GRR

The ‘golden days’ of 1930s Grand Prix racing

27th January 2025
Damien Smith

As the Goodwood Festival of Speed presented by Mastercard prepares to celebrate the 75th anniversary of the Formula 1 World Championship, it’s crucial to remember that Grand Prix racing itself didn’t start at Silverstone in May 1950. Almost a full half-century of preceding context is required to really understand what F1 means and where it came from.

That’s why the Festival of Speed’s F1 75 celebrations includes a Prologue, to recall and celebrate the rich tapestry that was pre-WWII Grand Prix racing. We previously delved into the original and short-lived Manufacturers’ World Championship of the 1920s, now let’s examine the true and obvious forerunner of F1 as we know it today, and what is considered among the most spectacular eras of motor racing: the Grand Prix scene of the 1930s, and the European Drivers’ Championship for which a host of fabulously talented and characterful heroes duelled to win.

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Founded in troubled times

A mix of manufacturer apathy and a dire worldwide economic climate in the wake of the 1929 Wall Street Crash left the sport of Grand Prix racing floundering at the end of the decade. The Delage, Fiat and Talbot factories had all withdrawn from racing, leaving Bugatti facing variable competition from the Italian manufacturers.

In 1930, Bugatti won three major international races, while Italy’s new Maserati marque won four and Alfa Romeo a couple – but with a seven-year-old P2 model that was now obsolete. That was a theme of the era: The Great Depression left little resources to be thrown at such a frivolous activities as motor sport.

A reset was required. That’s why, in 1931, the Association Internationale des Automobile Clubs Reconnus (AIACR), the forerunner to the FIA, created the European Drivers’ Championship as a means to galvanise the car makers and attempt to create a sense of union between the many disparate events carrying the title of Grand Prix.

The body fell back on Formule Libre rules, for cars without riding mechanics and with an insistence that top-level Grand Prix races last at least ten hours. Despite the desperate economic conditions, the 2.3-litre twin-cam Bugatti Type 51 emerged, as did the rival Alfa Romeo 8C-2300 Monza. The Milanese marque also created its Tipo A Monoposto cars with centreline driving position, powered by two six-cylinder sports car engines side by side.

Each had its own clutch and gearbox, for 3.5-litres combined and more than 200PS (147kW). Alfa then followed up with its super-slim 2.6-litre Tipo B Monoposto, the P3. Its drivers claimed the first two European titles: the little-remembered Ferdinando Minoia through consistency in 1931, then the great Tazio Nuvolari in ’32.

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The dark side of Grand Prix racing

But the cost of success was high. Just as it had at the end of 1925 when it won the inaugural Manufacturers’ World Championship, Alfa withdrew from motor racing, leaving the nascent Scuderia Ferrari to keep its end up with dual-purpose Grand Prix/sports-racing Monzas. Nuvolari, disenchanted by what he had been left to race, quit Ferrari in favour of buying and running a new Maserati 8C – and won the 1933 Belgian Grand Prix.

The German Grand Prix had been cancelled because of austerity; the recession affected every corner of society. But the saviour for European motorsport was politics, and a dark wave that was beginning its sweep across Europe. While we revere the Grand Prix racers that emerged in the decade, the uncomfortable truth is those who fought for the European Championship were fuelled by fascism. Both Hitler and Mussolini recognised the value of motor racing to promote their nationalist agendas.

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Powered by fascism

Formula Libre had been a fallback option in straitened times, but in October 1932 the AIACR drew up new regulations to be applied for 1934, based around a maximum weight limit of 750kg, estimated to limit engine capacity to around 2.5 litres. Not for the first time, motorsport’s all-knowing governing body had got it wrong.

Of those who had given their opinion on the new direction was Dr Ferdinand Porsche, former chief engineer of Austro-Daimler, Mercedes-Benz and Steyr, who had founded his own independent design firm in Stuttgart in 1930. As Mercedes-Benz campaigned its W25, a coalition of rival German companies – Wanderer, Audi, DKW and Horch – was formed and adopted Porsche’s design, known as the P-Wagen. Its striking and advanced mid-engined solution was powered by a V16 of large capacity – behind the driver but within the wheelbase. The AIACR had inadvertently created a monster.

The key was state funding, which gave the German factories full rein to invest in ground-breaking technology. Hitler came to power in January 1933, and at the Berlin Motor Show the new chancellor announced his programme of national motorisation, part of which was an annual 450,000 Reichsmarks fund for motor racing. Mercedes-Benz, as the long-established ‘national’ car maker, expected to receive the full windfall. But when it was halved with the new Auto Union, a fierce and bitter rivalry was established.

