Wolfgang Graf Berghe von Trips

Wolfgang Graf Berghe von Trips

Nation:	BR Germany
Automobile world championship
First start:	1957 Grand Prix of Argentina
Last start:	1961 Italian Grand Prix
Constructors
1957–1958 Ferrari  • 1959 Porsche  • 1959–1960 Ferrari  • 1960 Scuderia Centro Sud  • 1961 Ferrari
statistics
World Cup balance:	Vice World Champion ( 1961 )
Starts Victories Poles SR 27 2 1 -
World Cup points :	56
Podiums :	6th
Leadership laps :	156 over 787.8 km

Wolfgang Alexander Albert Eduard Maximilian Count Berghe von Trips (born May 4, 1928 in Cologne , † September 10, 1961 in Monza ) was a German automobile racing driver . From 1957 until his accidental death in 1961, he competed in the top automotive racing class, Formula 1 , in which he was posthumously runner-up in the world championship .

Life

Count Berghe von Trips was the last descendant of an old Lower Rhine noble family, the Berghe von Trips , who lived in the former Duchy of Jülich at the ancestral seat of Burg Hemmersbach near Kerpen . He attended boarding school at the Free Waldorf School in Benefeld . He passed the agricultural college exam with distinction. Graduated farmer Wolfgang Berghe von Trips began his career in automobile racing in 1953. He had already gained his first motorsport experience in 1950 with a 500cc BMW and in 1952 won a gold medal at the Siebengebirgsfahrt. His physical condition was not the best after surviving polio, meningitis and middle ear surgery in his childhood days. He made up for this deficiency through exercise. Under the pseudonym "Axel Linther" he initially contested his first races in a VW Beetle and then switched to Porsche . He used the pseudonym because his parents shouldn't worry. After all, in their spirit, he would later become the heir of Hemmersbach Castle in Horrem , where he grew up.

Beginnings in automobile racing

With a Porsche 356 A 1300 he achieved numerous victories in 1954, including the class win of the 1300 GT at the Mille Miglia, and was German champion in the class of grand turismo cars up to 1600 cm³ . In 1955 he made his debut on the AVUS. Mercedes racing director Alfred Neubauer noticed him and hired von Trips for his Mercedes sports car works team in 1955. In his first race for Mercedes, the Swedish Grand Prix in Kristianstad, von Trips drove a Mercedes-Benz 300 SL . He retired with a brake defect. Promotion to Formula 1 seemed only a matter of time, but at the end of the 1955 season, Mercedes withdrew from Formula 1 as planned.

Statue in front of Villa Trips at Hemmersbach Castle in Kerpen-Horrem (second casting)

Statue at the Nürburgring by Olaf Höhnen 1993

At the 1956 Italian Grand Prix in Monza, he was supposed to drive for Ferrari ; But in the final training session he had a serious accident with his Lancia-Ferrari D50 and broke his arm. This was the first of several accidents that earned him the nickname "Count Crash" . He was also unlucky again with a Mercedes-Benz 300 SL at the Mille Miglia in 1956 when, according to his own statement, he lost his power in a bend, so that he got off the road. The 1000 km race at the Nürburgring in 1956 was all the more successful for him . Together with the Italian Umberto Maglioli , he finished fourth in the overall classification and won the sports car class up to 1500 cm³. Trips / Maglioli drove the 44 laps on the Nürburgring Nordschleife in 8:01:46 hours and arrived 17: 51.5 minutes later to the finish as the winner Piero Taruffi and Harry Schell on the much stronger Maserati 300S .

Sports car racing

In 1957 Trips was supposed to drive the 1000 km race in the factory Porsche again, but had a serious accident the day before the race during a test drive with a Ferrari 250 GT at the bridge near Breidscheid. Like the earlier Formula 1 cars, this Grand Turismo car had the gas pedal in the middle. As a result, Trips mistook the brake and the accelerator, went off the track and suffered two vertebral fractures, a broken nose and severe bruises. After the accident, he wore a plaster corset for a few months. He drove the 1000 km race in 1958 with Olivier Gendebien as a partner in a Ferrari 250 Testa Rossa 58 and came third. In the 1958 European Hill Climb Championship he started in a Porsche Spyder 1500 RSK and won the title. In 1959 he returned to Porsche in a sports car and, despite a broken rim and a wheel change on the open track, achieved seventh place in the 1000 km race with Joakim Bonnier ; In 1960 on Ferrari he fell out with engine failure. His last success was in the 1000 km race at the Nürburgring in 1961 when he finished third in a Ferrari Dino 246 SP together with Richie Ginther and Olivier Gendebien. He also won the 1961 Targa Florio with Gendebien and finished second in the Sebring 12 Hours .

formula 1

On January 13, 1957, he made his Formula 1 debut at the Argentine Grand Prix in Buenos Aires. At his third Grand Prix, on September 8th at the Italian Grand Prix in Monza, he finished third behind Stirling Moss and Juan Manuel Fangio and scored his first four championship points. British motorsport fans gave him the new nickname "Taffy" during this time .

