Grand Prix season 1947
In 1947 official International Grands Prix - the so-called Grandes Épreuves - were held for the first time after the end of the Second World War with the Grand Prix of Switzerland , Belgium , Italy and France . The Belgian Grand Prix ran this year under the honorary title Grand Prix of Europe . For these races, the new provisions of the International Grand Prix Formula adopted by the international automobile association FIA for 1947 (racing cars up to 1.5 liters displacement with compressor or up to 4.5 liters displacement without compressor; four types of fuel to be provided by the respective organizer) came into effect ; Race distance at least 300 km or at least three hours of racing) are applicable. In addition, numerous races continued to take place this season, which were also held with Grand Prix racing cars.
The dominant team of the season was Alfa Romeo , which won all three Grandes Épreuves it competed in. The most successful driver of this year is Jean-Pierre Wimille with victories in the Swiss and Belgian Grand Prix, with Luigi Villoresi on Maserati having the largest number of successes in the lower-class races. As a result of the Second World War, German drivers and racing teams were still excluded from participating in international races.
Season report
After the promising restart of motorsport in 1946 , the official Grand Prix sport in Europe actually began again in 1947 with the Grand Prix in Switzerland, Belgium, Italy and France. Taking into account the available stock of racing cars, the FIA had issued a new official international racing formula for this, in which the 1.5-liter supercharged racing cars of the Voiturette class, which was very popular in Italy and Great Britain before the war, and which were particularly popular in France Racing sports car with a 4.5 liter naturally aspirated engine, which could be relatively easily converted into makeshift racing cars by removing fenders, headlights, spare wheels and other body parts. Due to the generally still extremely tense supply situation in Europe, it was also determined that the race organizers each had to provide three different types of fuel for the participants to use.
While the Swiss and Belgian Grands Prix with the courses in Bern's Bremgarten and Spa-Francorchamps returned to their usual venues, the two races in Italy and France had to go to new, relatively improvised tracks in Parco Sempione in Milan or one Avoid the arterial road at Lyon-Parilly . In addition to the fact that the traditional venue for the Italian Grand Prix, the Autodrom of Monza, was not available at all due to Allied confiscation and serious damage from military vehicles, the decisive factor for such decisions was the idea of choosing venues close to the city in times of driving bans and To defuse the existing transport problem as far as possible for the audience. Compared to their traditional predecessors in Monza and Reims-Gueux, however, both tracks clearly lacked charm and motorsport demands, so that other venues were chosen again for the following years.
In 1946, Alfa Romeo had demothed two of the Alfa Romeo Tipo 158 "Alfetta", originally developed in 1938 as a voiturette , for the official factory return to motor racing and was promptly unsuccessful in the somewhat half-hearted test appearance in the Paris - St. Cloud race due to its own lack of reliability. The team immediately learned the lesson that it should only concentrate on a few, particularly important races, and then run them with appropriate careful preparation and with the full use of the available resources. Since then, the "Alfetta" with their in-line eight-cylinder engines, thanks to the continuous increase in the compressor boost pressure from 180 HP to now approx. 275 HP engine output, have been thanks to the increasingly outdated Maserati 4CL and the even less competitive French sports car models from Lago-Talbot , Delahaye and Delage practically unbeatable. However, the strong rivalry between the drivers in the team, which had already become noticeable at the end of 1946, when the long-time regular driver Giuseppe Farina had felt so much set back by the stable orders at the last race in Milan that the car was in the middle of the race , increasingly became a problem simply turned it off without further ado.
After Farina was kicked out, Alfa Romeo started the new season with the remaining regular line-up Jean-Pierre Wimille, the prewar star Achille Varzi and Carlo Felice Trossi , who had been reactivated after his drug addiction was cured . In order not to let the conflicts among his drivers escalate further, race director Gianbattista Guidotti had meanwhile even started to "raffle" the cars used between his drivers before the races. The fourth car was now regularly occupied by Consalvo Sanesi , the actual test driver of the plant, which also made it possible to respond to the calls of the strongly organized workforce for a representative from their ranks. However, Sanesi never really managed to catch up with his teammates with his driving performance.
The team's first appearance in the new season was befitting at the Swiss Grand Prix, the first ever Grande Épreuve after the war. The Bremgarten stretch of Bern, which is always prone to accidents, was literally besieged by crowds on this occasion, who could hardly be put in their place by the security forces. In the race, which ended with a clear one-two-three for Alfa Romeo with Wimille ahead of Varzi and Trossi, two tragic incidents occurred as a result. First, Varzi ran a nine-year-old boy into the car after a preliminary run and was killed in the process, and a little later two more spectators directly at the edge of the track were killed when Briton Leslie Johnson lost control of his Talbot and went off the track.
At the Belgian and European Grand Prix in Spa-Francorchamps, which was the first race of the season over the “classic” Grand Prix distance of 500 km, there was already another dispute within the Alfa Romeo team. After Wimille had priority in Switzerland, this race was actually planned for Achille Varzi. The Frenchman, apparently the fastest driver in the team at the time, was not deterred by Guidotti's stable order and, much to the annoyance of his duped team-mate and team management, won his second Grand Prix in a row.
