Grand Prix season 1934
In the 1934 Grand Prix season , the AIACR again did not announce a European Grand Prix Championship . But this year, with the Monaco Grand Prix in Monte Carlo , France in Linas-Montlhéry , Germany at the Nürburgring , Belgium in Spa-Francorchamps , Italy in Monza and Spain in Lasarte, a new record of six Grandes Épreuves took place. In addition, there was another official International Grand Prix , the Swiss Grand Prix , which, however, had not yet been included in the highest racing category. In addition, more than 20 other important international races were organized this year, among which the races in Tripoli , at the Berlin AVUS , Pescara and the Masaryk race in Brno ( Czechoslovakia ) stood out. In contrast to the Grandes Épreuves , the respective organizers did not have to use the international formula , even if in the end mostly the same vehicle material was used. With such a large number of races - more than in any previous season - scheduling conflicts were inevitable.
The most important change in the Grand Prix regulations was the introduction of a maximum weight of 750 kg for the racing cars in the new International Grand Prix racing formula . The course of the season was shaped by the new entry of the two German automobile groups Mercedes-Benz and Auto Union , which had achieved a dominant position at the end. At the beginning of the season, however, the Alfa Romeo racing cars used by Scuderia Ferrari still dominated the Grand Prix races , which also achieved the most successes in the less important races.
Regulations
For the first time since 1931 , the International Grand Prix Formula adopted for 1934 again contained specific technical regulations that had to be observed in the racing cars. The most important restriction was the stipulation of a maximum empty weight for the car (without driver, tires or liquids) of 750 kg, which hoped to prevent a further unbridled increase in engine sizes and thus speeds - ultimately in vain. The cars also had to have a minimum width of 85 cm in the cockpit area, while the composition of the fuel was completely released. For the official International Grand Prix races , the requirement of a minimum distance of 500 km continued to apply, from which, however, the Monaco Grand Prix , as in the previous year, was excluded due to its special track characteristics.
At the German Grand Prix at the Nürburgring, participants who had already lapped had to finish the specified number of laps after the winner had crossed the finish line for the last time. In the other Grand Prix races, on the other hand, all drivers who crossed the finish line on their own after the leader had been waved, even if they had not yet completed the full race distance and actually had more laps to drive. Failed cars, on the other hand, were usually not rated, even if they had already covered a greater distance or more laps than some of the participants who were still rated at the end. With the exception of the Monaco Grand Prix, where the starting positions were awarded based on the training times achieved, as in the previous year, the starting positions for the other Grandes Épreuves were still awarded by lottery.
Season description
Concerned about the unbridled increase in engine performance, the AIACR decided at its annual meeting in October 1932 to reintroduce technical provisions in the International Racing Formula for 1934 in order to restrict the freedom of the designers of Grand Prix racing cars. Based on the experience from 1926 , however, the active manufacturers Alfa Romeo , Maserati and Bugatti should not be alienated too much, so that the regulations were basically based on the existing Grand Prix models. As a result, the curb weight of the car without driver, tires, fuel, cooling water and other liquids was limited to 750 kg, which meant that only a moderate increase in engine sizes was believed to be possible.
This expectation seemed to be confirmed at first, because at the beginning of the season the three manufacturers continued to compete with their previous year's models, which had only been brought to the required minimum width by simple modifications in the cockpit area, so that racing operations initially started continued with almost no noticeable changes compared to the previous year. Only for a few copies of the Alfa Romeo Tipo B was the engine displacement slightly increased from 2.6 to 2.9 liters within the weight limit, and Scuderia Ferrari , which had already signed an agreement with the now nationalized Alfa Romeo Group, last year had closed the use of the works racing cars , so, after the successes of the two previous years, still saw themselves well equipped in view of the imminent entry of the two German racing teams. In order to get a maximum of successes from the record number of scheduled races and thus also the entry and prize money, the team had a numerically impressive team with top-class drivers around the two top drivers Louis Chiron and Achille Varzi and the up-and-coming young driver Guy Moll compiled. In addition to Carlo Felice Trossi , who had now also taken over the company shares of the two co-founders of Scuderia, Augusto and Alfredo Caniato , and the experienced Marcel Lehoux as Moll's friend and mentor, numerous other regular and supplementary drivers drove for the team during the season. This made it possible to split the team in the event of overlapping dates in order to be successful in several locations at the same time. In fact, immediately after Moll's opening win at the first Grande Épreuve of the season, the first race based on the new formula, the Alfa Romeo drivers were able to win six more races in direct succession in Monaco, and nine more followed by the end of the season Successes.
