FRONTISPIECE One of the Fuller Brush Company promotional shots, taken in period, of Phil Hill with the works 1958 Ferrari 250 Testa Rossa.
First published in 2018 copyright © The GP Library Ltd PO Box 67, Alresford, Hampshire SO24 0WU, UK Phil Hill photographs and memorabilia copyright © The Hill Family Archive Based upon personal interviews by Steve Dawson and Doug Nye Final Text copyright © The GP Library/Doug Nye Research Consultant Derek Hill Design and Production Ian Lambot All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior permission in writing from the publisher. Printed in China ISBN 978-0-9954739-4-2
Contents
6
Foreword by Dan Gurney
10
Introduction by Doug Nye
14 18 20
California Dreaming 1939-50 International Motors My Cars
24 26 30 34 40
1951 Pebble Beach Elkhart Lake Pikes Peak Palm Springs
44 46 50 66 70
1952 Pebble Beach Le Mans 24-Hours Elkhart Lake Carrera Panamericana
74 76 82 90 94 112 116 122 126 130
1953 MacDill Air Force Base Sebring 12-Hours Bergstrom Air Force Base Le Mans 24-Hours Reims 12-Hours Grand Prix De L’ACF British Grand Prix USAF Trophy Carrera Panamericana
140 142 150 154 158
1954 Buenos Aires 1,000 Kms Buenos Aires City Grand Prix Sebring 12-Hours Carrera Panamericana
162 164 168
1955 Ferrari Testing Le Mans 24-Hours
182 186 190
Road America Venezuelan Grand Prix Bahamas Speed Week
194 196 204 208 214 224 226 228 232
1956 Buenos Aires 1,000 Kms 1,000 Kilomètres de Paris Gran Premio Supercortemaggiore
238 240 242 246 254 262 272 278 282 290
1957 Cuban Grand Prix Sebring 12-Hours Ferrari Testing Le Mans 24-Hours The Race of Two Worlds Reims Grand Prix German Grand Prix MG World Record Runs Venezuelan Grand Prix
296 298 302 306 312 316 320 324 330 342 348 352 356
1958 Argentine Grand Prix Buenos Aires 1,000 Kms Buenos Aires City Grand Prix Sebring 12-Hours Ferrari Testing Targa Florio Monaco Grand Prix Le Mans 24-Hours The Race of Two Worlds French Grand Prix Italian Grand Prix Moroccan Grand Prix
French Grand Prix Le Mans 24-Hours Swedish Grand Prix Road America 6-Hours Bahamas Speed Week
360 362 366 370 376 382 386
1959 Ferrari Testing Monaco Grand Prix Targa Florio Le Mans 24-Hours German Grand Prix MG World Record Runs
392 394 396 402 406 410 414 418
1960 Buenos Aires 1,000 Kms Argentine Grand Prix Sebring 12-Hours Ferrari Testing Targa Florio Dutch Grand Prix Le Mans 24-Hours
420 422 426 432 434 440 444
1961 Ferrari Testing Monaco Grand Prix ADAC 1,000 Kms German Grand Prix Italian Grand Prix United States Grand Prix
448 450 452 454 456
1962 Sebring 12-Hours Targa Florio Le Mans 24-Hours French Grand Prix
464
1963-65
470
1966-67
476 478
Afterword The Racing Record
486 488
Acknowledgements Credits
13
ELKHART LAKE 1952 Here I am in Chuck Hornburg’s new C-Type Jaguar, sparkling in the sun outside the lock-up garages in which we prepared the cars at Elkhart Lake. George Weaver is in the silver sister car owned by Max Hoffman, Jaguar’s New York distributor based in Manhattan. After a battle with Phil Walters’ 2.6-liter Ferrari, I managed to pull away and win the first 100-mile race by nearly a minute, with Weaver third. The fellow in the white shirt smoking a pipe is Jock Reed, a Hoffman affiliate and one of ‘Lofty’ England’s right-hand men. At this time he was stationed in America. The middle guy is Andy Amaritano, a mechanic for Hoffman in New York, while the guy in the brown shirt is Chuck Hornburg, Jag distributor for the Western States. This shot is taken in what is the present-day lakeside portion of the newly developed Osthoff Resort on Elkhart Lake. When it opened in 1996 it did away with the old section of circuit that went right by the lake.
California Dreaming – 1939-50
P
HIL HILL WAS AN ABSOLUTELY LIFELONG MOTOR-CAR enthusiast. His indulgent Aunt Helen had been a great car buff, and one day in 1939 she paid $40 to buy the 12-year-old a Ford Model T. He began to drive immediately, much to his authoritarian exNavy father’s absolute horror: “He warned me not to drive on public streets, but I had an alternative … “At Military Academy I’d met George Hearst, grandson of the publisher William Randolph Hearst. He also owned a car, which he drove on a dirt track on his family estate in Santa Monica Canyon.” Further influences followed. “One winter night in 1940, I’d seen my first motor race – midget cars at the banked Gilmore Stadium in Los Angeles. “Meanwhile I’d begun earning some pocket money, working part-time in local gas stations … I spent the proceeds on old cars, on which I became a self-taught mechanic. I went to a few embryo hot-rod meets on the dry lakes, and helped prepare some of the cars, though I did not compete. One of the guys I met … was Donnie Parkinson, who would later marry my sister, Helen. His father was a wealthy enthusiast and he introduced me to motor-racing literature, lending me two books by the British writer Barré Lyndon – my introduction to a world which, for me, had an absolutely absorbing attraction …
14
RIGHT May 26, 1949. A fabulous photo from Phil’s archive showing midget-car drivers Byron Courts (left) and Doug Grove (right) in the cockpits, with Arnold Stubbs, Phil and Rudy Sumpter himself the first three crew members from left beyond.
“In 1944 I began work at the Douglas Aircraft Company in Santa Monica, assembling Browning turret guns. I began a Business Administration course at the University of Southern California, at the same time as a friend, Jerry Hanes, and we ordered a new Ford each from the Santa Monica agency. Mine was a Convertible … my first new car … and I was very proud of it. “Then it was George Hearst – again – who provided an alternate way ahead. A mechanic named Rudy Sumpter was looking for a gofer to help him run an Offenhauser-engined midget race car, owned by Marvin Edwards of Hollywood Spring & Axle. I met Rudy, got hired and, in June 1947, I joined him as a full-time mechanic’s helper.
“… I ENDED UP IN THE TOP 12, WHICH EARNED RUDY DECENT START MONEY … I INSTANTLY ASSUMED I’D BEEN GIFTED SPECIAL SKILLS AS A DRIVER, BUT POOR RESULTS … INDICATED OTHERWISE.” “I just loved the work. I had an identity. And at last I was doing something I found I loved … Marvin and Rudy’s driver was Gib Lilly … When he didn’t win he was always near the front. Rudy worked hard to keep that midget car competitive. I kept my eyes open, watched, and learned. I cleaned, and fetched and carried, and enjoyed every single minute of it. If I could revisit any part of my entire racing life again, that’s the period I’d most enjoy … “Because of the tensions at home, I was living with Aunt Helen most of the time, but since I began staying out real late with the midget racing team, I also had a room at Rudy Sumpter’s … through 1947-48. I didn’t get to race the midget, but increasingly I felt the urge to have a go in something. I had been reading more and more about European-style road racing. I was taking the British weekly magazines, ‘The Autocar’ and ‘The Motor’, and it was in them that I first read about the new British sports car – the MG TC, and then came the memorable day when I actually saw one of these new imports …
RIGHT October 10, 1948 – El Mirage dry-lake time trials, California. Phil adjusts a bonnet strap, while Richie Ginther sits in the cockpit of his supercharged MG. Both Phil and his future brother-in-law Donnie Parkinson competed here, in an event organized by the embryo California Sports Car Club. The MG coverthe quarter-mile in 9.89 seconds, to average a little over 91mph.
