European Grand Prix Championship 1932
In the Grand Prix season of 1932, the International Automobile Association ( AIACR) held a European Championship for the second time , this time again with a driver and now also a team classification.
The results of the Italian Grand Prix in Monza , France at Reims-Gueux and Germany at the Nürburgring were evaluated . In accordance with the provisions of the International Grand Prix racing formula applicable for this season, the only requirement for these three Grandes Épreuves was that the race duration had to be at least five hours, dispensing with almost any kind of technical restrictions for the cars (the so-called free formula ) . In contrast to the previous year , driver changes were no longer absolutely necessary during the races.
In addition, another eleven internationally important races as well as numerous other national and regional events based on the so-called “free” formula took place this season, among which the Monaco Grand Prix was particularly prominent.
European champion in 1932 was the 39-year-old Italian Tazio Nuvolari in an Alfa Romeo Tipo B of the official Alfa Romeo works team , which won the Italian and French Grand Prix and, in addition to three other Italian races, the Monaco Grand Prix. At the same time, Alfa Romeo was able to secure the team standings with victories in all three Grande Épreuves.
Set of rules
The awarding of points, which was slightly changed compared to the previous year, was based on a system of penalty points. The winner or the winning team received one point, the second two, and so on to five points for the fifth placed. The rest of the starting field received six points, and seven points were awarded if a race was not started. Only drivers who started with the respective car were evaluated; driver changes were not taken into account. In the racing teams, only the best-placed vehicle counted. At the end of the season, the overall winner was declared to be whoever had the least total number of points on their account. In the event of a tie, the decisive factor was which driver had covered the longer distance overall.
Season report
With the shortening of the Grandes Épreuves race from ten to five hours, the last obstacle that made it difficult to organize attractive Grand Prix races also fell. In the previous year, the 10-hour races had become an agonizing affair for drivers, cars and, last but not least, the spectators from the second half of the race at the latest, with only pit stops and technical defects offering a bit of variety. With the new 5-hour rule, the official grand prizes were still longer than most Formula Libre events, but the fundamental contradictions between the two “worlds” were eliminated, so that the two variants of automobile racing are now increasingly linked merged.
The most defining event of the year was certainly the appearance of the Alfa Romeo Tipo B , the first single-seater racing car with a centrally arranged driver's position (" monoposto ") developed especially for Grand Prix racing , which at one stroke fundamentally changed the general perception of racing cars. These were soon only pure special machines that had practically no resemblance to automobiles for everyday use, which only increased the fascination of the public. When developing the Tipo B, Alfa Romeo chief designer Vittorio Jano followed up on the previous year's special model Alfa Romeo Tipo A for high-speed railways with twin engines, but has now replaced this with a "normal" eight-cylinder in-line engine, which, based on the design principles of the previous "Monza" model , has two lined up four-cylinder aluminum blocks, albeit with a significant increase in displacement to 2.7 liters. The Tipo B achieved a power of around 215 hp, which - with the exception of the tire-killing twin-engine "track cars" - was far above the performance values of all contemporary Grand Prix cars. The overall weight of the vehicle could even be reduced through consistent lightweight construction. A special feature of the design was that the differential was installed directly behind the gearbox that was interlocked with the engine and from there, as with the Tipo A, two separate drive shafts led to the rear wheels, so that the driver's seat could be placed in a lower position in between. By dispensing with the second seat, which is no longer required by the regulations, the frontal area of the car - and thus also weight and air resistance - have been minimized.
Until the debut of the Tipo B - or "P3", as described by the press on the basis of the successful predecessor Alfa Romeo P2 was often referred to in the 1920s - when the Italian Grand Prix , the season was, however, with victories by Achille Varzi on Bugatti Type 51 in Tunisia, Tazio Nuvolari on the previous year's Alfa-Romeo type "Monza" in Monaco and at the Targa Florio - whose importance was now beginning to wane given the revival of the official Grand Prix races - and Luigi Fagioli on the new twin-engine Maserati V5 on the fast Pista del Littorio near Rome was reasonably balanced. For the rest of the year, however , the new monoposto was in a class of its own, especially when combined with Tazio Nuvolari at the wheel. With his successes in the Grands Prix of Italy and France and a second place in the German Grand Prix , he also secured the European Championship title as the best and most versatile driver of the season, a long way ahead of his two stable companions Baconin Borzacchini - who has meanwhile been under his the Italian fascist regime had changed his first name to Mario Umberto - and Rudolf Caracciola , who won the race at the Nürburgring . With three victories in all three Grandes Épreuves of the year, Alfa Romeo naturally also won the team championship with ease. The new Alfa Romeo of course also dominated the Italian Formula Libre , in which further victories from Nuvolari in Livorno and Pescara and from Caracciola in the Gran Premio di Monza were added to the successful brand record.