In response to this, Wimille was surprised to find himself without a car at the subsequent Italian Grand Prix, in which the chief mechanic of the team, Alessandro Gaboardi , took his place in front of his eyes . In the race, which took place on an uninspiring course across the city of Milan directly in front of the gates of the Alfa Romeo factory, the company's own workforce was represented by two participants from their ranks. In the initial phase, Varzi briefly showed strength, but then complied with the internal team agreement, according to which this race was "intended" for Trossi, who crossed the finish line a few meters in front of his teammate with a gesture of thanks, to the general displeasure of the audience Expressed.
With Wimille's suspension, an agreement that Alfa Romeo would have provided the Frenchman as the only representative of the team for his home Grand Prix had also become invalid. One of the most uninteresting Grand Prix courses of all time had been selected with the Lyon-Parilly route, which essentially consisted of just one multi-lane arterial road with a hairpin at the end, both in the outward and in the opposite direction whose main advantage was the easy accessibility for the audience. Nevertheless, the absence from Alfa Romeo provided an additional moment of tension and the outcome of the race was more unpredictable than it had been for a long time. After a varied start with a total of six changes in leadership, old master Louis Chiron , whose long career really flourished again after several years of racing break, was finally able to prevail against the phalanx of Maserati drivers with the only existing copy of a Talbot Monoposto from Ecurie France and his win last success in one of the classic International Grands Prix .
Unfortunately, there was another tragic incident during this race when the Frenchman Pierre Bouillin, starting under the pseudonym Pierre Levegh , with his Maserati 4CL - in anticipation of the 1955 Le Mans catastrophe - was thrown off the track at high speed and into the stands as a result of which four people died and - including the unlucky pilot himself - another 16 were injured.
The hour of birth of Formula 1 ?
The terms Formula A or Formula 1 are often used for the technical provisions of the International Grand Prix Formula that came into force in 1947 . From a purely formal point of view, however, this is not correct, as such a distinction was only necessary in the following year with the introduction of the new second international racing formula - soon to be referred to as Formula B or Formula 2 . The designation used by the FIA was still simply Formule Internationale .
Racing calendar
Grandes Épreuves
| date | run | route | winner | statistics | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 08.06. |
 Swiss Grand Prix
|
Bremgarten circuit |
 Jean-Pierre Wimille ( Alfa Romeo ) |
statistics |
| 2 | 29.06. |
 Belgian Grand Prix( European Grand Prix ) |
Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps |
Jean-Pierre Wimille ( Alfa Romeo ) |
statistics |
| 3 | 07.09. |
 Italian Grand Prix
|
Parco Sempione |
Carlo Felice Trossi ( Alfa Romeo ) |
statistics |
| 4th | 09/21 |
French Grand Prix
|
Circuit de Lyon-Parilly |
 Louis Chiron ( Talbot ) |
statistics |
More races
.svg){kind=small}
Race results
Grandes Épreuves
Swiss Grand Prix
| space | driver | team | time |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 |
Jean-Pierre Wimille
|
Alfa Romeo | 1: 09-25.1 h |
| 2 |
Achille Varzi
|
Alfa Romeo | + 44.7 s |
| 3 |
Carlo Felice Trossi
|
Alfa Romeo | + 1.17.4 min |
The Swiss Grand Prix on the Bremgarten circuit on June 8, 1947 was held in three rounds. During the two preliminary runs, three spectators died in accidents, including a young boy who wanted to cross the street. The table of results shows the placements of the decisive third run.
Belgian / European Grand Prix
| space | driver | team | time |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 |
Jean-Pierre Wimille
|
Alfa Romeo | 3: 18.28.64 h |
| 2 |
Achille Varzi
|
Alfa Romeo | + 1 lap |
| 3 |
Carlo Felice Trossi / Giovanni Battista Guidotti
|
Alfa Romeo | + 2 rounds |
With a quadruple victory at the Belgian Grand Prix in Spa-Francorchamps on June 29, 1947, Alfa Romeo displayed its superiority that year. First came Jean-Pierre Wimille finish.
Italian Grand Prix
| space | driver | team | time |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 |
Carlo Felice Trossi
|
Alfa Romeo | 3: 02.25.0 h |
| 2 |
Achille Varzi
|
Alfa Romeo | + 0.1 s |
| 3 |
Consalvo Sanesi
|
Alfa Romeo | + 1 lap |
The Italian Grand Prix took place on September 7, 1947 in Parco Sempione in Milan . The Monza circuit had not yet been restored. The Italian nobleman Carlo Felice Trossi celebrated a success at this Grand Prix .
French Grand Prix
| space | driver | team | time |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 |
Louis Chiron
|
Talbot | 4: 03:40.7 h |
| 2 |
Henri Louveau
|
Maserati | + 1.37.9 min |
| 3 |
Eugène Chaboud
|
Talbot | + 1 lap |
The Grand Prix of France on September 21, 1947 took place on a 7.3 km circuit de Lyon-Parilly road in the Lyon suburb of Parilly.
In the absence of the Alfa Romeos, the "old fox" Louis Chiron won the race.