CALIFORNIA DREAMING
Rudy’s contemporary midget car driver Doug Grove then broke a leg in a crash at Carpinteria: “Rudy asked me to qualify the car for the main event at San Bernardino, around August, 1949. I’d never so much as warmed up the midget before, and almost the first thing I did was spin, but I began to get the hang of it … and I ended up in the top 12, which earned Rudy such decent start money he gave me the drive in place of Doug. Of course, I instantly assumed I’d been gifted special skills as a driver, but poor results soon indicated otherwise. I felt sure the much-repaired car just wasn’t right, while Rudy insisted it was absolutely perfect. So we called it quits …” Having tasted success with the MG, Phil then set his heart on a brand-new Jaguar XK120: “International Motors was developing its Jaguar business, and Roger Barlow offered to sponsor my taking a comprehensive service course at Jaguar, MG, RollsRoyce and SU Carburetters in England, through the winter months of 1949-50 … spending three to five weeks at each. I made great friends and contacts, learned a bunch … and saw Grand Prix cars race for the first time, at Goodwood and Silverstone. “In February 1950 my new Jaguar XK120 was ready for me to collect. I took it back with me via New York and the Indy ‘500’, where I met up with my friend Richie Ginther, and we drove back home together in it …” 1939-50
ABOVE Some of the British books about international road racing, first published in the 1930s, which Phil read so eagerly and which he always said shaped his entire life.
“To earn better money than I could make from tagging along with Rudy … I’d begun work as a mechanic at Simonsen Schackmeyer, the Packard agency on Wilshire Boulevard in Santa Monica. I was dining one night, right across the street from work, when this little green TC just drove up outside … “The owner went into some place nearby and I left my meal to look it all over. Just a few days earlier, George Hearst had told me they were selling these new cars at International Motors, in Beverly Hills. So I went over to try an MG just like the one I’d seen. I met Louis van Dyke who was one of the partners with Roger Barlow, and he took me out for a demo ride. When we got back to International Motors my mind was made up. I wanted one and my ’46 Ford Convertible had to go. What’s more, in November 1947 I ended up as a mechanic at International Motors Inc, and owner of a shiny new MG TC. I was almost as elated by that as when Aunt Helen had indulged me with that shiny Model T Ford …” With the MG, Phil began to compete in local rallies and time trials, then in a track race at Carrell Speedway, Gardena, where he’d helped run the Sumpter midget. He began winning regularly, but continued to feel bad about it: “… despite having earned up to $500 a night, I’ d learned so many car preparation tricks from Rudy Sumpter, it just seemed an unequal contest, like shooting fish in a barrel …”
15
PIKES PEAK 1951
LEFT The quick way on the Peak’s loose shale and gravel surface was
reckoned to be a case of throwing your racer into the turn, scrubbing off speed ski slalom-style, and then burying the throttle as soon as you could on the way out. It might not have been too cultured by road-racing terms, but it sure was spectacular and fun to watch … and to hear. No 58 here is Bob Finney’s Ford V8-engined ‘Frenzel Special’ – on his way to setting seventh fastest time. RIGHT ABOVE Yes, OK, this shot just didn’t quite work out to the stan-
dard I was always trying to achieve, but I guess these days we could claim it’s art? Today, with all these latest digital cameras, anyone can get great results just by point-and-squirt as a car flies by. I was up there on the mountain checking my light meter, setting my exposure time and lens aperture, and working hard just trying to achieve the perfect shot. This one which didn’t quite work out shows Art Killinger’s Offenhauser special on its climb to the clouds. They didn’t reach the finish … RIGHT I have always liked this shot of No 7, the ‘Weiher Alignment Co Special’, being opposite-locked by driver Herb Bryers on one of the Peak’s
many hairpin turns. The entry was listed as a McDowell chassis and like so many of these Pikes Peak contenders it is plainly very neat, well thought out and has been prepared with great care – and pride. All my background interest was in European-style road racing, and that would be where my future lay, but as a car guy I could also relate to this kind of competition.
1951
37
LEFT For me this was the real eye-popper at my first Le Mans. The works
Mercedes-Benz racing team seemed to be everything I had ever read about it: ordered, efficient, run with almost military precision by team manager Alfred Neubauer. Here their three tailor-made 300SL Gull-wing coupes stand ready for their drivers: No 20 is for Theo Helfrich/Norbert Niedermayer and will finish second; No 21 will win, co-driven by Hermann Lang/Fritz Riess; while No 22 will provide the team’s only failure, out after nine hours with electrical problems, co-driven by Karl Kling/Hans Klenk. It’s surprising how dull these cars look without that side molding featured on the later production Gullwing coupes – it really made a difference in visual appeal. But had this prototype model gone into production, International Motors was poised to import them. It was weird at the time to look into the engine bay, see the engine lying on its side and the space-frame chassis tubes apparently wandering all over … though there was real structural reasoning behind every single one of them.
1952
BELOW Lancia’s reputation grew rapidly through the early 1950s thanks to the factory’s sophisticated B20 Aurelia race cars. No 39 here was co-driven by Luigi Valenzano and ‘Ippocampo’, and No 40 by the hugely experienced, and tough, Felice Bonetto with Enrico Anselmi. They finished sixth and eighth overall, on just 2.0-liter V6 engines. These unit-body cars were very well prepared and light, and this was a great result to add to a third place overall in the Mille Miglia. Richie Ginther later drove a B20, and Eugenio Castellotti was another B20 owner. I thought Richie’s was a terrific little car. They built a tremendous reputation even in Southern California, where they were marketed by Bozzani Motors in LA. I remember there were even two of them at SAMOHI – Santa Monica High – my high school.
SEBRING 12-HOURS 1953
84
ABOVE Bill Spear was a great sports-car enthusiast with the wealth to indulge his enthusiasm. He kind of adopted me as his co-driver at this time, but his interest extended way beyond the Ferraris he would buy and we would race. Here he is in the newly imported Austin-Healey 100S brought over to Sebring from the factory in Warwick, England, by Donald Healey himself. RIGHT A mixed bag in the line-up – No 55 is the Mike Rothschild/Jack Nile Morgan Plus-4 which would finish 23rd; No 8 is Bill Spear’s Ferrari 225S that I would co-drive which didn’t finish at all; while No 48 is Fritz Koster’s Maserati A6GCS, which he shared with Jorge Daponte from Argentina. Unfortunately, they managed to get disqualified for a pit-lane violation (easily done). That’s the unmistakable figure of Spear standing there, with Alfred Momo to the right. Bill was a nice guy – always surprisingly sensitive about his size and weight.
85
FLORIDA USA
1953
ABOVE Donald Healey – head of the famous British sports-car company that bore his name. He was accompanied not only by this Austin-Healey ‘Hundred’ but also by Captain George Eyston, the great British recordbreaking driver from the 1930s. The 12-Hour race officials used the Healey as a course car, with Donald the driver. At the end of the inspection lap, the starting flag was actually dropped by Captain Eyston – who in 1938 had held the World Land Speed Record twice in his twin-engined car ‘Thunderbolt’, first at 345mph, then a few days later at 357! At Sebring we were fascinated to see this new Healey, and little did I know that a few years later I would find myself at Bonneville as part of an MG factory team attacking FIA world speed records, and run by Captain Eyston as team manager. I thought he was great.
LE MANS 24-HOURS 1953
LEFT Now we’re in amongst the really serious works team contenders. Jaguar
had won at Le Mans two years previously with their earliest tailor-made CTypes. But in 1952 they had made those last minute ‘droop snoot’ aerodynamic modifications which compromised the cooling systems and saw the team shoot itself squarely in the foot. Here for the 1953 race they really had something to prove – and they certainly did so. These are the latest ‘Lightweight’ C-Type works cars, with thin-gauge alloy bodies, rubber bladder fuel tanks, uprated 3.4-liter XK engines and – crucially – Dunlop disc brakes. Car No 17 (foreground) is for Stirling Moss/Peter Walker and will finish second. Car No 19 is for Peter Whitehead (leaning into it on left)/Ian Stewart (in the cockpit) and will finish fourth. Leaning on their car’s tail, in the red sweater, is Jaguar’s race-winning driver Duncan Hamilton. RIGHT Stirling Moss hitches up his pants (center) behind what will ultimately prove to be his second-placed ‘Lightweight’ C-Type Jaguar – his best ever finish in the Le Mans 24-Hours. Sister car No 18, however, would win outright in the hands of Tony Rolt and Duncan Hamilton. ‘Lofty’ towers above everyone. His was a truly commanding presence. RIGHT BELOW Backing up the works Jaguar C-Types was this Ecurie Francorchamps entry in Belgian racing yellow livery. Shared by Roger Laurent and
Baron Charles de Tornaco, this car would finish ninth come 4.00pm Sunday. Behind the car (right) bearded little Denis Jenkinson – ‘Jenks’ of ‘Motor Sport’ magazine – is noting details in discussion with brown-shirted ‘Lofty’ England, Jaguar’s works racing supremo. Between the two white-overalled mechanics that looks like Briggs Cunningham, checking out the opposition.