Caracciola joined Alfa Romeo in 1932 after Mercedes-Benz cut all factory support for racing due to the ongoing global economic crisis . At the beginning of the new season, however, he still had to be content with a previous year's model of the "Monza" type, which he nominally registered privately, because according to Nuvolari, Borzacchini and above all Giuseppe Campari , the three regular pilots of the Italian racing team, he was supposedly not rated strong enough to make an appropriate contribution to their shared pool of entry and prize money. After leading the Mille Miglia confidently up to 50 km from the finish and one week later in the Monaco race on top of that in the final laps of an attack against Nuvolari, who was leading with a battered car, Caracciola was allowed to be a reward from the Grand Prix of Italy will then officially start for the Alfa Romeo works team . About his victory over Nuvolari at the German Grand Prix, it is also said that this should also have come about due to stable orders . Overall, however, Caracciola had shown himself to be practically equal to the Italian national hero in the only season of his career in which he had identical material to Nuvolari.
His arch-rival Achille Varzi, on the other hand, found himself in a dead end at Bugatti together with Caracciola's close friend Louis Chiron . In contrast to Alfa Romeo, where the company increasingly benefited from armaments contracts and a certain protection from the motorsport- friendly Mussolini regime, sales of its racing and sports cars for Bugatti, in view of the global economic crisis and the increasing availability of similar models from other manufacturers - again in particular Alfa Romeo and Maserati - increasingly difficult. Finally, the company even had of a contract to build railway motor car apply to the number of stockpiled produced engines to reduce to some extent. In addition, the further development of the Grand Prix model Bugatti Type 51, which was still so successful in the previous year, came up short with its 2.3-liter DOHC engine with an output of around 180 hp, and while trying to overcome the performance deficit on the competitors To compensate for the driving effort, the pilots now had to test the limits of their technical resilience more frequently. The new Type 54 , specially designed for ultra-fast slopes, with a powerful 5-liter in-line eight-cylinder and 300 hp power output, on the other hand, was much stronger, but due to its considerable weight disadvantage it was also sluggish and adventurous to drive. Above all, however, with this model, which was typically assembled from components from existing types, tire and brake wear were enormous. The Type 53 with all-wheel drive also proved to be an even bigger flop . The two top drivers achieved only a handful of relatively insignificant successes, Varzi at the very beginning of the season in Tunis and Chrion, in addition to the victories in Dieppe and Nice, and finally at the Masaryk race on the demanding circuit of Brno (Czechoslovakia), where he from technical defects at Alfa Romeo benefited.
Maserati did not make good progress in 1932 either. After the death of its company director and chief designer Alfieri Maserati, the Italian racing car manufacturer first had to reposition itself and got bogged down in too many different model series and projects, including a number of new types for the reviving Voiturette class, which were popular due to the trend had opened up a larger niche again for ever larger engines in Grand Prix racing. Especially with the development of the radically new Grand Prix prototype Maserati TA with front-wheel drive and front independent suspension designed by Alfieri, however, Ernesto Maserati, as the successor to his brother, was overwhelmed, so that the car was never used in a race and the effort made on Had been completely in vain at the end. The Maserati V5 , on the other hand, was a bit more successful , after its predecessor the V4 , the last overpowered track car. This, with a 16-cylinder twin engine of 5 liters displacement and 330 hp, the most powerful, but also by far the heaviest Grand Prix racing car of its time, could only really be used successfully on oval courses and similar high-speed tracks. Team captain Luigi Fagioli was able to win the race on the new Pista del Littorio near Rome and at the Italian Grand Prix he was even faster than Nuvolari in the new Alfa Romeo monoposto, but lost the race due to the much longer stops not a particularly well organized pit crew. However, since the V5 was only a one-off, Fagioli, René Dreyfus and Amedeo Ruggeri, as regular drivers of the team , had to be content with last year's 26M models with engines of around 200 hp that were enlarged to 2.8 liters before the end of the season a 3-liter variant of the eight-cylinder in-line became available.
But Maserati did not only have problems in the technical area. Dreyfus had already left the team in frustration in the middle of the season after disappointing opening results to continue the season instead on his own account with Louis Chiron's private Bugatti Type 51 . At the end of the season in Monza, Ernesto Maserati even had to climb into the cockpit of his company's racing car as a reserve driver. At this race there was a big uproar because Alfa Romeo accused Fagioli of having deliberately and unfairly pushed Nuvolari off the track in the run-up, so that only after long discussions a boycott of the final race by Alfa Romeo could be prevented. At the end of a difficult season for Maserati, Ruggeri was also killed in December in a record attempt with the V5 in Montlhéry .