In 1958, Trips achieved only 9 championship points in six races. At the Italian Grand Prix in Monza he had an accident with Harry Schell's BRM on the first lap in the Lesmo curve , which further enhanced his reputation as a crash driver. Enzo Ferrari , who otherwise was not squeamish about unsuccessful drivers, had von Trips drive in his sports car team in 1959.

In order to stay in Formula 1, von Trips drove a Formula 2 car from Porsche in 1959, for which he won the European Hill Climb Championship in 1958. But in the first race of the 1959 season, the Monaco Grand Prix , he had an accident with Cliff Allison and Bruce Halford in his Porsche 718 on the first lap on the Saint Devote curve . At the home Grand Prix at the AVUS , von Trips was given the opportunity to start again for the Porsche team. However, the Porsche team withdrew its report after teammate Jean Behra had a fatal accident the day before (August 1, 1959) in a sports car race as part of the Grand Prix program at the AVUS.

In 1960 Berghe von Trips drove a Ferrari Dino 246F1 for almost the entire Formula 1 season . Fourth place (Portugal), three fifth places (Argentina, Netherlands, Italy) and sixth place (England) secured him ten championship points and seventh place in the drivers' world championship.

Accidental death in Monza

Wolfgang von Trips in the Ferrari 156 at the Dutch Grand Prix in 1961

After the rule changes of 1961, the Ferrari team had the superior vehicle and Berghe von Trips won his first Formula 1 races. This made him the first German driver to win a Formula 1 world championship race. As the leader of the world championship standings, who only needed one point to win the world championship, Berghe von Trips had an accident on September 10, 1961 at the Italian Grand Prix in Monza after a collision with Jim Clark in the second round while approaching the Parabolica curve fatal. In this accident, also known as the "black hour of Formula 1", Berghe von Trips' Ferrari 156 threw onto the side wall of the straight ahead of the curve and hit the wire fence in front of the spectators, killing 15 people and injuring 60 others. Berghe von Trips was thrown out of the racing car and died immediately with a broken neck. Teammate Phil Hill won the race and later became world champion with 34 points ahead of Berghe von Trips with 33 points. Third was Stirling Moss with 21 points.

Honors and souvenirs

Berghe von Trips won the election for " Sportsman of the Year 1961 " with 1193 votes. In addition, on March 31, 1959, Federal President Theodor Heuss awarded him the Silver Laurel Leaf .

Grave plaque on the family grave in the cemetery in Horrem

Wolfgang Graf Berghe von Trips was buried in the family crypt in the Kerpen- Horrem cemetery. In the Villa Trips at Hemmersbach Castle of the Counts Berghe von Trips, whose last descendant he was, a racing museum was set up by a foundation established from the family fortune without an heir. In 2015 the Villa Trips was sold to the Horrem entrepreneur Alexander Noven, who wants to ensure that the museum and the memory of the count are preserved.

In 1996 Berghe von Trips received a cinematic monument in the English feature film “La Passione” (screenplay and music: Chris Rea ). Original footage by Berghe von Trips, which had not been shown before, was used for this film, which features a boy who worships Berghe von Trips as a great idol. In the end credits of the film, there is first a pan to his grave and then a Ferrari drive by Berghe von Trips on the Monza race track, including the banked turns , which was recorded in its original length in 1960 using a camera mounted in front of his face - this is running Chris Rea's song "Only to Fly", which was also released as a single at the time .

The ADAC Graf Berghe von Trips Cup has been announced every year since 1982 ; it is the first racing series in historic motorsport in Germany.

In 2008 Berghe von Trips was inducted into the Hall of Fame of German Sports .

Others

Karting

Berghe von Trips was a co-founder of the German Sports Driver Association (DSK) and brought karts to Germany from the USA. Michael and Ralf Schumacher's hometown club is named after him today ( Wolfgang Reichsgraf Berghe von Trips eV, Kerpen-Manheim Kart Club in the DMV ).