CIRCUIT DE LA SARTHE FRANCE
1953
101
USAF TROPHY 1953
128
ABOVE Ken Wharton ran away and hid from Flockhart’s ERA. His V16 BRM set the first-ever 90mph lap at Snetterton and won by over 20 seconds. In 1933-34, Raymond Mays had been instrumental in setting up English Racing Automobiles – ERA. In 1945-46 he had set up its postwar successor, British Racing Motors – BRM. These starring cars at Snetterton were cousins. RIGHT With my background of absorbing everything I could read about racing, I knew the names and reputations of many of the guys in this picture, even though I’ d never met them. This is BRM’s finest greeting their USAF Trophy winner, Ken Wharton. There’s former ERA, now BRM Chief Engineer Peter Berthon in the sun glasses (extreme left), next to Raymond Mays himself (bald head) talking with Wharton. Next to Mays in the white cap is Berthon’s assistant Tony Rudd, with BRM’s stalwart engine mechanic Willie Southcott alongside him in the blue overalls, and I’m told that the character with the moustache and neckerchief (right) is probably Mays’ friend and rabid BRM supporter ex-RAF Wing-Commander ‘Pingo’ Lester.
SNETTERTON UK
1953
291
CARRERA PANAMERICANA 1953 BELOW And here’s how our race ended after I’d dropped Guiberson’s Ferrari off the road between Puebla and Mexico City. I’d had trouble with the clutch being very heavy, and I’ d really had to lean on the pedal which was on a common pivot-shaft with the brake pedal. In doing this, I managed to bend the shaft. In the hills the brakes were fading, we’ d just topped a rise, and entered a downhill right-hand turn. I realized we were going too fast. I braked but there wasn’t enough effect. I tried to change down but the clutch pedal was virtually frozen on that bent shaft. We were sliding towards the edge, and I remember thinking how far we’d fall, because for sure we were going to fall. And over we went, backwards, landed on the roof, bounced onto the wheels and here we stopped. We pulled out our bags, removed our crash helmets, and began to wonder how and when we might get picked up. We scrambled back up the bank, and found the road covered in skid marks. A soldier told us Fangio had nearly gone off there before we’d arrived. There had been a warning sign, but some thrill-seeker had removed it, then settled down with the large crowd to watch the fun – which we’d just provided. RIGHT We’d been looking around the Ferrari, to see if there was any way we might retrieve it, when we heard another car approaching. There was a tremendous squeal of tires, a roar from the spectators, and ‘BANG’ this Cadillac Series 62 had launched itself off the roadside, flown down ‘our’ hillside and embedded itself just short of the tree we’ d managed to roll past on our roof. We said ‘hello’ to Charlie Royal and George Clark, whose Carrera was done for … just like ours.
138
MEXICO
1953
139
BUENOS AIRES CITY GRAND PRIX 1954
152
ABOVE Here are the Ferrari works cars, shot from the roof of the pit building. Car No 10 was driven by ‘Nino’ Farina, only to retire early on, while what is actually No 14 beside it – in the center of the picture here – is Mike Hawthorn’s luckless race leader, with Mike sitting in it. Car No 16 was driven home eighth by Umberto Maglioli, while the blue-and-yellow car No 12 (top right) was the car in which local hero José Froilán González started the race.
153
BUENOS AIRES ARGENTINA
1954
ABOVE I can’t remember if I looked down into these Grand Prix Ferrari cockpits thinking that one day, that’s where I wanted to be – but to be honest I’d be surprised if I didn’t. Perhaps the truth of it was that I never dreamed I’d ever get so lucky. I just can’t recall, beyond just wanting it. No 14 is the Hawthorn car which looked set to win, only to throw a con-rod on the last lap … with two corners to go. No 10 is Farina’s car which also broke, but earlier in the race. You can see here how roomy they were. There’s a thermos flask strapped into No 10, with a drinking tube in its cap. Mike Hawthorn drove No 14 in both the Argentine and BA City GPs.
CIRCUIT DE L A SARTHE
FR ANCE
Le Mans 24-Hours
“T
ODAY THE BIG 4.4-LITER 6-CYLINDER FERRARI 121LM IS regarded as something of a rocket ship. But accelerating out of Tertre Rouge onto the Mulsanne Straight at Le Mans I thought it was dramatically gutless. I then discovered that this was only because of the extremely tall gear that we had to have for Le Mans. I think our cars were the fastest there; we ran around 180mph. “Once the 121LM was into its stride along the Mulsanne Straight, it was indeed stupendous. Faster than anything I’d ever driven to that point and braking was real hard to get used to, braking in increments rather than all at once … The heat was going in at a higher rate at that speed … I’d let off the brake after maybe 100 yards and then I’d brake another 50 yards or something like that and brake progressively harder as speed diminished and I ran deeper into the turn.” Phil was teamed by Ferrari with his former adversary in the 1953 and ’54 Carreras, Umberto Maglioli. The gentlemanly Italian did the opening stint in their big Ferrari, coming in for the first scheduled refueling stops just after 6pm. Phil was up on the pit counter, ready to take over for his very first works Ferrari drive, when the terrible Le Mans disaster erupted, with ‘Levegh’s Mercedes raining parts through the packed spectator area opposite.
168
“ONCE THE 121LM WAS INTO ITS STRIDE ALONG THE MULSANNE STRAIGHT, IT WAS … STUPENDOUS.” Dazed on his out lap by what he had just seen, Phil would tell how: “Stirling Moss came absolutely BLASTING past me in the Mercedes that he had just taken over from Fangio [which] taught me a lesson I carried for the rest of my career – when peace turns to chaos, get your wits about you and Get On With It …” About midnight, while Maglioli was driving, their car started to overheat – a Ferrari 6-cylinder habit – and their race was over. Phil left Le Mans with much to consider … but also with the most fabulous set of color photographs in his camera bag … RIGHT Mike Hawthorn hurtling past the pits in the winning ‘Longnose’ D-Type Jaguar which he co-drove with Ivor Bueb. They completed 307 laps of the Sarthe circuit, and beat the Peter Collins/Paul Frère Aston Martin DB3S into second place, with the customer ‘Shortnose’ D-Type of Johnny Claes/Jacques Swaters third.
