 3-litre, eight-cylinder Maseratis for Luigi Villoresi and Paul Pietsch, formerly of Auto Union. The rest were just also-rans. As expected, Hermann Lang put his W154 on pole position with a stunning lap in 9’ 43.1”. Mercedes filled the front row, with von Brauchitsch (9’51.0”) and Caracciola (9’ 56.0”) beside Lang. On the second row were Muller (9’ 59.3”) and Brendel, who had recorded a fine 10’ 09.4”. Nuvolari had a troubled practice and could only do 10’ 11.2”. Paul Pietsch was also on the third row, having done an excellent 10’ 14.0” in the Maserati.
On race day there was typical Eifel weather, with heavy clouds and mists over the forests and rain was very much on the cards. Manfred von Brauchitsch made one of his demon starts, but as the cars headed into the North Turn it was Lang who led, to such effect that he flashed past the pits 28 seconds ahead of von Brauchitsch. Then came Muller and, surprisingly, Paul Pietsch, who was ahead of Caracciola.
‘Right from the start the race went crazy,’ wrote Rodney Walkerley in The Motor. ‘Nothing seemed to go according to plan. Troubles smote all and sundry. First of all, on the second lap, Pietsch passed nearly everyone and went into second place and sat just behind Lang, the Maserati emitting a beautiful scream. Then, as they swept on to the plateau at the start, Lang stopped for plugs. Pietsch flashed past into the lead and there, on his tail, sat Nuvolari, shaking his fist and bursting himself to get by... Nuvolari duly got past Pietsch in the next few miles and led the race, so the order was - Nuvolari, Muller, Caracciola, Pietsch.’
The damp weather was playing havoc with carburetter settings and von Brauchitsch, Pietsch and Nuvolari were all affected. On lap six Tazio stopped for new plugs, allowing Rudi to take the lead. Stuck had retired with a broken fuel pipe, Brendel crashed on lap four and von Brauchitsch was sidelined with a broken fuel pipe two laps later. This left Caracciola alone to do battle with four Auto Unions, and it was raining.
The Regenmeister stopped for tyres, fuel and plugs on lap nine and then Muller stopped also, but whereas the Auto Union was stationary for just 40 seconds, it was 1 min 21 secs before the Mercedes was on its way again. Hasse now led, with Muller second, Caracciola third and Nuvolari fourth, but with softer plugs in the Mercedes the worsening conditions played right into Caracciola’s soft hands. He caught Muller on lap 11 and Hasse the next time round, just before the latter went off the road. Schorsch Meier had a stub axle break on his Auto Union on lap 11 and then on lap 19 Nuvolari’s Auto Union blew up, and so of the nine Silver Arrows that had started there were just two remaining. At the end of the 18th lap Caracciola made a 17-second stop for fuel and rejoined the race 13 second ahead of Muller. Two laps later Muller, too, stopped for a top-up and the race was Rudi’s.
At last he found something to say about the Nurburg-Ring in his autobiography: ‘My heart was dancing;’ he wrote, ‘I heard the high, singing, metallic sound of my car and I was driving on my beloved Nurburg-Ring, the fastest record lap to victory (sic) - my sixth victory in the German Grand Prix.’
His fastest lap wasn’t a record by any means.
He completed the 20th in 10’ 24.2”, which was the fastest of the day, to be sure, due to the very slippery conditions, which also meant that the Mercedes-Benz W154 - the fastest car of the 1930s – produced the slowest race average since the 750 kg Formula had begun in 1934, Rudi completing the 22 laps at 75.31 mph/121.2 kph.
‘Caracciola ended his long run of bad luck by a masterly victory for Mercedes.’ noted Motor Sport. ‘He not only drove with all his old skill on the slippery course, but won his victory by splendid tactics, using only just sufficient speed to keep his rivals at bay.’
That, of course, was so typical of Rudolf Caracciola. While the likes of R
osemeyer, Nuvolari and von Brauchitsch could be almost guaranteed to produce fireworks in the cockpit, employing lightning reflexes and an acute sense of balance to keep the car pointing anywhere but straight ahead, Caracciola would win almost by stealth, his driving creamy smooth and unremarkable except for its phenomenal speed and consistency. And it paid off handsomely, for of all the drivers of the 1930s he was by far the most successful, winning 15 Grands Prix from 52 starts and three European Drivers’ Championships into the bargain.
His victory in the 1939 German GP was the last of his career and the last German GP for 11 years, because Adolf Hitler did not come to his senses and brought about a global catastrophe a few weeks later. As a very minor detail, he also brought to a close the first chapter in the history of the fabulous Nurburg-Ring and it was entirely appropriate that the man who won the very first race in that chapter should also win the last. It was his ninth victory in 18 starts and the King of the Kings was back on his throne.
TAZIO NUVOLARI
1931 - 1939
Tazio Nuvolari’s reputation as a Ringmeister rests principally on one remarkable performance, his victory with the P3 Alfa Romeo in the German Grand Prix of 1935. That was one of the greatest upsets in racing history and it makes him something of a conundrum, for the Alfa was by then in its fourth season, yet in 1938 and ‘39, when he was driving the state-of-the-art Auto Union, he was unable to win either the Eifel or the German GP, his best result being second in the 1939 Eifel race.
He first appeared at the Ring in 1931, driving a straight-eight Alfa Romeo 8C, the only Alfa in the Grand Prix that year. It was raining heavily as the cars left the grid and neither Nuvolari nor anyone else could do anything about Rudolf Caracciola in the huge, SSKL Mercedes, but for some laps Tazio had a fine battle with Luigi Fagioli (Maserati), as W. F. Bradley reported in The Autocar: