CARS AT SPEED - Grand Prix's Golden Age

by Daley, Robert

  Why do they race?

  Mostly because (as Portago said) they have found something they can do, not only well in itself, but well in relation to the way other men in the field are doing it. Having once discovered this talent, this latent genius (genius meaning exceptional skill at something extraordinarily delicate), they are compelled to grasp it—it can lift them above other men, can raise them even to the level of genius—even though they know, especially as their experience increases, that it is a terribly dangerous way of life.

  The danger, they recognize, is a disadvantage. But there are compensating factors: money, prestige, adulation.

  Death they simply do not think about—not through any conscious act of will, or because they are too stupid to know it is there, but because they have become bored by it. They have thought about it long and intently and from every conceivable angle. It doesn't shock them anymore. As a subject it isn't even interesting. They have gotten used to it.

  All of them are scared every time they lose control of a car. And the fatal crash of a friend, or a near-miss, may cause them to think of death vividly again. But this doesn't last long. Horror, being a strong emotion, is difficult to sustain.

  But for those who watch, and who care about one or more of the drivers, the horror is renewed Sunday after Sunday, race after race. You watch a Greek tragedy, the last act of which is being written before your eyes. The hubris, the tragic flaw of the hero is, as always, pride--pride to think he can drive so fast. Usually, the drama ends prosaically enough. Only occasionally does it end in holocaust. Either way, it is an emotional wringing out for the watcher such as no other drama can offer. You touch all the emotions: the drivers' courage, and the magnificence of the cars fill you with wonder; you admire the skill such speeds demand; the race itself provides excitement, suspense. And you feel love and fear. You watch Phil Hill in a blood-red Ferrari and Jack Brabham in a dark-green Cooper hurtling wheel-to-wheel down the Thillois Straight at over 170 miles an hour. The noise overwhelms you. Smoke pours off their brakes as they slow for the turn. The exhaust burns your nostrils.

  Love and fear. Love of the greatness that is man. Fear of the folly that is man. Why does man have to do such things as drive race cars? A Grand Prix is a cathartic experience. You are exhausted when it is over.

  Motor racing is sport and it is more than sport.

  There are tactics to consider, to praise, to deplore, and there is the outcome of the race to worry over. As a sport, motor racing is the noisiest, most odorous, perhaps the most multicolored and certainly the most international of all. You absorb it through all five senses and, watching it, you are vividly aware of much of the world. The drivers represent the youth of some countries, the cars represent the science of others, and the road—piercing a forest, a desert, or a town—represents a particular area of the earth that man likes to think he dominates but that, in fact, dominates him. The race car dominates man too. It always has. The driver is eternally struggling with forces he himself has harnessed, but does not quite understand and cannot fully control.

  Most of all, motor racing is man gripped by his dream, man pushing out the frontiers of the known and the safe, reaching toward the delicate, the difficult, the dangerous. There is no comprehensible reason why man must do this. Yet he must. And one of the ways he does it is by driving race cars on the outside edge of control, the engine thundering, the wind roaring by, the world beneath his wheels.

  Appendix

  The World Championship

  THE DRIVER'S world championship has existed technically only since 1950, when the idea was formally adopted by the Federation Internationale de 1'Automobile. But in fact an unofficial world championship existed even in the 1920s and 1930s. Louis Chiron, Tazio Nuvolari, Achille Varzi, Rudi Caracciola, Bernd Rosemeyer, and Herman Lang all were considered world champions at one time or another— although officially their title was Europemeister, or European champion. But it was the same thing.

  These days, approximately 10 national Grands Prix count toward the driver's world championship each year: the Grands Prix of Argentina, Monaco, Holland, Belgium, France, England, Germany, Portugal, Italy, and the United States. Drivers receive eight points for first place, six for second, four for third, three for fourth, two for fifth, and one for sixth. Until the 1960 season there was an additional point for fastest lap, but this was dropped because timing facilities at the various circuits were so often unreliable. For instance, Jack Brabham was credited with fastest lap at Monaco in 1959, but admits he didn't make it. The timers simply made a mistake. Brabham couldn't have made fastest lap, he said, for on the lap he was supposed to have done so, his car was beginning to break up under him, and he was coasting in order to save it.

  Previously, the top driver on each factory team could take over a teammate's car if his own broke down, splitting any points he won with the original driver on a 50-50 basis. This partly explains the five world championships held by Juan Fangio. As top man, he was virtually assured of points in each race; even if only one of his team's cars finished, Fangio would be in it when it crossed the line.