CIRCUIT DE LA SARTHE FRANCE
1955
169
LE MANS 24-HOURS 1955
E
ARLY IN 1955 PHIL’S ENTRANT FRIEND, ALLEN GUIBERson had come up with the remarkable notion that Phil and Richie Ginther should take his Ferrari 750S Monza to Europe and barnstorm it around the road races there. It was a really remarkable deal. Two young kids in their mid-20s were being dispatched alone with a private owner’s valuable racing car to campaign it 4,000 miles and an ocean away …
178
Phil and Richie just jumped at the chance, and sailed from New Orleans on the SS Frederick Lykes, bound for Genoa in Italy via Barcelona, Spain, with Guiberson’s Ferrari in the hold. During a brief stop at Gibraltar they heard that some great racing driver had been killed, but couldn’t find any further detail. A day later, the radio operator told them it had been Alberto Ascari who had crashed while testing at Monza. Soon after, the radio operator came to them again, this time with a telegram for Phil. It read “Disembark Barcelona instead of Genoa. Come direct to Modena. Ferrari”. It was signed by one of The Old Man’s secretaries. Phil had first met Mr Ferrari the previous year at Maranello, just before the ill-fated Reims trip. Now, he and Richie disembarked at Barcelona, and rode the train to Turin, then caught a bus to Modena. The Old Man did not keep him waiting: “I was ushered into his office and he said ‘How would you like to drive on my team at Le Mans?’. I said, ‘Of course, that would be great Mr Ferrari’. “In this day and age it might sound strange when I recall that money wasn’t mentioned. It just wasn’t on to talk about such a thing. Did I think this was my big break? No, not exactly. I thought things were moving awfully fast. But I was happy to ride right along.” At Le Mans, “For the first time I laid eyes on a fully assembled Ferrari 121LM and, to be honest, it was quite a daunting prospect to think I was going to be responsible for racing one of these factory projectiles alongside Umberto Maglioli. But the gentlemanly Biellese – who we knew from the Carrera – was very pleasant, laid back and friendly. “We practised the car together, and Mino Amorotti – Ferrari’s technical manager – impressed upon me I should go SLOWLY. So I was being careful, but I remember chasing Castellotti from Mulsanne to White House one time and being surprised at how much I was gaining on him in a few places. In fact I gained on him lots …
“Then back in the pits I heard him explaining to Amorotti that I had stayed with him, and he had obviously put two and two together, and concluded I could be a threat. I didn’t say anything, just logged that away for future reference. I must admit … it made me feel good. “Today the big 4.4-liter 6-cylinder Ferrari 121LM is regarded as something of a rocket ship. But accelerating out of Tertre Rouge corner onto the Mulsanne Straight at Le Mans, I thought it was dramatically gutless. I then discovered that this was only because of the extremely tall gear that we had to have for Le Mans. In fact, once we reached top speed, I think our cars were the fastest there; we ran around 180mph. “Once the 121LM was into its stride along the Mulsanne Straight, it was indeed stupendous. Faster than anything I’ d ever driven to that point, and braking was real hard to get used to – braking in increments rather than all at once. I was sort of apprehensive. I didn’t know how I was going to fit in. All I’d ever been was a big hero worshipper. Yet here I was, right up to my neck in this amazing activity.
“EVER SINCE MY FIRST VIST TO LE MANS I HAD PLANNED WHAT I WOULD DO IF A CAR EVER GOT LOOSE ALONG THE … PIT STRAIGHT … IT WAS THE SECOND FASTEST PART OF THE CIRCUIT AND I’D ALWAYS THOUGHT IT VERY UNSAFE …” “When I first saw the works Mercedes-Benz 300SLRs I just had to marvel. I loved to hear that desmodromic-valve straight-8 engine run. It sounded real hard, a true racing engine, and boy was it noisy … Those Mercs were very different, very advanced and to us seemed just incredibly sophisticated. “Maglioli did the opening stint in our Ferrari, and just after six o’clock the first scheduled refueling stops were due, and I was up on the pit counter ready to take over for my very first works Ferrari drive. And while I was standing there, one of the Ferrari mechanics down below, on the ground, tugged on my pant leg and pointed across the track, and there was this guy I recognized, Jim McGeechan, standing in the crowd and yelling something across the track at me.
If we waited until there was a gap between passing cars, we could actually hear one another because the roadway was so narrow. “He lived just four or five doors down from me on West 20th Street, in Santa Monica, and until that moment I’d had no idea he was there. He was calling out ‘Hi, how’s it going …’, that sort of thing. And then – like a lightning strike – our world exploded … “I remember just launching myself backwards off the pit counter, and months later he verified this by saying he was looking at me, trying to hear what I was saying, when suddenly I just stepped backwards off the pit counter and vanished from his sight. Down just like that. And instantaneously all hell broke loose around him. He was right in the middle of it all, yet didn’t get hit by anything. But his camera case had blood all over it … “So what in heck had happened? “Ever since my first visit to Le Mans I had planned almost subconsciously what I would do if a car ever got loose along that narrow pit straight at 165mph. It was the second fastest part of the circuit and I’ d always thought this was very unsafe, and had just put away a little idea about what I would do if I was ever there in the pits and something went wrong with cars approaching at such high speed. I had promised myself that if I detected any warning signal I would just dive back into the darkened safety of the concrete
CIRCUIT DE LA SARTHE FRANCE
pit enclosure, and that’s exactly – by unconscious reflex – what I had just done. “Hawthorn in the leading D-Type Jaguar was hurtling towards the pits with the Mercedes SLRs of ‘Levegh’ and Fangio right behind him. He was due to stop on that lap and as he came out of the White House curves he rushed up behind Lance Macklin’s works AustinHealey, and decided to lap it just before braking for his pit stop. He dived past the Healey, then pulled back in front of it and braked for the pits. Macklin, I think, could have been checking his rear-view mirror to see who else might be coming past, but when he looked back, eyes front, there was the tail of Hawthorn’s D-Type, brake lights blazing red, and in effect rushing back towards him. Taken by surprise, Macklin instinctively swerved left, but that took him into the path of ‘Levegh’s Mercedes. The French veteran’s car hit the Healey’s sloping tail, rode up it, and was launched onto the top edge of the safety bank, which it struck nose-up, belly-pan first, at colossal speed. The energy of that impact was so immense that the Mercedes’ chassis broke its back, and its entire front end, complete with suspension, brakes and engine, shot through the packed spectators like a crashing ’plane. “All this happened in less time than it takes to describe. My trigger was not sight. I don’t recall seeing any of this developing, not
1955
ABOVE June 11, 1955 – as the first scheduled refueling stops were in progress that Saturday evening the confined pit straight at Le Mans proved fatal. Here Lance Macklin’s stricken works AustinHealey, its tail torn where it had become a launching ramp for poor ‘Levegh’s Mercedes-Benz 300SLR, lies where it came to rest, having bounced off the pit counter (left). The rear of the Mercedes wreck blazes on top of the bank, its forepart having separated and torn through the spectators, right. Car 21 is the Karl Kling/Andre Simon second-string works Mercedes.
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MONTLHÉRY
FR ANCE
1,0 00 Kilomètres de Paris
O
N THE SECOND WEEKEND OF JUNE, 1956, PHIL WAS teamed with ‘Fon’ de Portago in a 4-cylinder works Ferrari 857S in the 1,000 Kilomètres de Paris at Montlhéry in France. “Here I found myself at another fantastically historic venue, one I had read so much about. It combined a high-banked oval speedway with a long and undulating road section, reaching far out into scrubby broadleaf woodland, and back again.
“French-based journalist Gérard ‘Jabby’ Crombac – who would become one of the most distinctive figures around major-race paddocks for 40 years or more – reported in ‘Autosport’ magazine: ‘Phil Hill turned in a lap at 2 mins 58.2 secs, then proceeded to better this no less than six times, finally recording 2 mins 54 secs –160.413kph.’ After our fuel-line delays we finished a disappointing fifth – but hey, I was being noticed by the British and Continental press …” The 1,000 Kilomètres de Paris race was run at the LinasMontlhéry Autodrome on June 10, 1956. Delayed early in the race, when ‘Fon’ de Portago was running third, their fifth-place finish probably displeased Mr Ferrari even more because the overall race winners were Jean Behra/Louis Rosier in the latter’s privately entered, but works-backed, Maserati 300S.
“… DEFEAT AT THE HANDS OF MASERATI … WAS PARTICULARLY UNWELCOME.” 205
Mr Ferrari didn’t enjoy his cars being beaten, but defeat at the hands of Maserati – just down the street in Modena – was always particularly unwelcome. At least three private Ferrari 750 Monzas filled second, third and fourth places before the delayed Hill/de Portago works car made it to the finish. Montlhéry’s pit and speedway area – originally built back in 1924, and home for the first time to the Grand Prix de l’ACF in 1925 – was never the motor-racing world’s most picturesque setting. But it had a character and presence entirely of its own. LEFT The rain-slick surface of the Autodrome is evident as the grid lines up before the race. On the front row here is François Picard’s French-blue Ferrari 750 Monza for himself and
MONTLHÉRY FRANCE
1956
Maurice Trintignant, who is standing beside it in the white crash helmet, talking I think with Louis Rosier who is facing my Leica. And there on the second row, car No 6 is the Ecurie Los Amigos entry for Harry Schell/Jean Lucas which would finish second in the race, beaten only by the Rosier/Behra Maserati 300S. This was a rare defeat of Ferrari by Maserati in that period, and I guess The Old Man in Modena wouldn’t have been too happy to hear the news, though he had other worries at the time as his son Dino was gravely ill, and fading fast.
FERRARI TESTING 1957 RIGHT In more recent years a popular model subject – Ferrari’s big open-frame FiatBartoletti transporter was the latest thing when I took these shots. Maserati used one too, and later one of them passed on to Scarab and then to the Shelby Cobra works team in Europe. It was based on a Fiat ‘Alpine’ bus chassis and had about a 6½-liter 6-cylinder diesel engine. Bartoletti built the custom bodywork with its top deck, lifts and winches at their plant in Forli. And here, fully loaded with three Grand Prix cars and ‘the guys’ in the cab, the transporter was no streak of lightning. Its cruising speed was only around 50mph, but that was quite good considering the European rural and Alpine roads of that era. The truck could carry quite a sizable stock of spares, wheels, tires and tools, and seven or so crew members in the double-row seated cab. BELOW Musso settles into the new Lancia-Ferrari before taking it out on an early run. That’s the unmistakable figure of Luigi Parenti in his brown overalls (left) who had worked with the Scuderia Ferrari pre-war, then had post-war spells with both Ferrari and Maserati. It’s such a shame guys like that never really recorded the stories they had to tell. Denise is shooting me shooting them. The Autodromo’s high brick wall, seen in the background, closed it off from the edge-of-town road system, most notably the major Via Emilia. It doesn’t bear thinking about, but Eugenio Castellotti had been killed here during a Ferrari test session just a few weeks before I took these shots. In 1961 the Scuderia Castellotti – named in his memory – ran an Inter-Continental Formula CooperFerrari for Giulio Cabianca, with ‘Eugenio’ cast into its Ferrari cam-boxes. By a cruel twist of fate, Cabianca was to lose his life during another testing accident at the Autodrome, when his throttle stuck open at the end of the main straight. His Cooper shot through an open gate in the brick wall and across the Via Emilia, knocking down a boy spectator and hitting several vehicles before ramming a wall. Poor Cabianca died, along with three entirely unsuspecting road users.
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MODENA ITALY
1957
253
NÜRBURGRING
GERMANY
German Grand Prix
“I
TAGGED ALONG TO NÜRBURGRING FOR THE GERMAN Grand Prix as a spectator. It turned out to be the great classic race in which Fangio led for Maserati before a pit-stop screw up. I think one of the mechanics dropped the knock-off hub nut for his wheel, and it spun away under the car … He looked around for it, but it was nowhere in sight. “By the time they got Fangio back into the race our quickest two Lancia-Ferraris – which were running non-stop driven by Mike and Peter – were way ahead, first and second, and looking dead set for a comfortable win: Ferrari’s first of the year at World Championship level. The latest ‘Lightweight’ Maserati 250Fs had been amazingly quick and had won every Championship race bar the British, when Moss and Tony Brooks came good with the Vanwall for their first win. Their pace had really rocked Ferrari. “But after his pit-stop delay, Fangio just showed us all why he was the absolute Maestro. He just ripped into the track, into Mike and Peter’s lead, into Ferrari’s complacency – call it what you like. He broke the lap record almost every time round, came up behind, caught them on the second-last lap, and wafted straight past and won – clinching him his fifth Drivers’ World Championship title.
“AFTER HIS DELAY, FANGIO SHOWED US WHY HE WAS THE ABSOLUTE MAESTRO.” 278
“I spent a lot of time around the circuit in practice, taking photos from the trackside. But whenever I was there on the fence Fangio wasn’t running on the track. So amongst all the shots I took, I haven’t got a single one of him on perhaps the finest weekend of his entire career …” As Henry Manney of ‘Road & Track’ described Fangio’s stupendous drive: “He ate the English boys alive.” But even without Fangio, Phil’s photo set from the Nürburgring still captures much of the atmosphere, and all of the color. Even so, he would still rather have been there amongst them, driving a Grand Prix car.
RIGHT The 1957 German Grand Prix has passed into history as a great classic, in which Fangio lost his lead in a botched mid-race pit stop, my team-mates Hawthorn and Collins gained a huge advantage by running non-stop, but Fangio staged a fantastic come-back drive in his Maserati, gobbled them up and won. Unfortunately, when I was out on the circuit during practice, Fangio wasn’t running, so I don’t have any shots of him. What I do have is this shot of the privateers, Bruce Halford in his Maserati 250F, leading Roy Salvadori’s red-nosed works Formula 2 CooperClimax. Halford was another nice guy trying to make his racing pay its way. His family ran a seaside hotel at Torquay on England’s Devon coast.
NÜRBURGRING GERMANY
1957
279
MG WORLD RECORD RUNS 1957
LEFT Alec Hounslow had a tremendous racing pedigree with MG, including a win in the 1933 Tourist Trophy race at Ards in Northern Ireland when he was riding mechanic to none other than Tazio Nuvolari. He was effectively chief mechanic on the Bonneville team – and yet another great guy. At MG we’ d go to a couple of pubs, the George in Dorchester was one, and The Plough another. The whole group would get drunk and sing songs. And Alec told the most fantastic stories of MG’s racing heyday. LEFT BELOW Here’s EX181’s engine installation, showing its experimental
twin-overhead camshaft engine, which was a 1489cc supercharged version of one used at Bonneville the previous year in MG’s EX179 record car. See the big Shorrock supercharger tucked beneath that finned inlet manifold with the two pop-off valves – backfire rails? Those two SU carburetors used very special needles. Many years later I was in South Africa and met one of the guys in a restaurant there. He gave me one of the special needles these SUs used, and it was huge! The blower was originally designed for commercial diesel engines. On EX181 it gave 32lbs boost. Running on methanol fuel, laced with nitrobenzine, acetone and sulphuric ether, the twin-cam engine developed around 290-horsepower at 7,000rpm.
286
RIGHT Here’s Alec Hounslow in the cockpit, where the driver sat with his legs over the steering rack from a Morris Minor – which we all referred to as a ‘Minus Morror’. You can see how the steering wheel itself was raked at a very steep angle. When they lowered the body top over you, the bubble canopy fitted really tight around your head. Everything was very close and off-putting, like a very cramped cockpit in a very tiny fighter plane. The car only had a tiny little motorcycle brake at the rear so you could slow down – just about – but you couldn’t lock a wheel, and there was an air flap for cooling which popped open as you hit the brake pedal. That all seemed logical, but on my first test run to shake-down the car, the moment I hit the pedal and the flap opened the cockpit filled instantly with droplets of raw fuel. I wasn’t soaked in it, but in that cramped environment I was breathing solid fuel. Just a couple of breaths and I almost passed out. It was horrible. I couldn’t wake up. I was a crumpled-up mess and when they let me out of that thing I was coughing and retching and could still hardly breathe ... Acetone and sulphuric ether is not a cocktail I’d recommend. They shot around for stuff to fix the problem, fitted some curtains in place under the wheels where they could close the vent a certain way, and it didn’t happen again.
1957
BONNEVILLE SALT FLATS USA
MONACO GRAND PRIX 1958
326
ABOVE Here’s Mike Hawthorn rounding the old Gasworks Hairpin during Monaco GP practice. While I probably got much closer to Peter Collins, I always had great respect for Mike’s driving. I thought he was a little bit better than Peter. He could pull a little more out of the hat if he was having a good day, and being really pushed. On song he was tremendous, really unbelievably fast. This 1958 season would see him and Stirling Moss head-to-head for the World Championship in succession to Fangio, now effectively retired. Moss had it over Mike on consistency except that Stirling wasn’t often satisfied with his car – he wasn’t satisfied sufficiently frequently to be able to do it the easy way. He didn’t seem to realize that his package of Moss and almost any car was probably enough to do any job. We all knew he was really special, but on his day Mike also had that little extra …
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ABOVE And here’s Peter in his car, at more or less the same spot in the Gasworks Hairpin, but on a different line to Mike, and driving in a different style. See how much steering lock Mike’s got on, the understeer with which he felt comfortable, although the effect wouldn’t have been so positive in this 30mph hairpin as it would have been up around 140-150mph at Spa or Reims. Here Peter is tucking his head down, while I found that I could never trust myself to make a good judgment if I held my head like that. I felt better driving upright, eyeline above my arms’ leverage point. Peter wasn’t just a good-looking guy, he was a good-looking driver – he looked like he was comfortable and knew what he was doing. When Mike was unhappy, it was obvious from the trackside. They were so different, but they got along real well –a pair of Brits abroad.