At Bugatti, regular drivers René Dreyfus , Jean-Pierre Wimille , Robert Benoist and Antonio Brivio, as well as Tazio Nuvolari , who starts sporadically for the team - this was his second option alongside Maserati - initially had to be patient until the home race at the big one Price of France a version of the Bugatti Type 59 enlarged to 3.3 liters was available. As the only two-seater Grand Prix construction still equipped with cable brakes all round, the model was increasingly falling behind its Italian competitors and finally looked completely out of date when the new racing cars from Germany appeared. Only the absence of the Germans and the simultaneous total failure of both launched Alfa Romeo at the Belgian Grand Prix at mid-season, it was thanks to them that the name Bugatti one last time in the hitherto so successful history in the list of winners of the International Grand Prix entered could be.
Maserati also slipped noticeably back into midfield after the brief soaring in the middle of the preseason, which was primarily due to Tazio Nuvolari's driving skills. Due to the regulations and to counteract the low torsional stiffness of the extremely narrow 1933 model, the new Maserati 8CM were optionally delivered with a wider frame, but this hardly helped to alleviate the problems with the minimum weight. A modern, completely new design was not in sight for the customers of this small Italian racing car manufacturer, and the new six-cylinder Maserati 6C-34 engine, which was offered as a temporary solution for installation in the old chassis, was only available at the end of the season. On top of that, Nuvolari, the only top driver remaining in the Maserati camp, suffered a broken leg in a serious accident in the second race of the season in Alessandria , which put him out of action for several weeks. Only Philippe Étancelin , who also drove an older 8CM , was the only one among the predominantly private Maserati drivers who were able to achieve reasonably acceptable results at less important events, before the recovered Nuvolari at the end of the season in the two races in Modena and Naples with the new one Six-cylinder was able to achieve two victories over the Ferrari team.
In view of the only weak competition until then, the strong performance of the two new German teams from Mercedes-Benz and Auto Union in the second half of the season was an unpleasant surprise for the Scuderia Ferrari, which is used to success. A maiden victory of the silver-colored German racing cars was prevented by teething troubles when they first appeared on the Avus. After the Mercedes-Benz racing cars had been withdrawn before the start due to technical problems, Auto Union driver Hans Stuck had led the majority of the race until he was eliminated. Only then was Guy Moll able to achieve the second major success of his young career here with his Alfa Romeo, which was specially equipped with a streamlined body for this extremely fast, high-speed circuit after his Monaco victory. Later in the season he was killed in a racing accident in Pescara , which meant a serious setback for the team. And at the latest after the victories of Manfred von Brauchitsch at the first Mercedes start of the season for the Eifel race on the Nürburgring and a little later the success of Stuck in the same place at the German Grand Prix was despite a triple Alfa Romeo victory by Chiron, Varzi and Moll made it clear at the French Grand Prix that with the Silver Arrows a more than serious competition had arisen, which there would be no way around until the end of the season.
Not least thanks to government funding - both German companies benefited directly from a special funding program of the car- friendly Hitler regime, initially endowed with 225,000 Reichsmarks each (corresponds to approx. 1,007,000 euros today ), as well as indirectly to a considerable extent, including through the new armaments program - At Daimler-Benz in particular, after the temporary abstinence caused by the previous global economic crisis , it was possible to immediately set new standards in terms of technology and perfection when they returned to Grand Prix racing. The development team around chief designer Hans Nibel not only succeeded in developing the most powerful engine among the Grand Prix manufacturers with the 3.4-liter in-line eight-cylinder with an output of over 300 hp, with independent wheel suspension as part of the new 750 kg formula All-round and optimal weight distribution thanks to the new type of transaxle design, the Mercedes-Benz W 25 was the first time since the 1920s that racing car construction made significant progress in terms of chassis technology and road holding.
