by Unknown
‘Soon we ceased to be so intensely interested for the moment in Caracciola, but turned our attention to the struggle for second position. Despite his daring, Fagioli could not close up on the German, and astern he was being threatened by Nuvolari who, from seventh place on the first lap, had become fourth on the next two rounds, and on the fourth was lying third, right in the wash of the Maserati. It was thrilling to watch the crimson and the dark red Italian cars hurtling down the straightaway at over a hundred, a column of water rising from each wheel; to see the drivers brake and change down for the concreted grandstand bend and follow them downhill until they disappeared a mile away across country.
‘Closing up inch by inch, Nuvolari flashed past his compatriot immediately in front of the grandstands at the end of the seventh round. He held his place for a full round, then lost it to Fagioli, while on the tenth lap both men had to give way to the tempestuous onslaught of Louis Chiron who, though playing for safety at the outset, had now thrown away caution and was seeking to wrest the lead from Caracciola.’
Fagioli later went missing, but his team-mate Rene Dreyfus then stopped at the pits to report that Luigi’s Maserati had come to a halt with a stripped third gear. Nuvolari held third place behind Caracciola and Chiron until the last lap, when he was passed by his great rival, Achille Varzi. Driving his Bugatti superbly, Varzi set a new record lap in the process, with a time of 11 mins 48 secs.
Nuvolari was back at the Ring for the 1932 Grand Prix and this time Caracciola was his teammate, Rudi having joined Alfa Romeo following the withdrawal from racing of Mercedes-Benz. Rudi had already won the Eifel GP in May, when his 8С Monza was the only Alfa present, but for the main event Alfa entered three P3s, for Caracciola, Nuvolari and Baconin Borzacchini.
Their only real opposition came from the works Bugattis of Louis Chiron, Achille Varzi and Rene Dreyfus, but that was reduced when Varzi withdrew before the race. Despite this, some 150,000 spectators turned up and were rewarded with a pretty boring GP, which Caracciola won with ease.
He led from the start and although Nuvolari put on a spurt and passed him, to lead the race after 10 laps, Tazio ‘did not seem to be driving with his usual vim’, as W. F. Bradley noted in The Autocar. This was because Caracciola’s victory was a fait accompli, as Alfa Romeo’s Team Manager, Aldo Giovannini, had decided that it would be good for Alfa sales in Germany if a German driver won the German GP. Just to make the point, when Nuvolari stopped for fuel and new tyres it took the normally very efficient Alfa mechanics 2 mins 40 secs to get him back into the race, whereas Caracciola’s stop took just 1 min 35 secs. Tazio made his displeasure known with glares and curses but, no doubt mindful of Caracciola’s generous behaviour in the recent Monaco GP (See Ringmeister 1, Rudolf Caracciola), he made no complaint afterwards. He completed the race in second place, 30 seconds in arrears. He also set a new lap record with a time of 10 mins 49.4 secs. And Borzacchini finished third, making it a splendid 1,2,3 for Alfa Romeo.
Writing in L’Auto Italiana, journalist Corrado Filippini noted that, ‘Alfa Romeo’s victory proves one thing: that the Italian cars are absolutely the best. On the journey home from Nurburg Nuvolari, who is certainly no chatterbox, told us that winning is not very difficult for the drivers of the Alfa Romeo 2700 because there are no cars capable of challenging them. Nuvolari told us that at this point he feels the master of the field and starts confidently... So much so that Nuvolari suggests, with an air of coquetry, that he almost wishes that one or other of the manufacturers could produce a new type of car - then the races might become more interesting!’
Two years hence, Tazio’s wish would come true, and in no uncertain fashion, for MercedesBenz and Auto Union would enter the fray at the start of the new, 750 kg Formula. Meanwhile, in 1933 Nuvolari entered the Eifel GP for the first time but as Alfa Romeo had been nationalised at the beginning of the year, he was now driving for Scuderia Ferrari. The company had pulled out of competition and handed over its Racing Department to Enzo Ferrari. But not quite, for Enzo did not get the wonderful P3s - he had to make do with Monzas, one of which Nuvolari drove at the Ring.
As Hitler’s Nazi Party was now in power the event was graced, if that is the word, by the presence of Reichsminister Hermann Goering who, to open the proceedings, made a long speech extolling Germany’s friendship towards all nations!
The spectators who thronged the circuit were sadly disappointed by the absence of their great hero, Rudolf Caracciola, as the acknowledged Ringmeister (he had already won an astonishing six races there) was unable to take part. He had joined forces with Louis Chiron for the 1933 season and they had bought a brace of Monza Alfas, only for Rudi to crash badly during practice for the Monaco GP Chiron entered his Monza for the Eifel race, providing Nuvolari’s main opposition, together with the Mercedes SSKL of Manfred von Brauchitsch and the Monza Alfa of Piero Taruffi.
