Racing After the War

Racing restarted in Europe in 1946 with the few cars that managed to survive the war, these were mostly Maserati’s and several Alfa Romeo 158’s that were hidden in a cheese factory during the war. The first race was called the “Robert Benoist Trophy” in honor of a prewar Bugatti driver who was murdered by the Gestapo. The first top caliber races were held in 1946, some drivers that participated were Louis Chiron, Achille Varzi, Tazio Nuvolari, and Giuseppe Farina. This year saw the creation of the Federation Internationale d’Automobiles (FIA) and the first use of the term Formula One. The FIA created new rules for the 1947 season, 1.5 liter supercharged and 4.5 liter unsupercharged engines were allowed. Alfa Romeo won every race that year. 1948 proved to be a very historic year for grand prix racing. Enzo Ferrari fielded a car of his own construction for the first time and Juan-Manuel Fangio made his debut in a Simca-Gordini. While the Ferrari and Alfa Romeo team were free to race after the war any German team was banned from racing into the 1950’s and Mercedes and Auto Union were busy reconstructing their bombed out factories to resume road car production. With Alfa Romeo having to pull out of grand prix racing in 1948 the spoils were left for Maserati and Ferrari of Italy and Talbot of France.

The racing cars of Auto Union took a very odd trip after the war was over and almost raced again for the Soviet Union! The Germans gave up the town of Zwickau early in 1945, saving the town from any increased destruction from the coming Allied and Red armies. The Allied army swept through the town, set up a provisional government, and continued towards Chemnitz were the Auto Union headquarters were located. Marching from the east was the Red Army of the Soviet Union who took the town of Chemnitz on May 8, per an agreement between the two armies. One of the more privileged soldiers of the Red Army was Vasiliy Stalin, son of Joseph, and as the Red Army set up shop in Eastern Europe after the Allied withdrawal in July they begin to search the area around Zwickau. Vasiliy was beside himself when he got word that the Red Army had discovered the Auto Union’s hidden in some mines around Zwickau. Vasiliy had a love of all things fast and mechanical, and being the son of Joseph Stalin helped him feed that love. On his request the Auto Union’s were loaded on a train by the Red Army and shipped back to Moscow. You see Vasiliy had a dream, to a create a Soviet racing car that could compete against the might of the western teams, with the captured Auto Union’s he had the technological starting point. But Vasiliy had to tread a fine line; he could not just slap a red star on the Auto Union and call it Soviet. The technology in the car had to be developed into a new, fully Soviet car. Help for this problem came from the very same research and development department in Chemnitz that the cars originated from, except now the department was structured to funnel their work into the Soviet Union. The department was working on such projects as creating new cars for Eastern Germany and various projects that would be used in the Soviet Union, and with the start of 1947 they were charged with creating a new racing car from the captured Auto Unions, the project was named Typ 650. Just how much of the Auto Union went into the Typ 650 is unknown, though some parts, perhaps leftovers found their way directly onto the car while other parts were completely new having used the Auto Union design as a blueprint to start. Two Typ 650 cars were completed by April 1952, Vasiliy now a Major General ordered a plane to take the cars from Germany and bring them to Moscow. When they got to Moscow the cars were unable to be started, but they were entered in a race outside of the city in 1952 where they broke down. About this time the cars developed a nickname, Sokol, which is the Russian word for falcon. The term “Stalin Falcons” was a propaganda term applied to Soviet pilots and Vasiliy wanted the same name to be applied to his racing drivers. But it was not to be, by 1952 Joseph Stalin had grown tired of the unreliability of the cars and ordered them to be sent back to Chemnitz so the research team could look over the came, and that’s where the project stopped. Stalin was dead the next year and the new Soviet leader, Nikita Khrushchev did not want to continue funding the program and needed to distance him from any project that was connected to his predecessor.