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Rise of the Silver Arrows

The battle that raged between the German car makers – known as the Silver Arrows, shorn as they were of their national white paint to save weight – dominated the European championship from the middle of the decade. It both made and undermined the era. The technological dogfight led to some of the most celebrated racing cars in history: Auto Union’s Type C, in which the dashing Bernd Rosemeyer swept to glory in 1936, and Mercedes’ response, the W125 powered by a 5.6-litre V8 pushing out 659PS (485kW). Rudolf Caracciola, perhaps Prost to Rosemeyer’s Senna, added the 1937 and ’38 European crowns to his first in ’35.

This was truly an age of heroes. Besides ‘Caratsch’ and Rosemeyer, there was hollow-cheeked Achille Varzi; mechanic-turned-driver Hermann Lang; Hans Stuck, a specialist on the spectacular mountain climbs that were so popular in the period; and of course, the great Nuvolari, the ‘Flying Mantuan’ revered as the best of all the pre-war racers.

Before he succumbed to the lure of Auto Union in 1937, Nuvolari was the most consistent fly in the ointment for the German teams. His virtuoso German Grand Prix victory in 1935, defeating the massed ranks of the Silver Arrows to the chagrin of the Third Reich, remains one of motor racing’s most celebrated drives. By then, he was back on terms with Enzo Ferrari, whose Scuderia had run his Alfa P3 that day on the Nürburgring – but it was always a brittle relationship, and it wouldn’t last.

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The Donington Grands Prix

Alfa Romeo and Maserati struggled for air in the significant wake of the Silver Arrows, never mind the plucky but relatively minor efforts of the British contingent, led by ERA. But significant UK elements did play a part in the European Championship, most notably when Donington Park hosted its Grands Prix.

The race ran for four consecutive years, but it’s the 1937 and ’38 editions that are recalled most vividly, thanks to the shock and awe arrival of the German contingent. In the context of everything that was to follow, the events have taken on a greater and darker hue.

“History was made at Donington on October 2nd,” reported Motor Sport of the 1937 Grand Prix “A record crowd, which looked like part of that on Epsom Downs for Derby Day, which the first reports give as 38,000 to 40,000 strong, lined the course to watch the Mercedes-Benz and Auto Union teams battle for the first time in this country – and battle they most certainly did, amid a continuous high-pitched howl of sound and the pungent smell of ‘boot-polish’ dope.” The exotic fuel brews brought a tear to the eye.

Auto Union defeated Mercedes in both ‘German’ Donington Grands Prix, Rosemeyer winning in ’37, Nuvolari in ’38. For those who witnessed the scene, including Murray Walker and Tom Wheatcroft, the impression left by the Silver Arrows roaring on UK soil would be life-changing.  

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Britain’s greatest 1930s Grand Prix ace

The other key British ingredient was the country’s most prominent Grand Prix driver of the decade, Richard Seaman, who won on merit a place within the Mercedes-Benz team from 1937. Again, in the context of what was to come, he’s a particularly fascinating figure whose story is tailor-made for a movie.

Born into wealth, Seaman became hooked on motor racing via a trip to Shelsley Walsh hillclimb in 1931. Three years later, he embarked on motor sporting adventures around Europe and by 1936 was established on the Grand Prix scene. Campaigning a Delage that had seen service during the constructor’s 1927 heyday, he also won the Donington Grand Prix in an ERA and came to the attention of Mercedes, which signed him for the next season.

But what were his politics, and just how difficult was it for an Englishman to drive for the Nazis? Views remain opaque, although there is no hard and fast evidence to suggest Seaman had fascist inclinations. Was he simply naïve in his ambition to take what was clearly a potent sporting opportunity? Perhaps. The most famous image of Seaman was captured in the aftermath of his landmark German Grand Prix win in 1938. In front of the Third Reich and stood beside Hitler’s Korpsführer, Adolf Hühnlein, Seaman’s Nazi salute looks more than a little half-hearted. Conflict is etched across his face.

How Seaman truly felt about his dilemma can only be a point of speculation; he died when his Mercedes smashed into a tree at the Belgian Grand Prix in June 1939.

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War brings the curtain down

Alarmed by the rising speeds of the Silver Arrows, Grand Prix cars were downscaled in 1938 as the governing body moved from a formula limited by weight to one of engine capacity: a maximum 4.5-litres unsupercharged and 3.0-litres supercharged. Caracciola pressed on regardless in the new 3.0-litre Mercedes W154 to win his final title.

But by the following year, the mood in Europe grew ever darker by the month as the inevitable loomed. On the morning of 3rd September 1939, British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain declared war on Germany – and later that day the last Grand Prix of the 1930s was flagged away in Belgrade. In the circumstances, just five cars took the start: two Mercedes, two Auto Unions and a privately run Bugatti.

For the record, Nuvolari claimed the victory – a fitting winner to conclude the era. The Nazis would later claim Mercedes’ Lang as their European Champion, although the title was never awarded. The world was preoccupied by other, more pressing matters, as fear and darkness descended.

 

Images courtesy of Motorsport Images.

 

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