The next year there were 11 cars, 9 of them French, but only 4 finishers, the first 3 being Delages again. The race was run in a driving rainstorm with the cars invisible in smoke and spray once they had passed the pits, and inaudible because of adverse winds. Spectators declared it was a most eerie spectacle, though not a particularly exciting one. Pit stops were frequent, but the rain was too thick for spectators to see much of what was going on—or even for mechanics to see what they themselves were doing. In the rain and dark and confusion more than one driver had gasoline poured down his back, and one British pit crew threw up its hands completely, retreated to a parked sedan, and attempted to flash pit signals from there.
After this, Grand Prix racing lapsed in Britain, not too surprisingly. It took a British driver (Seaman), the tension of an approaching world war, and the colossal roar and power of German cars (Mercedes and Auto-Union), to bring it back again. The ungodly thunder of the German machines was the greatest drawing card motor racing has ever had, or is likely to have. People came to watch them out of a compulsive fear. It was fear of man himself, of the power he was capable of containing and compressing for a time, and was then willing to sit on top of. And it was fear of the Germans, of the new holocaust they were about to loose, of which the great silver cars were a symbol. The world was about to erupt; as the cars roared past the pits men felt the portentous rumblings within the volcano. It made the horror to come a little less unknown, and thus a little less frightening.
In 1933, the first and only real road-racing circuit Britain has ever had was opened at Donington Park. The circuit was 3.8 miles per lap, contained almost no real straight, swung through a forest and two copses, raced past a country inn, slid downhill into a hairpin turn, executed a 180-degree turn, and sped uphill just as steeply. There were only three small grandstands, and the road was quite narrow—but it had built-in atmosphere. A man watching a race at Donington Park could feel tension and drama. When the British Grand Prix was exhumed there in 1937, more than 65,000 turned out for the show.
The race was organized by the Royal Automobile Club, by Mr. J. G. Shields who owned Donington Park, and by Dick Seaman himself, then 24 and in his first year with the Mercedes team. It was Seaman who negotiated the delicate question of starting money for the two German teams, Mercedes and Auto-Union.
Mercedes sent four cars, for Seaman, Manfred von Brauchitsch, Herman Lang, and Rudi Caracciola. Auto-Union sent three: for Bernd Rosemeyer, Hans Muller, and Rudolf Hasse. There were nine other entries, described in the press of the day as a "gallant assortment" of British drivers and cars, including Lord Howe, who arrived with a gigantic colored umbrella to keep his car dry at the start if it rained.
The Germans arrived the Wednesday before the race, bringing as much paraphernalia as a circus. Vans, trucks, and trailers rolled up to the pit area and unloaded a mountain of spare tires and several tons of additional equipment. Unloaded also were dozens of engineers, mechanics, and technicians, including a special chemist for mixing fuel for the race cars. During the first practice, it turned out that this chap had got his ratio wrong, the cars did not go very fast, and he was sent back to the Fatherland in disgrace.
Later practices showed that the slowest of the German cars could lap nine seconds faster than the swiftest of the British.
"It was rather a job to know what to do with so many horses," remarked Seaman coolly.
He qualified fourth behind two other Mercedes and Rosemeyer's Auto-Union. He had not yet won a race for Mercedes, and probably most of the British fans hoped he could win there. However, he collided with Muller's Auto-Union on the second lap, broke a shock absorber, and soon retired.
The crowd sighed its disappointment, but did not stay disappointed long. Instead, it found itself thrilled, overawed, and overwhelmed by the Germans. Never had Britain seen anything like them. They were devastatingly noisy and the earth shook as they leaped away from the start. Around the left-hand corner at Red Gate Lodge they disappeared, but the noise, hanging like smoke, seemed as loud and cacophonous as ever. There was, as the cars sped by again, the thunderous roar of exhaust. Above it screamed the superchargers of the Mercedes and the peculiar raucous wail of the stubby Auto-Unions.
This race was more spectacular than anyone had believed possible. Coming up the steep hill toward the pits there was a slight ridge across the road. Over it the cars seemed to leap like beasts rather than machines. At McLean's Corner in the woods there was a right-hand bend, a rough snapper of a turn, and now the fans watched aghast as all seven German machines roared round it flat out. No English driver or car had ever dared that turn so fast.