In Germany, too, there was other interesting sport in addition to the Grand Prix at the Nürburgring. At the Avus race , the still relatively unknown German driver Manfred von Brauchitsch in his Mercedes SSKL with a streamlined body drawn by aerodynamics specialist Reinhard von Koenig-Fachsenfeld - after the early failure of the "Track Cars" from Bugatti and Maserati - was able to open up in a long battle defeat the Alfa Romeo from Caracciola in the last few meters. The body of von Brauchitsch's car was not painted in white - the official German racing color - but silver, so that the phrase "silver arrow" was used for the first time . During this race, there was also a fatal accident involving the Czech driver Prince Georg Christian von Lobkowitz , which legend says was said to have been predicted by the clairvoyant Erik Jan Hanussen .
Just one week later, Caracciola was able to take revenge in the Eifel race at the Nürburgring and keep both von Brauchitsch and his close rival René Dreyfus - now a Bugatti private driver - in check for the entire race under sometimes damp conditions. In training, Heinrich-Joachim von Morgen, one of the most talented and hopeful German drivers, had a fatal accident in his Bugatti.
Racing calendar
Grandes Épreuves for the European Championship
| date | run | route | winner | statistics | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 05.06. |
 Italian Grand Prix
|
Autodromo di Monza |
Tazio Nuvolari ( Alfa Romeo ) |
statistics |
| 2 | 03.07. |
 ACF Grand Prix
|
Circuit de Reims-Gueux |
Tazio Nuvolari ( Alfa Romeo ) |
statistics |
| 3 | 07/17 |
.svg){kind=small} Grand Prix of Germany
|
Nürburgring |
Rudolf Caracciola ( Alfa Romeo ) |
statistics |
More races
.svg){kind=small}
Ice races
| date | run | route | winner |
|---|---|---|---|
| 28.02. |
 Swedish Grand Prix
|
Framing |
Sven Olof Bennström ( Ford )
|
Driver ranking
| driver | dare |
ITA
|
FRA
|
DEU
|
Points | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 |
Tazio Nuvolari
|
Alfa Romeo | 1 | 1 | 2 | 4th |
| 2 |
Baconin Borzacchini
|
Alfa Romeo | 3 | 2 | 3 | 8th |
| 3 |
Rudolf Caracciola
|
Alfa Romeo | NC | 3 | 1 | 9 |
| 4th |
René Dreyfus
|
Maserati | 5 | 5 | 4th | 12 |
| 5 |
 Louis Chiron
|
Bugatti | Ret | 4th | Ret | 17th |
|
Albert Divo
|
Bugatti | 6th | Ret | 17th | ||
| 7th |
Luigi Fagioli
|
Maserati | 2 | 18th | ||
| 8th |
Amedeo Ruggeri
|
Maserati | 8th | Ret | 19th | |
| 9 |
Giuseppe Campari
|
Alfa Romeo | 4th | 20th | ||
|
Pietro Ghersi
|
Alfa Romeo | 7th | 20th | |||
|
Eugenio Siena
|
Alfa Romeo | 9 | 20th | |||
 W. Williams
|
Bugatti | 6th | 20th | |||
|
Goffredo Zehender
|
Alfa Romeo | 7th | 20th | |||
|
Pierre Félix
|
Alfa Romeo | 8th | 20th | |||
|
Earl Howe
|
Bugatti | 9 | 20th | |||
| 16 |
Marcel Lehoux
|
Bugatti | Ret | Ret | Ret | 21st |
|
Achille Varzi
|
Bugatti | Ret | Ret | 21st | ||
|
Luigi Premoli
|
Maserati | 10 | 21st | |||
|
Philippe Étancelin
|
Alfa Romeo | Ret | 21st | |||
|
Max Fourny
|
Bugatti | Ret | 21st | |||
|
Jean-Pierre Wimille
|
Bugatti | Ret | 21st | |||
| 22nd |
Luigi Castelbarco
|
Maserati | Ret | 23 | ||
|
Jean Gaupillat
|
Bugatti | Ret | 23 | |||
|
Hans Lewy
|
Bugatti | Ret | 23 | |||
|
Paul Pietsch
|
Bugatti | Ret | 23 | |||
| driver | dare |
ITA
|
FRA
|
DEU
|
Points |
| colour | meaning | Points |
|---|---|---|
| gold | winner | 1 |
| silver | 2nd place | 2 |
| bronze | 3rd place | 3 |
| green | covered more than 75% of the race distance | 4th |
| blue | covered between 50% and 75% of the race distance | 5 |
| violet | covered between 25% and 50% of the race distance | 6th |
| red | covered less than 25% of the race distance | 7th |
| black | Disqualified (DQ) | 8th |
| Blank | not started | 8th |
Bold - Pole Position
Italic - Fastest race lap
Web links
- Leif Snellman, Felix Muelas: Detailed history of the 1932 European Grand Prix Championship. Www.kolumbus.fi, accessed on July 28, 2014 (English).