The French champion (winner of the German GP in 1929) led for the first three laps and put up a spirited fight with Nuvolari for the lead until lap seven, when his Alfa’s fuel tank sprang a leak, forcing him to stop for repairs. This allowed von Brauchitsch and Taruffi to pass him and Nuvolari ran out an easy winner, almost six minutes ahead of the big Mercedes. Reichsminister Goering congratulated Nuvolari on his victory and then made another speech, saying how happy he was that the Italian had won.
This win apart, things did not go well for Scuderia Ferrari and the Monza Alfas, to such an extent that Nuvolari walked out of his contract after failures in the GPs of Penya Rhin and Marne and joined Maserati. To rub salt in the wound he won his next race, the Belgian GP at Spa and was later victorious in the Coppa Acerbo and the Nice GP. All this proved very embarrassing to Alfa Romeo and six P3 Alfas quickly found their way to Modena.
But Nuvolari had burnt his bridges with Enzo Ferrari, so he stayed with Maserati for 1934 and found himself up against the new racing cars he had wished for a couple of years earlier. In response to the demands of Germany’s new Chancellor, Adolf Hitler, Mercedes-Benz - the oldest car manufacturer in the world returned to Grand Prix racing and the challenge was also taken up by the newest, Auto Union, a company formed in 1932 by the amalgamation of Audi, Horch, Wanderer and DKW Professor Ferdinand Porsche produced a design for a mid-engined, V16 racing car, which became the Auto Union and joined Mercedes in the battle for supremacy on the race tracks.
Surprisingly, neither team sought the services of either Nuvolari or Varzi, who were a) undoubtedly the finest drivers around at the time, with Caracciola’s return still in question and b) available. Equally surprising was Alfred Neubauer’s decision to sign Luigi Fagioli to the Mercedes team. Fagioli was fast and aggressive, certainly, but no one (except the man himself) considered him to be the equal of the other two Italians. Nuvolari got his first look at the Auto Union at AVUS, where he finished fifth in the Maserati. Enzo Ferrari had his revenge on Tazio, as the race was a great success for the Scuderia, with Guy Moll and Achille Varzi finishing first and second in the Alfas.
Mercedes-Benz made their debut in the Eifel GP at the Nurburg-Ring where they won first time out. Nuvolari’s Maserati failed after seven laps. He had better luck in the German GP, finishing fourth, but he was still behind a Scuderia Ferrari Alfa, that of Louis Chiron. And ahead of them both were two German cars, the Auto Union of the victorious Hans Stuck and the Mercedes of Luigi Fagioli. The writing was on the wall for the Italians, and Nuvolari and Varzi took a close look.
Socially, the two men got along pretty well and, back in 1928, had joined forces, buying two Bugattis and racing as a private team. Their rivalry on the track was such, however, that this was never going to work and Varzi soon went his own way, vowing never to be on the same team as Nuvolari again. Looking to 1935, both he and Nuvolari knew that Mercedes were going to retain Fagioli and would not employ another Italian. But Auto Union were seriously short of a great driver (pace Hans Stuck) so Varzi was quickest off the mark, doing numerous laps in an Auto Union at Monza in September, where the team was test
ing prior to the Italian GP. It was Nuvolari’s turn during practice for the Spanish GP in September and a week later at Brno. He was very impressed with the V16, but so was Varzi and, more importantly, Auto Union had been sufficiently impressed with him that they gave him an official reception in Chemnitz in November.
Nuvolari’s hopes were finally dashed early in December when he received a letter from Dr Richard Voelter, the team’s Press and Public Relations Officer, informing him that ‘certain other drivers we have signed for 1935 have expressed doubts on the subject of your engagement.’ That could only mean Hans Stuck and Achille Varzi, who had clearly persuaded Professor Porsche and Team Manager Willy Walb that with Varzi on board, they did not need Nuvolari.
With Varzi gone from Scuderia Ferrari the team was left with two French drivers, Louis Chiron and Rene Dreyfus, which did not sit well with Italy’s dictator, Benito Mussolini. He made it very clear that he wanted Ferrari and Nuvolari to kiss and make up and, just in case Tazio did not get the message, he put up a prize of 50,000 lire for the Italian Drivers’ Championship, which was open only to Italian drivers in Italian cars. Nuvolari led a modest life, so it was not so much the money which won him over, as the appeal to his patriotism that was made by Enzo Ferrari and Vittorio Jano, designer of the now legendary P3 Alfa Romeo. Ferrari had lost Varzi to Auto Union and now he and Nuvolari had to admit that they needed each other. Tazio signed with the Scuderia for 1935. In the end, it was he who got the better deal, for although Varzi won three major races for Auto Union in 1935 and ‘36, in the same period Nuvolari won seven for Scuderia Ferrari, including the one that would make him a legend at the NurburgRing and give him the title that would never be bestowed upon Varzi - that of Ringmeister.