On lap 21 the German pits made ready to receive their cars. The British fans had heard about this and they waited for it with hearts in their throats. They had already had more excitement than they could stand. It seemed impossible that a simple pit stop could thrill them, yet— they had heard stories that could not be credited.
Now down the slip screeched von Brauchitsch, his car snaking as he stood on his brakes. Around it swarmed the pit crew. Fuel was pressure-fed into his tank at the rate of five gallons a second, rear wheels were hammered off and replaced by new ones, von Brauchitsch was handed a bottle of water, clean goggles, and was away again. Elapsed time: 33 seconds.
The crowd gasped, and leaned forward to watch the other cars come in in turn. For a moment the race was forgotten. England had never before seen such concentration, such speed, such efficiency.
The Briton, Raymond Mays, pulled up in his E.R.A. to take on fuel. More than a minute passed before Mays restarted, and his crew had not touched his wheels at all. In came Lord Howe, his fuel waiting in chums beside the pit counter. In fury and haste he began dumping them in, but got so tired and excited that he poured the last one all over the car and himself.
The crowd sadly commiserated with him, then turned back to admire the fantastic discipline of the admirable Germans. The Germans were incredible. The Germans were invincible!
Tune after time, the polite and orderly British cars pulled over to let the Germans rocket by. Rosemeyer had the race in his pocket now. Only von Brauchitsch had been challenging him; then a blowout settled it. Before von Brauchitsch got back to his pits, got a wheel changed, and got away again, Rosemeyer's lead was insurmountable. He won in just over three hours at an average speed of nearly 83 miles an hour. Only five cars finished within the time limit, three Auto-Unions and two Mercedes. By the time the blond young Rosemeyer had crossed the finish line, the awed crowd could contain its feelings no longer. Down it swept onto the circuit, to mill about these wondrous German machines and the gods who drove them. Forgotten completely were the "gallant" Britishers who were far behind and struggling through the crowds to complete the necessary laps. None of them ever made it.
As for Rosemeyer, the Donington Park Grand Prix was his last race. He was killed the following January trying to set records on the autobahn near Frankfurt. He was very young, very blond, good looking with bright white teeth and a charmingly boyish smile. He had a wife and infant son. All of Germany loved him. A gust of wind blew him off the road at 270 miles an hour. He lay in a wood and looked at the sky as if still breathing.
He was probably the only man who ever loved the ugly, snub-nosed, rear-engined Auto-Unions. It was a vicious car and only Rosemeyer was able to tear from its screaming entrails all the speed and power of which it was capable. With him died a car. The Auto-Unions never won consistently again.
The 1937 German cars were the biggest, most powerful, fastest, most frightening race cars ever built. They nearly killed Grand Prix racing everywhere but in Germany. Because of the insatiable demands of Adolf Hitler, the world was now taut with tension; people were definitely afraid of Germans and of what Germans could do with power in their hands. The great silver cars were more than a symbol, they were a warning. And every thinking man who watched them knew it.
For 1938, the Formula (the specifications of Grand Prix cars) was changed in a hopeful, but futil
e, attempt to alter the balance of power, to mask the smug German smile. The new cars had to be smaller and, necessarily, less fast. Horsepower rating dropped from over 600 (and more than 200 miles an hour top speed) in 1937, to slightly over 400 in 1938. But the smaller engine meant a sleeker car, and speeds dropped hardly at all. Nor could any other car, even now, race as fast as the Germans. And so the sport of motor racing nearly died. Crowds fell off. People did not want to be reminded by the great swift cars that there was no known refuge from the power threatening to swallow up Europe.
As for the British Grand Prix itself, it was scheduled for October 1, the day Hitler had declared he would march into Czechoslovakia.
The German drivers and cars, and their mountains of equipment, had arrived at Donington Park the week before. All was ready for another crushing victory. They had nothing to fear, except the likes of the "indomitable" Percy Maclure's 2-liter Riley. The Germans had, as usual, brought elephant guns to hunt squirrel.