MONACO
1958
LEFT Luigi Musso swinging into the Tabac turn on the harborside, entering the final curving ‘straight’ towards the finish line and the pits. Practice at Monaco could begin as early as 6am – hence the long shadows – to avoid too much disruption to the day’s trade in the town. Monaco might have been all about motor racing for this one weekend – but it was always really about making money. The novelist Somerset Maugham came out with a great line about Monaco being ‘… a sunny place, for shady people’.
LE MANS 24-HOURS 1958
340
RIGHT Well – I guess you can imagine just how happy I was feeling when Denise McCluggage took this shot with my Leica, right after Gendebien and I had won at Le Mans. I’m just unfastening my waterproof – actually Briggs Cunningham’s wet-weather gear from his yacht. Olivier – as stylish as always in that sweater – has his hand on my shoulder. At such a moment the bond between team-mates and co-drivers is just as strong an emotion as it ever gets to be. The adrenaline of competition and the stress of endurance racing has all dispersed. You both know you’ve done the job expected of you, and on a selfish level you think ‘Hey – so this is what it’s like’. Winning such an important race is special – it is different from any win in a lesser event. The guy smiling to my left is the British journalist Gordon Wilkins who had worked for ‘The Motor’ magazine from as early as 1933 and then for ‘Autocar’ postwar. He’d also raced at Le Mans, starting with a Singer in 1939 and then postwar with a Jowett Jupiter and a Healey. At that time he was helping Mike Hawthorn write his book, and he later lived with his wife Joyce at Contessa Maggi’s castle, near Brescia – Count Maggi having been prime mover behind the Mille Miglia.
ITALIAN GRAND PRIX 1958
354 ABOVE Here I am about to make a serious practice lap before my first single-
seater race the right way round on the full Monza road course, just a couple of months after I had raced here counter-clockwise on the speedbowl section during the Race of Two Worlds. Marchetti seems to be finding it all a huge joke, leaning down in the cap at the left. And behind me, there’s Comi with the blue cap and the Shell badge on his brown overalls. This was the start of my first Grand Prix drive for Ferrari – a pretty darned serious prospect. But the car felt good … RIGHT Here’s Dino just fitting the hood on my car in the Monza pits, Comi in front. From the start of the race I managed to grab second place behind Moss at the first turn – the Curva Grande – and later take the lead. ‘Taffy’ von Trips in a sister Ferrari tangled with Harry Schell’s BRM and was thrown out as his car somersaulted into a huge bush. The car was one hell of a mess, and Trips was lucky to get away with only a broken leg. I led until lap five, when Mike went by and we led Moss and Stuart Lewis-Evans in their Vanwalls. My leftrear tire then threw its tread, so I had to stop for a wheel change while Moss and Mike scrapped for the lead. I rejoined 10th, but by lap 15 was back up to seventh. Then Stirling’s gearbox failed, leaving Mike in control, and I set a new lap record chasing Masten Gregory’s Maserati for fifth place.
ARGENTINE GRAND PRIX 1960 RIGHT And here’s a new prototype Formula 1 car making its racing debut.It would scare the hell out of us, it was so fast. It’s the first rear-engined Lotus, the Type 18, with Colin Chapman – its designer – standing beside it on the right, with his chief mechanic, Jim Endruweit, in the cockpit preparing the car before first practice. Innes Ireland drove the car and led the Grand Prix briefly – he spun, then came back to lead again only for the gearbox to jam, dropping him back to sixth. Even so, the writing was on the wall for our frontengined cars. BELOW
The Lotus’s rear suspension was strange to our eyes, with the top of the hub carrier located laterally by the fixed-length drive shaft, and the bottom of the hub carrier located by a reversed A-arm, the point pivoted on the chassis. The Lotus gearbox was a positive-stop mechanism, like a motor-cycle ’box; the lever in the cockpit just clicked through each gear, without a visible gate or shift pattern.
400
1960
BUENOS AIRES ARGENTINA
FERRARI TESTING 1961
LEFT Bazzi, Forghieri and Marchetti attend to little Richie who’s almost hidden from sight here in the deep cockpit. The mechanic on the right is Carlo Amadessi – the team strong man. Whenever they wanted a gearbox shifted or help to lift an engine, he was the guy. We tested at the Autodromo every day. At that time I think I was staying downtown in the Hotel Real Fini, while Richie was living there at the Palace. We just tested endless things – springs and shockers and settings. It was a pleasure. We made real progress. LEFT BELOW The two separate plexiglass teardrops over the induction
trumpets identify this car’s engine as the latest 120-degree wide-angle V6. The older-style 65-degree V6 derived from past Formula 2 use had just a single central intake orifice cut in the rear deck, with one unified plexiglass bubble over the top. The side scoop fed cooling air over the exhaust manifolding, left and right.
424
RIGHT From the low sun, the damp track and the long shadows it’s either early in the morning at the Modena Autodromo and we’re in for a long day’s testing, or it’s the end of a showery day and we’ll soon be heading home. Marchetti is being assisted by one of his mechanic team. If you study these shots closely you really can see the individual hammer strikes by which Fantuzzi’s guys fashioned the aluminum body panels. Italian carrozzerierie of this period still used the technology devised and proven in medieval times for hand-beating suits of armor.
It alian Grand Prix
I
n preparation for the critical Italian Grand Prix at Monza, Phil got the team mechanics to investigate the brake pedal vagaries he had experienced all season, as he explained: “… while my car was still good and hot, I got the mechanics to take a couple of big crowbars – instead of a little screwdriver that they’d always used in the past – and lever the brake pedal back and forth”. The ‘Sharknose’s rear brakes were mounted inboard on the transaxle cheeks and “… this revealed a great big chunk of free-play on the thrust side of my differential. When the pinion was driving the ring gear it wasn’t bad, but going the other way there was a good 30thou’s worth of play. I felt sure that having to pump my damn left leg off to recover some brake pedal all year long was down to this.” “I guess I was understandably uptight, but they told me I had an improved engine, revving a little higher and giving more power. But as I drove it out of the pits for the first time and changed up from second to third – I found that what should have been third gear was in fact another second. I came back in and told them, and Tavoni and Chiti assumed I was just getting het up and cooed at me, ‘No Pheel – you must have made a mistake’. “But I knew darned well I was right, and called over the gearbox guy and got him to check. And sure enough I had two second gears. So they had to fix that, and I didn’t get out until late in the day. The full combined Monza course was being used, combining the high-speed banked track and the road circuit. I could only watch while ‘Taffy’, Richie and the new boys were rushing around, until
440
RIGHT September 8, 1961 – practice for the Italian Grand Prix, Monza. Here in the paddock, five-times World Champion Driver Juan Manuel Fangio studies the two ‘Sharknose’ cars of Richie Ginther (No 6) and ‘Taffy’ von Trips (4).
my gearbox had been fixed and I could join in. But almost immediately I felt some hesitancy from my engine and I quickly decided I couldn’t trust it. When I reported back I could see the doubt in their eyes – Chiti, Tavoni and Dragoni all thought it was just Hill being Hill, tense, excitable, just imagining some fresh problem, some new drama … “I tell you, if there was one thing liable to get me excitable it was people assuming I was being excitable. The Old Man was in the pits on his annual visit to Monza practice – the only time he would ever attend a motor race (though never on race day). And he joined in, joshing me about letting the new kid – Ricardo Rodríguez – set a faster time. Then he said ‘All you have to do is stop complaining, and just drive the car’.