By the time the teams arrived at the NurburgRing at the end of July Mercedes-Benz were on a roll, having entered seven races to date and won them all. This was in no small way due to the wonderful renaissance of Rudolf Caracciola, who had made a remarkable recovery from his Monaco crash. He had won four of those seven races, including the Eifel GP, showing that the first -and so far the only - Ringmeister was back at the top of his form. Rudi must have been everyone’s sentimental favourite to win the German Grand Prix, for the fourth time.
Nuvolari was having a pretty good season with Scuderia Ferrari, having won four races. However, there had been no German opposition and where the German teams had been present his best result had been third (behind the Mercedes of Fagioli and Caracciola) in the Penya Rhin GP. At the Nurburg-Ring, the red cars were outnumbered nine to three by the silver ones. The simple truth was that the supercharged Alfas were no match for the supercharged Silver Arrows despite the fact that they now had Dubonnet front suspension and that the engines in the P3s of Nuvolari and Chiron, which had been enlarged to 3.8 litres in time for the French GP at Montlhery, were retained for the German GP. (The correct capacity was a contentious issue for many years as it was widely believed that all the Scuderia Ferrari Alfas were powered by the 3.2-litre engines in this race. The use of the larger units was eventually confirmed by the eminent Alfa Romeo historian, Luigi Fusi).
Even so, the P3s were still down on power compared to the Silver Arrows, their straight-eights producing 330 bhp, as opposed to the 375 bhp of the 5-litre, V16 Auto Union and the 430 bhp of the 3.9-litre straight-eight of the W25 Mercedes-Benz.
Scuderia Ferrari got the best and the worst of the draw for starting positions. Nuvolari found himself in the centre of the front row, between Hans Stuck (Auto Union) and privateer Renate Balestrero (Alfa Romeo), and Antonio Brivio (3.2litre Alfa Romeo) was right at the back on row eight. Manfred von Brauchitsch (Mercedes) was on row two; Chiron and Caracciola on row three and Fagioli (Mercedes), Rosemeyer and Varzi (Auto Unions) on row five.
In The Autocar, W.F. Bradley set the scene:
‘The cars are pushed up to the start as files of Nazi troopers parade and impressive anthems blare from the loudspeakers. They are arrayed upon the grid, while the usual murmur of excitement from the serried crowds grows louder and louder. But soon, as 11 am, the hour of the start, approaches, all other sounds are drowned by the roar of exhausts as engines are started. In a few seconds even these give place to the shrill sounds of the Mercedes superchargers, and then an electric signal - similar to a traffic light - releases the champing cars.
‘There is never a dull moment at the Nurburg-Ring,’ continued Bradley, ‘for though the lap measures 14.2 miles there are announcing stations at several points around the course, notably at the famous Karussell hairpin... Nor are the loudspeakers the only source of information, for an ingenious score board with changing numbers indicates to the people at the grandstand the order in which cars pass at a point about two miles distant, before they come into sight. A shrill scream is heard in the distance, and Caracciola’s silver car flashes into sight, already leading from Nuvolari by 12 secs.’
Despite his fine start, Nuvolari was soon swallowed up by Bernd Rosemeyer (Auto Union), Luigi Fagioli (Auto Union) and Louis Chiron, (Alfa Romeo). Scuderia Ferrari’s hopes were dented on the opening lap when the final drive on Brivio’s car failed. Things went from bad to worse on lap five when Chiron’s car suffered the same fate. Happily unaware that he was now on his own, Tazio Nuvolari began his assault on the leaders.
‘Nuvolari is increasing speed!’ wrote W.F. Bradley. ‘On the ninth lap he is up to second place, with von Brauchitsch pressing him hard. As they come back behind the pits the Mercedes gets by again, but the announcer at the Karussell, almost incoherent with excitement, tells us that at that point the Italian has retaken second place and is close on Caracciola’s heels.
‘The excitement at the grandstands is indescribable. People stand up and none has time to cry “Sit down!” now. Here they are! Nuvolari leads! Rosemeyer is second! Rosemeyer - he has passed Caracciola. “Caratsch” is on his tail, and von Brauchitsch wheel-to-wheel behind. There they go down the valley. It is tremendous. Now von Brauchitsch is past Caracciola, and Rosemeyer worries Nuvolari’s rear wheels. Gone! It is a relief to sit back for a while after those crowded moments of excitement.’