In the end did the Third Reich reach the goals they had set for their involvement in Grand Prix racing? First one as to ask what their goals were, similar to the 1936 Olympics their main goals were to show the rest of the world what Nazi Germany could accomplish. They clearly did that. Between the 1935 and 1939 either Mercedes-Benz or Auto Union won every drivers championship and nearly every race. Their main rivals were the Italian cars from Maserati and Alfa Romeo, but they were so technologically inferior that the only chance they had at winning was when one of the German cars had a mechanical breakdown. With the help of the Nazi party money the two Germany companies advanced grand prix technology so far into the future, both companies made advances that are still being used today in the racing world such as the first use of ground effects. As with the 1936 Olympics the Nazi’s wanted to increase the respectability of Germany in the world and show off their vision for a “new Germany.” That was accomplished as well, the infrastructure that was put in place to build the very advanced racing cars was highly admired and even Dick Seaman had said that he hoped that British teams would use the Germans as an example and raise their game in order to compete on the grand prix circuit. Also, at least temporarily, the efforts of the Silver Arrows may have hid the fact that Hitler and Nazi Germany were planning for world domination. Dick Seaman after signing for Mercedes and meeting Hitler wrote home waxing poetically about how Hitler didn’t “muck about” and just wanted to improve Germany. Seaman even wrote that Hitler should take over more of Europe. When Seaman did start questioning his move to Germany friends back home in England wrote to Dick that it was important for him as an Englishman to maintain friendly relations with the Germans. But the involvement of the Germans would also forever affect the grand prix world. WWII brought an end to the careers of most drivers involved in the era of the Silver Arrows. After war resumed in the 1940’s a new breed of drivers had come along to replace the now veterans from the 30’s. Both the German manufacturers were banned from racing until the 1950’s had rolled around. By the time Mercedes-Benz rejoined grand prix racing in 1954 it had formed into the FIA Formula One World Championship, which now saw newly formed British teams and Ferrari fighting for championships. Mercedes started right were they left off when they returned grand prix racing, but then Pierre Lavegh crashed his Mercedes at the 24 Hours of Le Mans in 1955 killing over eighty spectators and the company withdrew from racing for decades. Auto Union would become Audi AG and have never competed in grand prix racing again. Mercedes-Benz re-entered grand prix racing in 1993 and formed a partnership with the English McLaren team in 1995 and have 2 World Drivers Championships to their name and are currently fighting for race victories against familiar rivals Ferrari. Despite that they have never entered grand prix racing again Audi have continued to push the envelope in racing technology. They revolutionized the World Rally Championship with their introduction of Quattro all-wheel drive technology, something every winning car as had since then. An Audi, or Audi based design has won the 24 Hours of Le Mans since 2000. In 2006 Audi became the first racing team to win the race using a diesel engine, trying to use the victory to push for wider application of diesel engines in road cars. The use of grand prix racing as propaganda is still apparent today, but the ways it is done have changed. In 2004 the country of Bahrain sponsored a series of political messages on the side of the Jordan EJ14. They promoted such issues as peace, racial equality, nuclear disarmament, and African debt forgiveness. In 2001 only days of the September 11 terrorist attacks in the U.S. Ferrari ran their car with a black nose completely sponsor-less saying that they did not want to “benefit commercially” from the race weekend. After the death of Pope John Paul II Ferrari again ran their car with a black nose while racing in the Muslim country of Bahrain. But the most apparent use of grand prix racing as a form of propaganda in present day are the races themselves. Formula One is leaving the tracks of their past in Europe behind to race in newly emerging countries such as Turkey, Singapore, Bahrain, United Arab Emirates, and China. These races are being held at facilities designed, created, and paid for by the respective governments of their countries. They are pouring money into grand prix races to get tourists into their country and to show a positive picture of their country to the entire globe. Just as Nazi Germany saw the benefits to be gained from being involved in the multi-national world of grand prix racing manufacturers and entire countries still see benefits to be gained from being a part of the Formula One World Championship.