“BOTH TRIPS AND I HAD KEPT TO OURSELVES. WE HARDLY SPOKE. WE BOTH KNEW WHAT WAS AT STAKE.” “Well I still felt it was showing signs of running rough and hesitant near peak revs. I was sure it was unhappy, and said so – because I sure was … Richie set fastest time that Friday at 2m 46.8s, I did a ’48.9, young Ricardo a ’49.6 and Trips only ’50.3. It became his turn for some of Mr Ferrari’s ‘encouragement’. “The engine was bugging me. Saturday practice was run under a blazing hot sun. Trips showed good form, taking pole at 2m 46.3s, and Ricardo shamed both Richie and me by setting second-fastest time with a ’46.4. Richie and I set almost identical times – Richie 47.1, with me a tenth slower and now convinced my so-called ‘uprated’ new engine would never last the race. While The Old Man continued to needle me about the Mexican kid’s pace, I demanded they change the engine. And they finally relented and agreed. When they looked inside the practice engine they found a fractured inner valve spring on one cylinder. There’s no way it would have survived the 430-kilometer race next day … “Both Trips and I had kept to ourselves. We hardly spoke. We both knew what was at stake. But all our Ferraris had quite high first gears, and at the start Jim Clark’s 4-cylinder Lotus was faster off the line and got amongst us as we spun our wheels, then hesitated as our V6 engines dropped out of the torque band. Richie led back
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MONZA ITALY
past the pits to run onto the banked speedbowl, with Clark alongside him. I was third, with Ricardo and ‘Taffy’ in my mirrors, but my fresh engine seemed strong and I led back across the timing line to begin the second lap. I led through the Lesmos, the Ascari Curve and down the back straight – so I never saw what then happened behind me. “It’s tragic history now that Trips – after his poor start – was trying to make up time and slipstreamed Clark down towards the Parabolica turn. Under braking, his Ferrari then tangled with Jimmy’s Lotus, and they both crashed into the sloping spectator bank to the left of the track. Trips’s car got airborne and spun along the fence at head height, then rolled back across the track. He was thrown out and killed instantly. A bunch of absolutely luckless spectators – pressing against the fence – were also killed and many more were
injured … I knew none of this. I just concentrated on building my lead. Richie was keeping pretty good pace with me, and we just kept hammering on. “Far into the race I glimpsed Rodríguez in the pits in a cloud of smoke. Perhaps another valve-spring snapping – certainly an engine failure. My car was flying … then Richie began to fall away – and his engine had also gone. So I was alone out there for Ferrari … and for myself. “I didn’t think about the Championship. Instead, I was listening intently to my engine, feeling its vibrations. Was that something new? No, just singing along unchanged. My mechanic Dino signaled ‘HIL – MOS – GUR’. Then Stirling retired the Lotus, and the signals read ‘HIL – GUR – MCL’, with Bruce McLaren third in the works Cooper. And then the laps left wound down, and after the full 43
1961
ABOVE In some ways Mr Ferrari had toyed with the hopes and ambitions of Phil and ‘Taffy’ von Trips, here, since both had been cadet works team drivers in 195657. Trips had been given his Formula 1 chance long before Phil. They were on friendly terms yet were vividly fierce rivals – and that rivalry reached its peak in the German and Italian Grands Prix of 1961 … when one of them would win the Drivers’ World Championship title.
1963- 65
F
OR PHIL, HIS FORMULA 1 DISAPPOINTMENTS DURING 1962 had been largely alleviated by his third Le Mans 24-Hour race win. But his seven-year career with Ferrari had run its course, and he left the team with few regrets, indeed relieved in many ways to escape the pressure cooker which Mr Ferrari so assiduously kept on the boil. Phil raced only ten times through 1963: making five largely abortive outings for the debutant Formula 1 ATS team; two more in Swiss Ferrari importer Georges Filipinetti’s new and unsorted private Lotus-BRM 24; and only three endurance racing starts in three different makes of works-entered cars – Shelby Cobra in the Sebring 12-Hours, works Porsche flat-8 Coupe in the Nürburgring 1,000 Kilometers and Aston Martin Project 215 at Le Mans. In the early Cobra Roadster at Sebring he would recall how he led the entire field on the opening lap and: “… the big deal for me was that as I led back across the timing line, I saw all my old Ferrari guys, out there on the pit rail, leaping up and down, cheering and waving me on. That was a great moment …”. After an early lead and brake-trouble delays he, Ken Miles and Lew Spencer drove the car home as the first American finisher – 11th overall, and GT winners. Subsequently, his Formula 1 season with the ATS team proved disastrous. He had joined it simply because he was asked to do so by the former Ferrari management team, which had been summarily fired by Mr Ferrari at the end of 1961. The new marque’s
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RIGHT Dan Gurney (in car)
and Phil deep in conversation in the Sebring pits, late in the race with Cobra No 15, their assigned – but troubled – number one team car which would finally be classified a lowly 29th overall. But when Phil led with the car on the opening lap, his most obvious support came from his former works team mechanics at Ferrari – cheering him on wildly from the pit wall …
engineering director was Carlo Chiti, racing director Romolo Tavoni, commercial manager Girolamo Gardini, while Giotto Bizzarrini was developing a road-going rear-engined ATS GT. The project’s initial figurehead had been Count Giovanni Volpi, of Scuderia Serenissima racing team fame – and the project had been conceived to foster new young Mexican star Ricardo Rodríguez’s Formula 1 future. More money came from Bolognabased industrialist Giorgio Billi, who’d made a fortune from specialist machines for making ladies’ stockings, more still from Jaime Ortiz-Patiño, grandson of the legendary Bolivian tin billionaire. Another strong factor in ATS’s creation was an Italian economic boom, seeming at last to promise true postwar prosperity. However, when young Ricardo was killed in practice for the inaugural Mexican Grand Prix – in November ’62, driving Rob Walker’s Lotus – Volpi lost much of his taste for racing. In any case, he and Billi just hadn’t got on, and when Volpi wanted out, so did Patino, and Billi eventually bought out both of them. The main problem would be that the fourth ‘partner’ then evaporated along with the collapse of Italy’s alleged economic miracle. Billi’s business sagged with it. One of his big customers for the stockingmaking machines was the USSR. With a fresh ‘Red scare’ in America over Communism, Phil worried he might be investigated for having joined a Soviet supplier ... The new ATS Formula 1 cars were delayed in development, and by the time of their race debut in the 1963 Belgian GP they looked like the crudest of backyard specials. Phil and team-mate Giancarlo Baghetti were embarrassed as much by the V8 cars’ appearance as by their performance: “… my experience with the Grand Prix team was so traumatically disappointing, my mind blanks out … my time there”. The Italian Grand Prix saw ATS’s best performance: “… two cars both running at the finish, which the works Ferraris were not … I actually finished – 11th. Glory be. “At least I got to drive in a United States Grand Prix at Watkins Glen, but … within the first half lap Baghetti stopped with his car’s oil pump broken. My race lasted five laps, in 13th place – same problem. Two weeks later at the last race of the year, the Mexican Grand Prix, a lower rear wishbone mount broke away from the chassis … and my ATS career was over.