  This rule went out after the 1957 season. In 1958, Mike Hawthorn won the championship by winning one Grand Prix, and finishing second five times. (Only the 6 best performances among the 10 races count.) Stirling Moss was second by only a single point, although he won four races and finished second once. Moss had broken down in every other Grand Prix he entered that year. The point is, under the rules of the Fangio era, Moss could have taken over a second Vanwall in one race or another, added the two points he needed, and thus won the title.

  There is no question about Fangio having been the fastest driver of his time, or of Moss' being fastest now. But whereas Fangio won five world championships, Moss has not won any. Luck has a great deal to do with winning car races and world championships. Jack Brabham is a very fine driver. But, particularly in 1960, his car (the Cooper) outclassed the field. Many rival drivers seemed to feel that Brabham simply happened to be riding in it.

  The official world champions since 1950 are listed below. But if noted drivers of the past and present were rated strictly on victories in Grand Prix races counting toward the driver's world championship (or the equivalent, in the case of prewar drivers), they would line up like this: Fangio, 24 victories; Rudolf Caracciola, 21; Alberto Ascari, 20; Louis Chiron, 15; Tazio Nuvolari, 15; Stirling Moss, 16; Achille Varzi, 10; and Jack Brabham, 7.

  At the start of 1962, nine drivers had won world-championship races: Moss, 16; Brabham, 7; Brooks, 5; Phil Hill, 3; Trintignant and McLaren, 2; and Baghetti, Ireland, and Bonnier, 1. Among recently dead drivers, Collins and Hawthorn had each won 3 world-championship Grands Prix, and von Trips had won two. Castellotti, Portago, Musso, Behra, and Schell had never won any.

  A second world championship exists for sports cars, but in sports car races (Le Mans, Sebring, the Thousand Kilometers of Buenos Aires and of the Nurburgring, the Targa Florio, etc.) points go to the factory, rather than the driver. The sports car world champion since 1953 has been Ferrari every year except 1955 (Mercedes) and 1959 (Aston Martin). Moss has won far more major sports car races than any other driver, 12, including three straight Thousand Kilometers of the Nurburgring; the Targa Florio and Mille Miglia of 1955; and Sebring in 1954. Many of these victories were exploits—he drove 38 of 45 laps at the Nurburgring in 1958, and 37 of 45 in 1959. The Mille Miglia victory, at nearly 100 miles an hour average speed, still stands as a race record. He won at Sebring in 1954 in an Osca half the size of the big factory machines.

  Fangio, on the other hand, won twice at Sebring, once in the Pan American, but no other major international sports-car race. Second to Moss as a sports-car driver is Phil Hill, with nine victories, including Le Mans three times, up to and including the 1961 season. Third is Olivier Gendebien, who has won Le Mans three times, Sebring three times, and the Targa Florio twice.

  World Champions Since 1950

  1950 Nino Farina, Alfa Romeo

  1951
Juan Manuel Fangio, Alfa Romeo

  1952 Alberto Ascari, Ferrari

  1953 Ascari, Ferrari

  1954 Fangio, Maserati, Mercedes

  1955 Fangio, Mercedes

  1956 Fangio, Ferrari

  1957 Fangio, Maserati

  1958 Mike Hawthorn, Ferrari

  1959 Jack Brabham, Cooper

  1960 Brabham, Cooper

  1961 Phil Hill, Ferrari

  About the Author

  At the time this book was written Robert Daley was a New York Times correspondent based in France, covering all the major motor races, in addition to other stories. He has written 30 books, including Prince of the City, Year of the Dragon, and Portraits of France, and his magazine articles and stories have appeared in most of America’s major magazines. In 1971-72 he served as a New York City deputy police commissioner, a job and a year that turned out to be more intimate and more tumultuous than he had bargained for—much more. A number of books came out of that year. In the course of his career the author has managed to get deep inside a number of worlds, including wine, opera, pro football, bullfighting, treasure diving, and journalism, in addition to grand prix racing and the police, and has written about them. Eight of his books were sold to the movies, six of which were filmed, including Year of the Dragon and Prince of the City. His work has been translated into more than a dozen languages. He is married with three daughters, and divides his time between suburban New York and Nice, France. See his website: robertdaleyauthor.com