Motoring Personalities That Inspire Us: Tazio Nuvolari

  • Mar 28, 2020
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Diminutive in stature, a colossus in the long-running story of motorsport the man who scored The Impossible Victory

The best of all time among racing drivers? Determining that is an undertaking fraught with obstacles. The chief one being different eras are hard to compare. It is easy to say that a driver with the winning formula would be the man in any era, but hard to actually back it up. Unless of course, a driver’s body of work makes a super compelling case.

Not to mention Enzo Ferrari – for whom he raced when Scuderia Ferrari managed the Alfa Romeo Racing team – credited him as being the inventor of the four-wheel-drift; allowing him to slide through the apex of corners in a controlled manner. No mean feat when the cars he drove had tyres that looked a little better than those on a mountain bike, but were still capable of speeds in excess of 170mph….with drum brakes.

Ferdninand Porsche referred to the man in question as the best driver “of the past, present and future.”

Despite having lived and raced in an era way beyond my time, I present for your consideration…Tazio Nuvolari.

Born in the northern Italian province of Mantua in 1892, The Flying Mantuan – as he was nicknamed – was known for his unflinching and uncompromising resolve to win. Sometimes against odds that would make you extremely rich on a small bet.

Nuvolari’s racing career actually started on two wheels, at the age of 23 in 1915. Racing for Bianchi, he was a European champion in the 350cc class and a multiple grand prix winner. He is best known for winning the prestigious Nations Grand Prix at Monza in 1925 after a test with the Alfa Romeo team – who were testing to evaluate him – resulted in a crash after a gearbox failure, leaving him with a lacerated back.

The mechanics for the Bianchi team had to lift Nuvolari on to the bike, and he had instructed them to strap his legs to the machine and catch him and hold him steady whenever he came in for a pitstop.

The resulting victory was just a preview of Nuvolari’s indomitable spirit.

On four wheels, he was a winner of 24 grands prix. Races billed as a grand prix had been around since the first in 1906. However, it was not until 1931 that the most prestigious ones were counted towards the AIACR (a forerunner of the FIA) European Championship.

This was, of course, well before the global expansion of European based world championships so this could very well count as the precursor to the FIA Formula 1 Grand Prix World Championship that started in 1950 so all the grand prix events were mostly in continental Europe.

In the year that Nuvolari was the European championship winner, driving for Alfa Romeo, which was being managed by a certain Enzo Ferrari, there were 33 grands prix throughout the year. Multiple events being held on the same weekend with varying levels of quality on the grid.

The Italian, French and German Grands Prix counted towards the championship and Nuvolari won two of them.

It was his solitary title as once the European Champioship was held again – after not being awarded in 1933 and 1934 – Nuvolari and pretty much everyone on the grid of a grand prix race was at the mercy of Nazi Germany’s effort to establish its dominance in all walks of life in Europe.

The Mercedes-Benz W25 and the Auto Union Type B were revolutionary machines. Both taking full advantage of the ‘Formula Libre’ regulations where the only rule was that a car’s weight could not exceed 750kg.

Mercedes’ 3.36-litre, straight 8 beast was producing in excess of 350bhp, while Auto Union’s crazy 4.9-litre, rear-engined, V-16 (yes, V-16) car was in the same vicinity.

The Auto Union’s relatively poor driving dynamics – on account of the rear wanting to step out and fling the driver off the road – meant that the Mercedes ruled the roost.

The 1935 European Championship was pretty much over before it started. Out of the seven Grands Prix that counted towards the title, Mercedes won five and Auto Union one.

Both of the German squads fielded three part-time drivers apiece. Two Germans and one Italian. The fact that Nuvolari was not one of them on account of the Italians in the German squads. One of those was Nuvolari’s great rival, Achille Varzi, who was with Auto Union.

Nuvolari’s Alfa Romeo Tipo-B ‘P3’ was producing 110bhp less than the Mercedes W25, which was putting out 445bhp by the time of the fourth championship round and facing a similar deficit to the Auto Union Type B’s.

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The venue for the fourth round was the mighty Nurburgring. Twenty-two laps around the 22.810km long circuit that had 174 turns came out to just over 500km of racing. In those days, the race starting position was determined by a ballot and Nuvolari started in second place behind the Auto Union of Hans Stuck.

Nuvolari made a poor start and fell behind, but much to the dismay of 300,000 eager German spectators and the presence of some of the high-ranking members of the Third Reich, the conditions favoured the Italian. Meaning it was raining and the track was soaked.

Four wheel drifting his Alfa in those treacherous conditions, Nuvolari had gotten to the lead of the race by the tenth lap after the leading German cars pitted for fuel and new tyres. Pit stops in those days were not strategic – that didn’t happen in grand prix racing until the 1982 F1 German GP – but a matter of necessity if the car was to get to the finish.

Nuvolari’s pit stop was not smooth and the Italian was delayed enough to re-emerge in sixth place. He systematically caught and passed the cars ahead of him as the crowd started to cheer him on as the PA system blared out the commentator’s updates of how he was advancing through the field. By the final lap, he was 35 seconds behind Mercedes’ Manfred Von Brauchitsch.

Von Brauchitsch had already received the hurry up signal from the Mercedes team’s spotters who could see his lead evaporating. Having already pushed his tyres to the limit in order to stay ahead, the German was helpless as Nuvolari flew past him and won the race – in a total time of over four hours!

Stuck was second, over two minutes behind and Rudolf Caracciola rounded out the podium. Not expecting anyone but a victory for a German driver in a German car, the race organizers did not have the Italian national anthem ready to play for the winner.

In a moment of what could be called savagery, to use the parlance of our times, Nuvolari had a vinyl record ready for just such an occasion!

The ‘Impossible Victory’ cemented Nuvolari’s legacy. He didn’t win another championship grand prix until the 1938 season, when he finally got his hands on a German racing car – the Auto Union Type D. By this time, however, Nuvolari was 46, and had already been racing for over two decades – two and four wheels combined.

Time was not kind to his body after two decades of racing in a purely mechanical era, breathing fumes and crashes. Circumstances were against him too, as the real world caught up to motorsport the following year when World War II broke out.

A hill climb race in 1950 – at the age of 57 – was his exit from motorsport. The Flying Mantuan died three years later of a stroke.

Take stock of that for a minute, that a man who started his career in motorbike racing at the age of 23 kept on going until he was almost 60, with the exception of the six-year long global conflict. Prior to which he was still near the top of his game. It’s hard for me to think of someone who fits the bill for the best racing driver ever. Especially as you consider he raced in an era when racing drivers did sports car racing too.

Nuvolari won the Mille Miglia and the Targa Florio, fabled Italian road racing events twice each. On top of which he was a winner at the 24 Hours of Le Mans in 1933, back when there were just two drivers per car.

As is very evident by the world around us, we live in far different times. It is unlikely for a driver such as this to exist and therefore, realistically impossible to compare drivers from different eras. But what’s the harm in making a case for it, right?

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