As befitted Germany's most traditional racing team, the driver line-up was also appropriate: Because at the beginning of the season it was not yet clear whether and when the long-standing top driver Rudolf Caracciola would be able to return to the Monaco Grand Prix after his accident last year The Italian Luigi Fagioli , who was recently very dissatisfied with Alfa Romeo and who finally saw his chance to take the number 1 position in a top team, had to drive a Grand Prix car at his previous level . At first he was supported by the ambitious and daring Manfred von Brauchitsch - winner of the 1932 Avus race - before Caracciola, despite not yet fully recovering and driving in severe pain, returned to the cockpit of his racing car early. The relationship between the three drivers was therefore characterized by a strong rivalry from the start, which in the period that followed regularly led to greater stress tests in the team. Fagioli in particular felt repeatedly disadvantaged by the stable management given by race director Alfred Neubauer , for example when he first started for the team at the Eifel race at the Nürburgring, where he was said to have been so angry about the preference given to Brauchitschs that he simply took his car out of hand parked on the route.
The new Auto Union racing cars attracted even greater attention , with their design , which was then known as a rear-engined design, hardly anything to do with the previously common notion of a “racing car”. As seldom in the history of the Grand Prix, the Saxon automobile company succeeded in catapulting itself from the start into the top international group as an absolute newcomer. The company - a merger of DKW , Wanderer , Audi and Horch - had only been founded two years earlier. In order to make the young company better known, participation at the highest motor sport level appeared to be a suitable means. So an agreement was reached with the well-known designer Ferdinand Porsche , who after many years in the service of Daimler-Benz, where, among other things, the successful S / SS / SSK / SSKL model series was created under his leadership , is now an independent one The designer and his partner Adolf Rosenberger had been looking for a financier for his Reichsrennwagen project for some time . But they attacked the basic principle of the already 1924 at Benz & Cie. The resulting teardrop car with an engine behind the driver's seat, streamlined body and independent wheel suspension, with which Rosenberger himself competed for a while in the mid-1920s. Thanks to extreme weight savings - in addition to the significantly shorter drive shaft due to the design and the new tubular frame construction for the chassis, an engine block made of light metal was also used - Porsche's concept consisted of accommodating as large an engine as possible in the car within the specified weight limit, without using multi-valve technology and Restriction to a single common overhead camshaft for both cylinder banks did not focus on maximum speed and power output, but rather on elasticity, favorable torque curve and above all an optimal power-to-weight ratio. With 4.4 liter displacement of the sixteen-cylinder V-engine of his reached P-carriage ( "P" like "Porsche") dimensions as they were until then only the monster racing car of the formula free time as the Bugatti Type 54 or the twin engine models Alfa Romeo Tipo A and Maserati V5 . However, precisely such a development should be prevented with the introduction of the weight formula!
The only real top driver in the team led by race director Willy Walb , which despite government funding, had significantly fewer resources in relation to Daimler-Benz, was Hans Stuck , who won the German and Swiss Grand Prix as well as the Masaryk with his sovereign victories -Races in Czechoslovakia moved up into the circle of the absolute Grand Prix elite. The new Auto Union racing car was considered extremely difficult to drive in driver circles due to its unusual design. Further successes such as B. a possible triple victory at the Italian Grand Prix, but this was prevented by design errors - in this case the coolant, which was routed directly through the chassis pipes for weight reasons, caused the cockpit to overheat - and other teething problems.
The Mercedes team also had to work out how to properly use the sophisticated new technology and repeatedly clear up detailed problems. In the second half of the season, however, the Silver Arrows got better and better. At the Pescara Coppa Acerbo , Fagioli won the day after a dogged fight with the Alfa Romeo team that ended in the fatal accident of Alfa Romeo's hopefuls Guy Moll. Fagioli was also the first to cross the finish line at the Italian Grand Prix, after initially looking for another sure win for Stuck. The Spanish Grand Prix took a similar course, where Fagioli, after Stuck's early retirement, won again by a large margin over his stable mate Caracciola and the rest of the field.
With two victories each at the International Grand Prix of Alfa Romeo (Moll and Chiron in Monaco and France), Auto Union (Stuck in Germany and Switzerland) and Mercedes (Caracciola / Fagioli together in Italy and Fagioli alone in Spain) was at least one on paper, no team emerged as the clear winner of the season. Also in the other important international races with victories for Alfa Romeo in Tripoli (Varzi) and at the AVUS (Moll), Mercedes-Benz in the Eifelrennen (von Brauchitsch) and in Pescara (Fagioli) as well as Stuck for the Auto Union in Brno Successes were fairly evenly distributed, although Scuderia Ferrari was able to collect the most entry and prize money by a large margin thanks to its participation in the many other regional racing events. With Achille Varzi it was also an Alfa Romeo driver who had cut off as the most successful individual driver according to this criterion and was also able to win the Italian championship at the same time. The form curve, however, spoke clearly in favor of the two German teams. In literature, Louis Chiron or Hans Stuck are also sometimes listed as European champions for 1934. However, this is mostly based on the personal calculations of some motorsport journalists. Such a championship was not held again until the 1935 season .
