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  Caracciola then compounded his ‘felony’ by winning the Mille Miglia for Mercedes, the first victory by a non-Italian car and driver. He went on to win 10 more events in 1931, including the German Grand Prix which, for the first time, was run on the Nordschleife only, reducing the circuit’s length from 17.6 miles/28.3 kms to 14.2 miles/22.8 kms. The race run over 22 laps.

  Although Mercedes had quit racing there were four entered ‘privately’ for the Grand Prix, with Alfred Neubauer looking after them. They were for Caracciola, Otto Merz, Hans Stuck and Manfred von Brauchitsch. Over the winter chassis engineer Max Wagner had lightened Rudi’s car to the tune of some 250 lbs, making it the first SSKL (Leicht) and the power was increased to 310 bhp.

  As the Grand Prix was now for racing cars, the Mercedes were stripped of their lights and mudguards. By the time of the race, the other three entries had had the same treatment, but the cars still weighed 1,600 kg, more than twice that of the little 2.3-litre Bugattis and 2.5-litre Maseratis they were up against. Caracciola was Mercedes’ only likely race-winner and he was faced with the formidable talents of Louis Chiron, Achille Varzi and JeanPierre Wimille in Bugattis and Luigi Fagioli, Rene Dreyfus and Tim Birkin in Maseratis. And then there was Tazio Nuvolari, making his NurburgRing debut in an Alfa Romeo.

  Neubauer reckoned that the lightweight Bugattis and Maseratis would not have to change tyres, so he organised some pre-race wheel-changing away from the circuit. ‘We kept changing tyres - Merz, Stuck, von Brauchitsch and I,’ wrote Caracciola in A Racing Driver’s World. ‘My mechanic, Sebastian, and I held the record. We succeeded in changing all four tyres within one minute and ten seconds. Afterwards we sat together at the wooden tables under the old pine trees and discussed our chances. “’If it rains we’re well off,” said Merz, “but if it stays dry...” He shrugged.’

  In Speed was my Life Neubauer claims that in 1931 Caracciola was the first driver to make use of the ditch in the Karussell to increase the car’s speed through the semi-circular corner. Until then, everyone drove round on the road, but either Rudi or his mechanic, Sebastian, had the idea that by using the ditch the car would get through the Karussell faster. So, one evening after practice, Sebastian and Willy Zimmer drove his SSKL very slowly through the corner in the ditch to see if there was enough ground clearance. There was, and they then did another lap, this time heading straight into the ditch at a speed considerably greater than they were able to travel when using the road. As a result of this experiment, Caracciola used the ditch throughout the race, saving several precious seconds every lap.

  It is a very good story and has the ring of truth about it, for the photograph on page 48 shows him driving his P3 Alfa into the ditch during the Grand Prix of the following year, but Caracciola makes no mention of the incident in his book. In view of the fact that he describes practising wheelchanging in order to save precious seconds it is surprising that he ignores the discovery of the use of the ditch, which was clearly just as valuable in this regard. But sadly, A Racing Driver’s World is a slap-dash affair in which he makes no mention of a great deal that happened during his career, so it is likely that he had just forgotten the incident.

  However, in his race report for The Motor, Humphrey Symons describes a lap of the circuit as a passenger in one of the Mercedes racing cars (See Der Nurburg-Ring - a History) and his driver used the ditch. For some reason Symons did not name his chauffeur and as it was unlikely to have been Caracciola, it may well have been Sebastian. Whatever, he gives no indication that driving through the ditch was in any way unusual, which is curious, to say the least!

  On race day it rained, heavily, which played right into the hands of Rudi Caracciola and Mercedes. ‘Who was first off the mark?’, asked Humphrey Symons. ‘A low, red car with a brass radiator; a 2.5-litre Maserati with the dare-devil Fagioli at the wheel. Sir Henry Birkin, driving a car of the same type, made a splendid start and was in third place within the first hundred yards.

  ‘Away they went in a cloud of spume, spray flying in upright fountains above each wheel. So swift were the leaders that they had already taken the tight, slightly banked loop in the wood past the grandstand and were tearing past the back doors of the pits before some of the drivers of the smaller cars had had time to change into third...

  ‘The crowd, close-packed on every bend, yelled its encouragement to Caracciola, their champion, as his short-chassis Mercedes screamed past, devouring the miles, overtaking, after short, fierce fights between the innumerable curves, the flower of the foreign race drivers which opposed him.