On lap nine Nuvolari set fastest lap of the day with 10 mins 57.4 mph, the first time the Ring had been officially lapped in under 11 minutes. This record lasted precisely one lap, for Rosemeyer then reduced it to 10’ 55.1”. The relief that Bradley wrote of did not last long, either, for at the end of he eleventh lap - half-distance - all four leading cars stopped at the pits, Nuvolari being followed in by Rosemeyer, von Brauchitsch and Caracciola, to the great delight of all in the grandstand. The Mercedes and Auto Union pitwork was a model of efficiency: von Brauchitsch was away after just 47 seconds and Caracciola after 67. Rosemeyer was halted for 1 min 15 secs, but poor Nuvolari’s stop took an eternity. As Louis Chiron gave him a drink broke off, so the mechanics had to grab churns and pour the fuel into the funnel while a furious Nuvolari danced up and down and waved his arms about in exasperation. However, his Alfa Romeo was fitted with Englebert’s special ‘Nurburg-Ring’ tyres, which had 6 mm treads instead of the usual 4 mm. This was to be a crucial factor in the outcome of the race. He finally shot back into the fray after 2 mins 14 secs, now in sixth place.To the spectators (not to mention the Mercedes and Auto Union teams) it must have seemed as though Nuvolari was out of contention, for that disastrous pit stop had lost him 87 seconds to von Brauchitsch, who was now in what was surely a secure lead, with Caracciola backing him up. Unfortunately for Manfred, Tazio didn’t see it that way and the next time he passed the pits he was in second place! He had overtaken Stuck, Caracciola, Fagioli and Rosemeyer (the latter making for his pit with engine problems) in that one fantastic lap, which must stand as one of the all-time great lapsof the Nurburg-Ring. Would that there had been a cine camera mounted on the Alfa!
But von Brauchitsch was no easy prey for Nuvolari. He had won the Eifel GP for Mercedes the previous year and was not about to let the German GP slip through his fingers. After the twelfth lap he had a lead of 1 min 9 secs. He then set
a new lap record with a time of 10 mins 30 secs and after 15 laps had extended his lead over Nuvolari to 1 min 27 secs. Then the gap started to come down as Nuvolari, secure in the knowledge that his tyres would last the distance, drove like one inspired and von Brauchitsch, whose style was never going to win any prizes for smoothness, wore the rubber on his rear tyres nearer and nearer to the canvas. At the end of lap 16 the Mercedes was 1 min 17 secs ahead of the Alfa, then the gap was 63 secs, then 47, then 43 and then, after 20 of the 22 laps it was down to 32 secs. In the Mercedes pits Team Manager Alfred Neubauer was keeping his man advised of his lead, well aware that von Brauchitsch was harder on his tyres than most, but knowing that a pit stop would hand the race to Nuvolari. He must have been in two minds when Manfred gained three seconds on his pursuer on the penultimate tour. Surely, not even Nuvolari could make up 35 seconds in one lap, but would the tyres on the Mercedes survive the pounding von Brauchitsch was giving them?
The answer Neubauer was dreading came from the announcer at the Karussell, who bellowed into his microphone that a rear tyre had burst asunder. Going into the Karussell for the last time, the left rear on the Mercedes gave up the ghost and within moments Nuvolari was ahead. The news was received in stunned silence in the grandstand and pits. Nuvolari took the chequered flag and was followed home by Hans Stuck (Auto Union) and Rudolf Caracciola (Mercedes-Benz), with Bernd Rosemeyer (Auto Union) in fourth place.
‘But one more scene is to be played in this finest of all races,’ wrote W.F. Bradley, ‘von Brauchitsch is signalled on the indicator board. All hats go off, every man begins to cheer and clap, long before he comes into sight! von Brauchitsch, leader till five miles from the finish, brings his gallant Mercedes over the line on the rim! von Brauchitsch climbs from his car. He is crying like a child. So ends a drama.’ So Tazio Nuvolari became King of the Nurburg-Ring, but such had been the dominance of Mercedes that season that no one had considered anything but a Mercedes victory and Major Adolf Huhnlein was going to have some explaining to do to his Fuhrer. More to the immediate point, the officials had, of course, brought along a record of the German National Anthem, Deutschland uber Alles, to be played over the loudspeakers after the German victory, but now that Nuvolari had won, there was an embarrassing silence, as the Italian National Anthem was not to hand. But Tazio put one over the Germans here, too, as he always took a record of the Marcia Reale to the circuits for luck and soon produced it for the announcer’s gramophone. To their credit, the Germans gave it, and him, a roaring reception, for he was enormously popular in Germany, as everywhere else, and he had scored a truly sensational victory.