Formula Junior

In 1959/60, Wolfgang Graf Berghe von Trips, together with the designer Valerio Colotti and the coachbuilder Medardo Fantuzzi, developed and built a formula junior racing car that was to be inexpensive and affordable for young people. It was a single-seater with water-cooled three-cylinder two-stroke - mid-engine auto Union, a space frame and independent suspension front and rear, respectively on lower arms and upper transverse leaf spring. The engine prepared by Gerhard Mitter developed 85 hp. On April 30, 1960, the TCA (Trips-Colotti-Auto-Union) was ready, but without subsequently meeting the expectations placed on it. The TCA was not competitive with the English Formula Junior cars. Seven pieces were built.

Scuderia Colonia

In 1960, Trips founded the sports driver community Scuderia Colonia together with other racing driver colleagues and supported by the entrepreneur Friedrich Victor Rolff, who was also successful as a racing driver . This took part as a team with drivers Michael May and Wolfgang Seidel in Lotus 18 racing cars for the last time in the tragic Grand Prix of Italy in 1961, in which Trips competed as a works driver for Scuderia Ferrari.

statistics

Statistics in the automobile world championship

Grand Prix victories

1961 Dutch Grand Prix ( Zandvoort )

1961 British Grand Prix ( Aintree )

general overview

season	team	chassis	engine	run	Victories	Second	Third	Poles	nice Race laps	Points	WM-Pos.
1957	Scuderia Ferrari	Ferrari D50 A	Ferrari 2.5 V8	1	-	-	-	-	-	4th	14th
		Ferrari 801		2	-	-	1	-	-
1958	Scuderia Ferrari	Ferrari Dino 246F1	Ferrari 2.4 V6	6th	-	-	1	-	-	9	12.
1959	Dr. Ing.F. Porsche KG	Porsche 718	Porsche 1.5 F4	1	-	-	-	-	-	-	NC
	Scuderia Ferrari	Ferrari Dino 246F1	Ferrari 2.4 V6	1	-	-	-	-	-
1960	Scuderia Ferrari	Ferrari Dino 246F1	Ferrari 2.4 V6	7th	-	-	-	-	-	10	7th
		Ferrari Dino 246P	Ferrari 2.4 V6	1	-	-	-	-	-
	Scuderia Centro Sud	Cooper T51	Maserati 2.5 L4	1	-	-	-	-	-
1961	Scuderia Ferrari	Ferrari 156	Ferrari 1.5 V6	7th	2	2	-	1	-	33	2.
total				27	2	2	2	1	-	56

Single results

season	1	2	3	4th	5	6th	7th	8th	9	10	11
1956
								DNS
1957
	6 1	7th						3
1958
	DNA	DNF				3	DNF	4th	5	DNF
1959
	DNF					DNS			6th
1960
	5	8th*		5	DNF	11 *	6th	4th	5	9
1961
	4th	1	2	DNF	1	2	DNF

¹ driver change with Cesare Perdisa and Peter Collins at the 1957 Argentine Grand Prix 

Legend
colour	abbreviation	meaning
gold	-	victory
silver	-	2nd place
bronze	-	3rd place
green	-	Placement in the points
blue	-	Classified outside the point ranks
violet	DNF	Race not finished (did not finish)
	NC	not classified
red	DNQ	did not qualify
	DNPQ	failed in pre-qualification (did not pre-qualify)
black	DSQ	disqualified
White	DNS	not at the start (did not start)
	WD	withdrawn
Light Blue	PO	only participated in the training (practiced only)
	TD	Friday test driver
without	DNP	did not participate in the training (did not practice)
	INJ	injured or sick
	EX	excluded
	DNA	did not arrive
	C.	Race canceled
		no participation in the World Cup
other	P / bold	Pole position
	SR / italic	Fastest race lap
	*	not at the finish, but counted due to the distance covered
	()	Streak results
	underlined	Leader in the overall standings

Le Mans results

year	team	vehicle	Teammate	placement	Failure reason
1956	Porsche KG	Porsche 550A / 4 RS Coupé	Richard von Frankenberg	5th place and class win
1958	Scuderia Ferrari	Ferrari 250TR 58	Wolfgang Seidel	failure	accident
1959	Porsche KG	Porsche 718 RSK	Joakim Bonnier	failure	Clutch damage
1960	Scuderia Ferrari SpA	Ferrari 250TR 59/60	Phil Hill	failure	no petrol
1961	Scuderia Ferrari	Ferrari Dino 246SP	Richie Ginther	failure	no petrol

Sebring results

year	team	vehicle	Teammate	Teammate	Teammate	placement	Failure reason
1956	Porsche KG	Porsche 550 Spyder	Hans Herrmann			Rank 6 and class win
1957	Ferrari Factory	Ferrari 290MM	Phil Hill			failure	battery
1958	Scuderia Ferrari	Ferrari 250TR / 58	Mike Hawthorn			failure	Power transmission
1959	Porsche Auto Company	Porsche 718 RSK	Joakim Bonnier			3rd place and class win
1961	Sefac Automobile Ferrari	Ferrari 250TRI	Giancarlo Baghetti	Willy Mairesse	Richie Ginther	Rank 2