After the disastrous course of the preseason, 1934 was ultimately overshadowed by a series of tragic events. With Carlo Pedrazzini (Alessandria), Giovanni Alloatti ( Targa Florio ), Emil Frankl (Eifelrennen), Jean Gaupillat (Dieppe), Guy Moll (Pescara), Hugh Hamilton (Swiss GP) and Josef Brázdil (Brno) a total of seven drivers came during one During a race or a training session at the wheel of their Grand Prix racing cars. There was also another series of accidents with serious injuries, including Tazio Nuvolari (Alessandria), Manfred von Brauchitsch (GP Germany) and Jean Bénéjean ( Peronne ). With Bénéjean, who subsequently had a leg amputated, and Brázdil, whose death occurred under very mysterious circumstances during the race in Brno - after his imprisonment due to financial disagreements over the payment of his racing car, he was given short notice to participate in training and racing to be able to take part - there were noticeably two particularly inexperienced drivers, both of whom had never driven a Grand Prix car.
Racing calendar
The season consisted of six Grandes Épreuves . In addition, around 30 other important international races for Grand Prix cars were organized this year, which often led to inevitable clashes between the various events.
Grandes Épreuves
| date | run | route | winner | statistics | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 04/02 |
 Monaco Grand Prix
|
Circuit de Monaco |
 Guy Moll ( Alfa Romeo ) |
statistics |
| 2 | 01.07. |
ACF Grand Prix
|
Autodrome de Linas-Montlhéry |
Louis Chiron ( Alfa Romeo ) |
statistics |
| 3 | 07/15 |
 Grand Prix of Germany
|
Nürburgring |
Hans Stuck ( Auto Union ) |
statistics |
| 4th | 07/29 |
 Belgian Grand Prix
|
Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps |
René Dreyfus ( Bugatti ) |
statistics |
| 5 | 09.09. |
 Italian Grand Prix
|
Autodromo di Monza |
Rudolf Caracciola / Luigi Fagioli ( Mercedes-Benz ) |
statistics |
| 6th | 23.09. |
 Spanish Grand Prix
|
Circuito Lasarte |
Luigi Fagioli ( Mercedes-Benz ) |
statistics |
More races
Voiturette race
| date | run | route | winner |
|---|---|---|---|
| 05/20 |
Grand Prix des Frontières
|
Circuit de Chimay |
Willy Longueville ( Bugatti )
|
| 05/27 |
.svg){kind=small} AVUS race
|
AVUS |
Pierre Veyron ( Bugatti )
|
| 05/27 |
Grand Prix de Picardie
|
Péronne |
Louis Decaroli ( Bugatti )
|
| 03.06. |
Eifel race
|
Nürburgring |
Luigi Castelbarco ( Maserati )
|
| 07/22 |
Grand Prix d'Albi
|
Circuit des Planques |
Pierre Veyron ( Bugatti )
|
| 08/26 |
 Prix de Berne
|
Bremgarten circuit |
 Richard Seaman ( MG )
|
| 30.09. |
 Masaryk Grand Prix
|
Masaryk ring |
Giuseppe Farina ( Maserati )
|
Ice races
| date | run | route | winner |
|---|---|---|---|
| 02/18 |
 Vallentunaloppet |
Vallentunasjön |
Axel Johnsson ( Bugatti )
|
| 25.02. |
 Grand Prix of Norway
|
Mjøsa ( Lillehammer ) |
Paul Pietsch ( Alfa Romeo )
|
References
literature
- GN Georgano: The Encyclopaedia of Motor Sport . Ebury Press and Michael Joseph, London 1971. ISBN 0-718-10955-4
Web links
- Leif Snellman, Felix Muelas: Detailed history of the 1934 Grand Prix season. In: www.kolumbus.fi. May 10, 2014, accessed on March 21, 2020 .