  ‘By an ingenious electric device the numbers of approaching cars were signalled to the public. You should have heard the shout that went up when No. 8 - Caracciola - was announced! As his white Mercedes shot, like a whistling bullet, past the stands, the crowd leapt to its feet and cheered its idol to the echo.’

  On the fourth lap Tazio Nuvolari in the Alfa moved up to third place and then went after Fagioli, passing him into second place on lap six, by which time Caracciola had a lead of 62 seconds.

  Now Louis Chiron made his move in his Bugatti, overtaking Fagioli on lap eight and Nuvolari two laps later. At half-distance Caracciola made his stop for fresh tyres, Neubauer’s practice work paying dividends by getting him back in the race after just 62 seconds.

  Chiron then made his stop without losing his second place and, as Cyril Posthumus noted in The German Grand Prix, ‘Chiron’s chase of Caracciola continued, but the big, solid Mercedes held the ever-twisting, winding, plunging tarmac better in the wet than the light, skittery Bugatti and not until three-quarter distance could the driver from Monaco make any real impression. Then came the reprieve; the skies brightened, the rain eased off, the circuit began to dry and the Bugattis and Alfas found their feet at last. On lap 17 Chiron gained 15 secs, on lap 18 a further 18 and on lap 19, 14 secs. Varzi, too, responded, turning a record lap in 11 mins 48 secs and moved past Nuvolari into third place. But it was all in vain. Caracciola’s brilliant wet road driving had taken him too far ahead, and he won to tumultuous applause at 67.29 mph by 1 min 18 secs from three masters of the Grand Prix art, Chiron, Varzi and Nuvolari.’

  Rudolf Caracciola was now the acknowledged Ringmeister, with four victories to his name, but at the end of the year he was without a drive once more. The Depression was biting harder than ever and Mercedes were finally forced to pull the plug on their support for his racing activities. But he was lucky, for despite the fact that he had reneged on a contract with Alfa Romeo a year earlier, the Milanese concern invited him to join it for 1932. Both Caracciola and Neubauer recalled how this came about in their autobiographies and their accounts make interesting - and very different - reading.

  ‘Caracciola invited my wife and me to spend a month at his villa at Arosa,’ wrote Neubauer. ‘One evening I returned from a long solitary walk to come face to face with Giovannini, the Alfa Romeo racing-manager. He seemed mighty pleased with himself. But before I could ask him what he was doing in Arosa he muttered something about having a train to catch and left.

  ‘If I hadn’t guessed by then what was in the wind, the look of dejection of Rudi’s face would have told me all I wanted to know. ‘”Well, let’s hear the worst,” I said, hoarsely, “You’ve signed a contract with Alfa Romeo, have you?”

  ‘Rudi stood with bent head like a schoolboy up before the headmaster. ‘”Yes,” he muttered. “What else could I do? Starve? Just because there isn’t a single firm in Germany that can afford to run a racing team?”

  ‘There was nothing I could say. In any case, I doubt if at that moment I was capable of uttering a word.’

  According to Caracciola, this is nonsense. He recalled that Neubauer was staying with him in Arosa in mid-December, when he received a phone call from Aldo Giovannini, asking if he had a contract for 1932. When Rudi said that he had not, the Italian announced that he would come and see him at the end of the month.

  ‘He arrived in Arosa the last day of the year,’ wrote Caracciola. ‘Giov
annini was a small, elegant man with blondish hair and shining brown eyes. With typical southern temperament he embraced me, slapped me on the shoulder and kissed both of Charly’s hands.

  ‘When he spotted Neubauer he flinched... As we went in to dinner he whispered to me excitedly: «What’s the matter? Is Mercedes going to race again after all?» I shrugged.’ After dinner Giovannini announced that he wished to discuss something with Caracciola in private, so they went into Rudi’s study, where the Italian produced a contract. ‘It was a decent offer,’ noted Rudi, ‘a small guarantee, the entire starting bonus and half the prizes for me. Only one point made me hesitate. It was a provision that I was to start outside the Alfa team.’

  When asked for an explanation, Giovannini was clearly embarrassed, saying that the regular Alfa drivers, Tazio Nuvolari, Baconin Borzacchini and Giuseppe Campari, were of the opinion that Caracciola was used to the enormous SSKL Mercedes, so he might take time to get used to the little Alfa. As they pooled their winnings, they felt that he might also take some time to earn his share. (If this was so, why did Caracciola’s contract give him ‘half the prizes (prizemoney) for me’?) Eventually, Giovannini admitted that Campari was the main objector to his inclusion in the team. ‘Could I really object to that?’ wrote Caracciola. ‘I myself didn’t know whether I’d get used to the new cars.’