RIGHT ATS preparation and
presentation had taken a major leap forward in time for the faltering new team’s home Grand Prix at Monza, Italy. Seen here turning into the Curva Parabolica, Phil was pleased to finish the race, even if only 11th overall.
next thing I knew I was spinning like a top …”. Impact against a fence bent the megaphone exhaust pipes at right angles, clamping them shut, and nothing Phil tried would re-open them. “If that had been a Ferrari tail-pipe I could have bent it straight easily, and probably have snapped it off. But not a Porsche pipe … The German crowd who had been so happy with me when I was leading the race by half a lap … finally they began to slow handclap, then began chanting, repeatedly, ‘Yankee – Go Home’. So eventually, I did …”. Next day he headed for Le Mans, where John Wyer of Aston Martin had engaged him to co-drive the latest 4-liter Aston Martin Project 215 coupe with Belgian driver Lucien Bianchi. He loved it: “I was astounded by the 6-cylinder engine’s torque. Overall, the Aston’s roadholding was excellent, with nicely direct steering and consistent, fade-free brakes. Did it match a Ferrari GTO? Very near, and if Aston had followed through on development in the manner Ferrari did with its GTs, I am confident it would have matched the GTO”. He led briefly from the start: “but in the third hour we had to give up, the transmission shot. For me the big plus from Le Mans was that as a driver I knew I could still compete …”. Mans 24-Hours, La Sarthe. Phil in second place, pursuing André Simon’s Maserati 151 rocketship, leads a quartet of Ferrari sportsprototypes back past the pits at the end of the opening lap in the ferociously fast 4-liter Aston Martin Project 215. Sadly, after only 28 more laps, the car’s transmission failed. But its early pace had reassured Phil that as a driver he could still compete …
LIFE AFTER FERRARI
“I had been having trouble getting paid. I never knew where it might come from, and during the European season they began paying me in cash. On several occasions I had to leave Italy in my Alfa Romeo Giulia with bundles of Lire secreted in the door panels. Italy was spiraling into such financial trouble there were big questions about people taking money across the borders. I think I was really saved from driving for ATS again by the Italian financial collapse of 1964, because that’s what essentially killed the project.” A one-off drive for Porsche with his friend Jo Bonnier in the Nürburgring 1,000 Kilometers ended when he spun off under pressure from team director Huschke von Hanstein signaling him ‘FASTER’, though he was leading comfortably at the time: “… I thought someone must be catching me fast, so I pushed harder. I could see the crowds around the course waving and clapping as I went along – a German car was leading their race, and we really did have a great chance of winning on their home soil … “I was right on it when I got to Aremberg corner, a righthander under a bridge … The road was wetter and more slick than before, covered with gravel from other cars clipping the verges, and
1964
465
Phil’s 1964 season began with a return to the Prancing Horse, co-driving Luigi Chinetti’s latest Ferrari 250GTO/64 Berlinetta with Pedro Rodríguez in the Daytona Continental 2,000 Kilometers race. Once the faster new Shelby Cobra Daytona Coupe had caught fire in the pits, they won: “Checking back, I see the 2,000Kms distance took us 12 hours 40 minutes to complete – so Daytona ’64 lasted longer than Sebring. We had won for Ferrari again, but the speed of that Daytona Coupe really concentrated my mind. Primarily, though, it was just great to have been out there again, really competing for the lead. To have won after the year I’d just endured was terrific …”. In Formula 1 a one-off drive for Tavoni’s friend ‘Mimmo’ Dei’s Scuderia Centro Sud BRM team at Snetterton, England, in March, was followed by joining Bruce McLaren in the works Cooper team, though by that time the British marque could no longer compete consistently for top honors. 1963-65
ABOVE June 15, 1963 – Le
RIGHT June 10, 1967 – the Le
Mans 24-Hours. Blazing through the Esses on the Saturday evening, the Phil Hill/Mike Spence Chaparral-Chevrolet 2F Coupe disputes track position with the Mario Andretti/Lucien Bianchi Ford GT Mark IV (No 3). The Texan car’s challenge would end when the gearbox broke – again.
in the final stint until a rear tire punctured out near Campofelice … The spare wheel was only a token and would not possibly fit on the rear. So the Chaparral was out and he just stood guard on it … waiting for our crew to come out post-race and rescue them both.” In Germany’s Eifel Mountains Phil was then “… able to power past Siffert (in a works Porsche) to lead another Nürburgring 1,000Kms … but that darned gearbox gave up yet again”. Further team failure followed in what turned out to be his farewell Le Mans appearance: “Just after 5am I pulled in for a scheduled stop, when one of the guys saw that fluid was leaking out of the auto gearbox. Jim decided it had to be addressed and so the mechanics started pulling it all apart. The seal between the torque converter and gearbox had failed, but Jim was determined that we should finish, no matter how long it might take to get it running again … and the work took around three hours. Eventually Mike restarted and began lapping as fast as anyone. But after about an hour more, the transmission just broke up inside and we retired.
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ABOVE Phil has the 2F Coupe
settling towards its bump stops in the compression between the Adenau Bridge and Ex-Mühle on the Nordschleife’s back-stretch, during the ’67 ADAC 1,000Kms. Phil knew the Nordschleife like the back of his hand and was thrilled to deprive Jo Siffert’s works Porsche of the lead. But it would not last.
Monza 1,000Kms and led briefly before a driveshaft coupling failed. Just five days later, in the Spa 1,000 Kms, Phil felt: “… completely at home … but it rained on race day and after the first refueling stop the engine – guess what – refused to start, losing nine minutes. In drying conditions we were then able to exploit the wing and Mike set fastest lap, before that auto transmission failed again. Hap Sharp then decided that we should run it in – of all races – the Targa Florio … “I think he really wanted to see Sicily and the circuit, more or less just as a motorsport enthusiast and tourist. Hap I think did a one-lap reconnaissance in a little Fiat hire car. He complained ‘There’s a tremendous difference between a saloon car and a sevenliter race car. The straights get shorter …’ “I managed to hold fifth at the end of the opening lap, and retirements elevated us back up to fourth, which Sharp maintained
“… BUT BRANDS HATCH GAVE ME A GREAT NOTE TO CLOSE ON – TO DRIVE FOR CHAPARRAL AND TO WIN. HOW MANY DRIVERS WIN THEIR LAST RACE? MAYBE, AT LAST, I WAS CONTENT.” “Every single race which I qualified on pole, that darned gearbox broke … once we went to the big engine we just had nothing but trouble with it. If the 2F hadn’t had a weak gearbox that would have been a marvelous year. But I never knew that this major problem had been fixed for the final race at Brands Hatch in England – because Hall never told me …”. For the BOAC ‘500’ 6-Hours at hilly, twisty Brands Hatch, Phil expected the worst: “Ferrari and Porsche were to fight out the World Championship title between them … but the moment we arrived, we found the British crowd were just mad about the highwinged Chaparral. “As the race developed, Ferrari, Mirage and Porsche all took turns at leading. We lost nearly two minutes in an unscheduled pitstop to replace a punctured tire, but I was then able to pull back
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our final action photo of Phil in a frontline World Championship race falls to this Geoff Goddard study of our late friend in the racewinning Chaparral-Chevrolet 2F Coupe, locking over into Druid’s Hill Hairpin, en route to the victory he shared with co-driver Mike Spence.
THE CHAPARRAL YEARS
two seconds per lap. Despite a late charge from Chris Amon and Jackie Stewart in another works Ferrari 330 P4, it wasn’t difficult to maintain a cushion ahead of them, and then the clock was ticking down, the laps were being reeled off, the transmission was holding together – and I was out there in the lead … “Last lap. I came under the last bridge and out onto the falling away right-hander they called Clearways Corner, and then the 2F’s white nose was pointing towards the finish line, in the dip on the Top Straight. Over the pit wall I could see Mike and our guys jumping up and down – waving like crazy – and then, BLAMMM!, the checker had flashed down just in my peripheral vision, and I was off the throttle and slowing on the upslope towards Paddock Hill Bend … and we had won. “And I just felt this enormous, all-embracing kind of flood of pure relief and satisfaction wrap around me like a big, warm comfort blanket. All the knotted muscles and tension of being out there, race-
driving, working at such a sustained level of mental and physical commitment, just evaporated. There was this surging sensation of happiness for myself, for Mike, for Hall and Sharp, and for all our guys back there in the pits. “We had just won another World Championship-level race, and all the earlier disappointments and frustrations of that year were – in that moment – just completely submerged and forgotten. “And that was the end of my ’67 season. Hall decided he’ d only run a single Chaparral in the Can-Am series as they had just one chassis left that was suitable. So no drive for me. And when the series began I found I was perfectly content just going along to watch. “As far as I was concerned race driving all just faded away. It didn’t break my heart, as my heart had not really been in it those last few years … But Brands Hatch gave me a great note to close on – to drive for Chaparral and to win. How many drivers win their last race? Maybe, at last, I was content.” 1966-67
ABOVE The distinction of being