On Sunday, September 25, Hitler made a coarse, vitriolic speech ordering the Czechs to clear out of the Sudetenland the next day. A million and a half armed Czechs waited for the onslaught behind fortified lines. On Monday came news that Germany was mobilizing. And at dawn Tuesday morning the German teams quit Donington Park in haste, hurrying to get back home before war broke out. Cars and equipment were left behind.
Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain had twice visited Hitler. Now he prepared to go a third time. Momentarily, Hitler wavered. Orders were sent to Donington Park for the German teams to remain, to win an overwhelming victory for the Fatherland. The message was opened by race organizers, who sent motorcycle cops off in pursuit of the departed teams. The teams were caught, and agreed to return to Donington Park. The French Delehaye team (two drivers and a few mechanics) also had fled in panic, but now returned.
The next day the French government announced it would honor France's obligations to Czechoslovakia, and the British Fleet was mobilized.
Within a few hours, Donington Park was deserted a second time.
Race organizers, with several thousand pounds invested, then announced that they would hold the race anyway, though no drivers were left except the "indomitable" Percy Maclure and a few others.
Then Chamberlain flew to Munich for his third meeting with Hitler. A paper was signed and a nation, Czechoslovakia, mutilated. "This is the last territorial claim I have to make in Europe," announced the jubilant Hitler. Chamberlain came back to Downing Street, waving the paper, and said: "I believe it is peace in our time."
The Donington Park Grand Prix, now assured of the participation of the German teams, was duly postponed to October 22, on which date it became a sort of gala sporting fete in honor of the "reconciliation" of two old friends, Britain and Germany. For many, the parallel between sport and war was too close for comfort. Britain had one competent driver (Seaman), plus a few Percy Maclures driving cars roughly equivalent to their lack of experience. All the power seemed to be in the hands of the Germans.
To the race came General Huhnlein, chief of German motor sport, important men from the German embassy, and officials of the German automobile clubs. The sunlight glinted off Nazi jackboots, and Wagnerian music blared from loudspeakers. The British sporting set, very rich mostly, also was there, and the crowds were even quieter and more watchful than the year before. One needed only to turn his eyes from the royal box where the Duke of Kent was to sit, to imagine himself at Avus or the Nurburgring, deep inside Nazi Germany.
This time there were four Auto-Unions and four Mercedes, and nine other cars. Willi Baumer had replaced Caracciola, the disenchanted German, in one of the Mercedes. The Italian Tazio Nuvolari, then 48 years old, had replaced the dead Rosemeyer in one Auto-Union. Nuvolari is generally regarded as the greatest driver who ever lived. Perhaps he was; perhaps he was merely more colorful than the others in his red aviator's helmet and bright yellow sweater with the sleeves rolled up, defying death with an insouciance that was horrifying. It is the journalists who decide which drivers are going to be called "great," and they are not always in the best place to judge. "Great" often means no more than that a certain driver is excellent copy. Nuvolari, for instance, always was good copy, whereas Caracciola was not. Even at Donington Park, Nuvolari did not fail his biographers. During practice he succeeded in slaughtering a deer that hopped out of the brush into the path of his car. He had its head stuffed and sent home. In any case, for that one race Nuvolari handled the Auto-Union as well as Rosemeyer might have. He won the race by more than a minute and a half. He further stoked the furnace of his legend by sliding safely through a puddle of oil dropped by one of the Britishers. For a moment his Auto-Union looked out of control, sliding this way and that, skidding onto the verge, then off again. Probably Tazio was no more than a passenger as the car righted itself and roared away down the road. "I didn't fight the car--just let it take its course," he said later. But he said it so coolly that no one believed him. People preferred to believe he possessed some mysterious knowledge or skill that other drivers lacked. Generally ignored also was the fact that von Brauchitsch and Baumer got past safely, too, before Hasse tore out 15 feet of fencing and crashed into a ditch. Kautz had crashed earlier, and Barmier later caught fire. So only two Auto-Unions and three Mercedes finished-in the first five places, of course.
Three British E.R.A.S also finished the race six laps behind Nuvolari: Lang, who was second, and Seaman, who was third.