  This seems to be an extraordinary lack of self-confidence in the man who was already acknowledged as one of the greatest racing drivers in the world. And it was almost certainly Caracciola’s brilliance that prompted the Italian drivers to try and exclude him from the team. No matter, he signed with Alfa Romeo, but only after promising a shocked Neubauer that he would rejoin Mercedes, should they return to racing. Caracciola then recalls that two months later he went to Milan, where he met with Giovannini and Vittorio Jano, designer of the legendary Alfa Romeo P2 and the 8С Monza. ‘Then Jano showed me his newest model.’ wrote Rudi. ‘It was a graceful, racy one-seater, lightweight and easy to manoeuvre. I liked it at first sight. The next day we drove to Monza. Jano wanted my opinion of the new car. Driving it was totally different compared to my heavy SSK Mercedes. I drove without effort but I had to watch like a hawk in order to keep the fast little car under control.

  ‘«Well, how did she go?» Jano asked when I climbed out.

  ‘«As light-footed as a ballerina,» I said.’

  That car was, of course, the P3, which would become one of the great GP cars of all time. It did not make its debut until the Italian GP at Monza on June 5th and, in the meantime, Alfa Romeo raced the 8С Monzas.

  And driving one of these in sportscar form Rudi very nearly won the Mille Miglia for the second year running. He was leading at Rome and right up to Verona where, a mere 40 miles from victory, the Alfa dropped a valve and he was out.

  His first Grand Prix that year was at Monaco, where he raced an 8C Monza in racing car guise, but painted white. His three Italian team-mates were so miffed at his signing that, to make it abundantly clear that he was not part of the official Alfa team, they insisted that his car be painted in his national colour - white.

  The red Monza Alfa of Nuvolari won at Monaco, but only just, as in the closing laps Caracciola was getting ever closer. On the final lap the white Alfa was almost beside the red one and there seems little doubt that Rudi could have won the race, but for some reason which he was never able to explain, he backed off and Nuvolari won by three seconds. Caracciola was jeered by the spectators, who smelt a fix, but the next day Aldo Giovannini told him that Nuvolari, Borzacchini and Campari were so impressed that they wanted him to join them in the team.

  Nevertheless, his Monza remained white for the rest of its racing life in his hands. At AVUS he was second to the specially streamlined Mercedes SSKL of Manfred von Brauchitsch before moving to the Nurburg-Ring for the Eifel GP. His was the only Alfa present and he was up against three SSKL Mercedes of Hans Stuck, Broschek and von Brauchitsch, whose car was now back in unstreamlined form. They were never in the hunt and Caracciola had to deal with Rene Dreyfus, who had recently left Maserati to join Bugatti, and Louis Chiron, also on a Bugatti. The latter had ignition problems and was never a threat to Caracciola, but Dreyfus certainly was.

  The weather was cool, with occasional rain showers, which meant that tyre changes were unnecessary. Caracciola led from start to finish, but Dreyfus drove superbly and was only 22 seconds behind him at the end of the 14 laps, and on the last Rudi set a new record, lowering Varzi’s 1931 time of 11 mins 48.0 secs to 11’ 42.8».

  The P3 duly made its debut at Monza in June, but only two cars were ready and they were given to Tazio Nuvolari and Giuseppe Campari. Caracciola and Baconin Borzacchini had to make do with 2.3-litre Monzas. Nuvolari won the Italian GP (from Fagioli’s Maserati); Caracciola’s Monza retired and he took over Borzacchini’s car to finish third. Campari was fourth in the other P3.

  Rudi finally got his hands on the new Alfa in the French GP at Reims a month later, where three cars were entered for him, Nuvolari and Borzacchini. The supercharged, straight-eight engine produced 215 bhp @ 5,600 rpm and the Alfa was unique in having twin propeller shafts in torque tubes, each powering a rear wheel. As at Monza the French GP was a five-hour race and, as at Monza, Nuvolari won, with Borzacchini and Caracciola following him across the line. They repeated the Alfa 1,2,3 at the Nurburg-Ring two weeks later, but this time it was Rudi who took the chequered flag first.