Individual results in the sports car world championship

season	team	race car	1	2	3	4th	5	6th	7th
1954	Porsche	Porsche 356	BUA	SEB	MIM	LEM	RTT	CAP
					33
1955	Wolfgang von Trips Daimler-Benz AG	Porsche 356 Mercedes-Benz 300 SLR	BUA	SEB	MIM	LEM	RTT	TAR
					25th		3
1956	Porsche Scuderia Ferrari	Porsche 550 Mercedes-Benz 300 SL Ferrari 290MM	BUA	SEB	MIM	ONLY	KRI
				6th	DNF	4th	2
1957	Scuderia Ferrari	Ferrari 290S Ferrari 290MM Ferrari 315S Ferrari 250TR	BUA	SEB	MIM	ONLY	LEM	KRI	CAR
			DNF	DNF	2				3
1958	Scuderia Ferrari	Ferrari 250TR	BUA	SEB	TAR	ONLY	LEM	RTT
			2	DNF	3	3	DNF
1959	Porsche	Porsche 718 RSK	SEB	TAR	ONLY	LEM	RTT
			3	DNF	7th	DNF	2
1960	Scuderia Ferrari	Ferrari 250TR Ferrari Dino 246S	BUA	SEB	TAR	ONLY	LEM
			2		2	DNF	DNF
1961	Scuderia Ferrari	Ferrari 250TRI Ferrari Dino 246SP	SEB	TAR	ONLY	LEM	PES
			2	1	3	DNF

See also

• List of fatally injured Formula 1 drivers

literature

• Richard von Frankenberg: Wolfgang Graf Berghe von Trips. Motorbuchverlag, Stuttgart 1969.
• Jörg-Thomas Födisch, Juliane Klingele, Michael Behrndt: Wolfgang Graf Berghe von Trips. Memories of a racing legend. Delius Klasing, Bielefeld 2012, ISBN 978-3-7688-3358-5 .

Web links

Commons : Wolfgang Graf Berghe von Trips  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Literature by and about Wolfgang Graf Berghe von Trips in the catalog of the German National Library
• Portrait, dates and biography of Wolfgang Graf Berghe von Trips in the Hall of Fame of German Sports

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c d} Michael Behrndt, Jörg Thomas Födisch, Matthias Behrndt: German racing drivers . Heel Verlag, Königswinter 2008, ISBN 978-3-86852-042-2 , pp. 74-75.
2. ↑ The Trips-VW as Herbie's ancestor. (No longer available online.) In: Website of Villa Trips - Museum of Racing History. Archived from the original on July 22, 2012 ; Retrieved September 19, 2011 . 
3. ↑ ^{a b c} Julius J. Weitmann: Wolfgang Graf Berghe von Trips - From his life . Krüger-Verlag, Dortmund 1962.
4. ↑ Michael Behrndt, Jörg-Thomas Födisch, Matthias Behrndt: ADAC 1000 km race . Heel Verlag, Königswinter 2008, ISBN 978-3-89880-903-0 .
5. ↑ possibly meant: tough (English tough ; read: tough ) fellow.
6. ↑ Motorsport accident statistics (Eng.)
7. ↑ List of Autodromo Nazionale Monza accidental deaths
8. ↑ Wolfgang von Trips at Motorsport Memorial (Eng.)
9. ↑ Information given to the Bundestag by the Federal Government on September 29, 1973, printed matter 7/1040, Annex 3, pages 54ff., Here page 69
10. ^ Knerger.de: The grave of Wolfgang Graf Berghe von Trips
11. ↑ Villa Trips in Horrem has been sold. The racing museum is to be secured for five years. (No longer available online.) In: Werbepost Bergheim. November 13, 2015, archived from the original on January 26, 2016 ; accessed on January 26, 2016 . 
12. ↑ La Passione in the Internet Movie Database (English)
13. ^ "ADAC Graf Berghe von Trips Pokal website". (No longer available online.) Adac-motorsport.de, archived from the original on September 9, 2003 ; Retrieved March 6, 2010 . 
14. ↑ Engine catalog racing cars, racetracks, racing drivers . Gildeverlag, Alfeld 1963.
15. ↑ Per steep section . Retrieved May 24, 2018.
16. ↑ Michael Behrndt, Jörg Thomas Födisch: Rennfahrertod - 50 tragic heroes in portrait . Heel Verlag, Königswinter 2012, ISBN 978-3-86852-494-9 , pp. 39–42.