And that was the last Britain saw of German machinery until the first bombs began to fall less than a year later. The crowd this time was even more quiet and awed than the year before. Von Brauchitsch, misreading the signs, said of it: "Cold-cold, but intelligent." Perhaps the British were only reflecting, calculating quietly as is their way, and bracing themselves for the ordeal they could no longer doubt was coming.
Within a year Donington Park was gone; grim young men in battle dress prowled about its forests, training for war. The concrete saucer at Brooklands was demolished, too, and airfields were laid over every level plot of ground in Britain. In a way, it was these airfields that saved not only the nation, but motor racing itself.
For almost the entire, densely populated island is a garden. There is no room anywhere for the building of race circuits, and races could not be held on public roads closed for the occasion—there were laws prohibiting that. And so, in 1948, the Royal Automobile Club got a list from the R.A.F. of every "redundant" airfield in England, and went about inspecting them to see if any were fit for a Grand Prix motor race.
On a featureless plain near Towcester these men came upon Silverstone. It had no road approaches, no grandstands. It was near no big city (it is halfway between London and Birmingham). Worst of all, a circuit laid out on Silverstone's runways would be devoid of trees, houses, and similar landmarks that racing drivers must have as checkpoints. It is difficult for a driver to decide how fast he is traveling, or how far he is from a corner, unless there is some solid object of known dimension standing there to relate his speed to.
From a driver's point of view this was, and is, Silverstone's chief drawback. "No man goes fast there," Phil Hill has said, "except Englishmen (who have driven the course a hundred times) and Froilan Gonzalez." Gonzalez, a squat, bulky Argentinian, loved the course and always drove it with a reckless fury, his fat, hairy arms flailing the air as he fought a personal battle with his steering wheel. He won two Grands Prix there, in 1951 and 1954. The great Juan Manuel Fangio hated Silverstone. Fangio in fact hated all airfields, but he seemed to hate Silverstone particularly. Real road racing Fangio loved. It did not unnerve him to speed down a corridor of stout trees at the Nurburgring. He never lifted his foot when zooming through the chill, eerie tunnel at Monte Carlo. But he hated and even seemed to fear a course whose curves and straights were determined by the placing of oil drums, as at Silverstone, and when he drove there he was uncomfortable. Fangio always seemed to have immense dignity in a racing car, except at Silverstone, where he habitually bas
hed drums and bales about, skidded, lost control in easy turns, and missed serious accidents only because there was nothing really solid to hit. Only once did he win at Silverstone, in 1956. And even that year he spun off the road at one corner, re-entered the race, and began to carve up the field with a grim, unhappy expression on his face, displaying none of the easy, virtuoso driving of which he was, on difficult dangerous roads, capable. He won this race by two laps, nearly six miles, after every single challenger either broke down or crashed. He never raced there again.
Silverstone is a bleak enough place even today. In 1948, when the first Grand Prix was run there, Silverstone had Nissen huts, barbed wire, pieces of aircraft, and mud sprawled all over the place. The runways themselves, after three years of inattention, were ready to dissolve under the impact of weather alone, and the thrust and push of heavy race cars turned the concrete back into sand and pebbles in many places. There were no facilities for parking, and few places for spectators to sit; moreover, the track had been laid out in an hourglass shape, so that the race cars were far from the crowd most of the time. The runway, wide enough to receive four-engine bombers two at a time, was wide enough for 10 race cars abreast. The sight of a race car snaking through a tight turn is thrilling; it is only one of the thrilling sights that was impossible at Silverstone because Silverstone was, in effect, a great concrete prairie. Furthermore, there were no trees for miles in all directions, and the late afternoon sun shone horizontally across the airfield, blinding the drivers during all the latter part of the race.
But the British are a persistent lot, unused (particularly in 1948) to comfort, happiest when "making the best" of a completely impossible situation. So of course they loved Silverstone, and still do. Nearly 100,000 of them turned out for that first Grand Prix, in which the Maseratis of Luigi Villoresi and Alberto Ascari simply ran away from nearly two dozen British sporting types, amateur drivers in amateur cars.
CARS AT SPEED - Grand Prix's Golden Age Page 18