  If the spectators at Monaco thought the race was a fix - and it wasn’t - when Caracciola failed to overtake Nuvolari on the last lap, those at the Nurburg-Ring on July 17 were never told that the result of the German GP was! Quite simply, Alfa Romeo wanted Caracciola to win in front of his home crowd, so Team Manager Aldo Giovannini made sure that his pit stop took a lot less time than Nuvolari’s did.

  Three P3s were entered for Caracciola, Nuvolari and Borzacchini and they were up against the works, 2.3-litre Type 51 Bugattis of Louis Chiron and Achille Varzi, backed up by the privatelyentered cars of Marcel Lehoux, Rene Dreyfus and the German drivers Paul Pietsch and Hans Lewy.

  Unfortunately, Varzi elected not to race, as he was suffering from an eye injury after a stone had broken his goggles in the recent French GP. Hans Stuck failed to appear in his Mercedes and there was no sign of an Alfa for Campari. A meagre field of nine cars lined up for the GP, with cars in l,500cc and 800 cc classes behind them.

  More than 150,000 people had come to see the race, but what they saw was not much more than a procession, with Caracciola leading Nuvolari and Borzacchini for almost the entire 25 laps. Louis Chiron briefly relegated Borzacchini to third place, but then his Bugatti developed ignition problems which cost him some eight minutes. That sorted, an oil pipe broke and he had to stop to have oil cleaned from his eyes. He got going again, only to come to a halt on lap seven with a broken rear axle.

  Although clearly under orders to let Caracciola win, Tazio Nuvolari couldn’t resist having a bit of fun at the German’s expense and passed him into the lead, completing the 10th lap just four seconds ahead. Rudi soon put that right, however and was never again headed. Then Tazio made his scheduled pit stop, which should have alerted the spectators in the grandstand opposite to the fact that Caracciola was going to win. The normally highly efficient Alfa mechanics took 2 mins 40 secs to change his wheels and add fuel and oil, while Nuvolari, fully aware of what was going on, could only glare at them and stamp about impatiently.

  Next time round Caracciola came in and was out again in 1 min 35 secs and Borzacchini’s stop was even quicker - 1 min 15 secs! Towards the end Nuvolari made a quick stop to check his oil level and then the three Alfas won the German GP in style, Rudi having lapped fourth man Dreyfus. He had won the Eifel GP with the 2.3-litre Monza Alfa at 70.7 mph and his winning speed with the P3 was 74.13 mph. His Eifel lap record of 11 mins 42.8 sees was demolished by Nuvolari, who took the P3 round in 10’ 49.4», all of which spoke volumes for the performance of Vittorio Jano’s latest masterpiece.

  Caracciola’s
victory, of course, was nothing of the sort, having been cleverly orchestrated by Aldo Giovannini. However, it meant that he was the first man to win three consecutive races at the Nurburg-Ring, although it was not a true hat-trick, as the three were not all the German Grand Prix, the second one being the Eifel GP. Still and all, he had now won six races in six years, and was the undisputed King of the Nurburg-Ring.

  However, this prowess could not prevent him from being out of work for the third year running at the end of the season, when Alfa Romeo announced that they were withdrawing from racing. Back home in Arosa, Caracciola was advised of this by letter, which suggested that he join Scuderia Ferrari, which was going to run the cars in 1933. However, what the letter did not say was that the cars would not be the superb P3s, but the old 8С Monzas, as Alfa Romeo refused to let the newer cars out of the factory.

  Also in Arosa at that time was Louis Chiron with his lady friend, Alice Hoffmann. Affectionately known as Baby, she was the wife of Freddie Hoffmann, who was heir to the Swiss HoffmannLa Roche drug empire. He had sponsored Chiron early in his career and Louis’ success led to him joining the official Bugatti team in 1928. He was also very successful with Baby and by 1932 they were accepted as a couple in the motor racing world and had become close friends with Rudi and Charly Caracciola.

  In common with Rudi, Louis was out of a job, having been fired by Bugatti for frequently ignoring the instructions of his Team manager, Meo Costantini. He had a plan, which he put to Caracciola one day in Arosa. It was that the two of them should form their own team, Scuderia CC (Caracciola-Chiron), buy a couple of Alfas and go racing for themselves.

  ‘His plan seemed a good one to me,’ wrote Caracciola in A Racing Driver’s World, ‘Our names were known in all countries. Each of us had a long list of victories to show. As competitors we had fought each other in a sporting way and as friends we got along excellently. The factories no longer entered races; Chiron and I were unemployed; and thus the Scuderia CC came into being.’