Belgian Grand Prix 1937

Only Grand Prix victory for Rudolf Hasse

The VII Belgian Grand Prix took place on July 11, 1937 at the Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps . As Grande Épreuve he was part of the European Grand Prix Championship in 1937 and was carried out over 34 laps of 14.864 km each according to the provisions of the International Grand Prix Formula (racing cars up to a maximum of 750 kg empty weight; 85 cm minimum width; racing distance at least 500 km) corresponded to a total distance of 505.38 km.

The winner was Rudolf Hasse in an Auto Union Type C , which was the only Grand Prix success of his career.

run

Although the 1937 racing season had already been running for three months, it was only the Belgian Grand Prix that opened the series of actual, official International Grands Prix . On top of that, the race was again very weak with only eight participants gathered at the start, but this time this was mainly due to the fact that the racing calendar was too tight. Only a week earlier, the lavish race for the Vanderbilt Cup was scheduled as a kind of competition of the two worlds at Roosevelt Raceway in Westbury , New York , so that almost all the top stars preferred it. In order to get to Belgium in time, the two top drivers from Daimler-Benz and Auto Union had even planned to travel back to Europe by airship, but after the Lakehurst disaster on May 6, 1937, the regular service was stopped immediately and everyone Participants then had to cross the Atlantic again by ship.

In Spa-Francorchamps, the three works racing teams were only represented with their B teams . At Auto Union, which continued to compete with their tried-and-tested "Type C" model from last year, Hans Stuck , who had just made it back from a moderately successful trip to South America, joined the junior drivers Rudolf Hasse and HP Müller , who had previously followed After leaving motorcycle racing, he had only contested one race for the team. Actually, the very experienced Luigi Fagioli had also been registered, who had been newly signed for the season, but he was now suffering from rheumatism so much that he had to forego participation.

The main competitor was the Daimler-Benz team, which had completely repositioned itself after the disappointing course of the previous season and had once again put a really successful model on the wheels with the new Mercedes-Benz W125 . In addition to numerous improvements to the chassis and driving geometry, there was also a significant leap in performance and with an engine output of around 600 hp, it remained the most powerful Grand Prix model ever for decades. Without team captain Caracciola, the team relied on the services of the experienced Manfred von Brauchitsch , Hermann Lang , who had just moved up to become a regular driver , who had promptly won two unexpected victories at the Tripoli and AVUS races , and the young Swiss junior driver Christian Kautz .

Finally, the Scuderia Ferrari, now also officially part of Alfa Romeo, was represented with two cars of the previous year Alfa Romeo 12C-36 for Carlo Felice Trossi and Raymond Sommer , because Tazio Nuvolari , Giuseppe Farina and Antonio Brivio are still on their way back to Europe. In 1936, however, the model was not really competitive and had hardly been further developed over the winter.

Despite the nominally and numerically weak line-up, it was a thoroughly entertaining race. As always, the starting positions had been drawn so that Sommer found himself in the best position with the relatively slow Alfa Romeo. At the start, he had then against stucco on the Auto Union as little chance as his side von Brauchitsch, who as proverbial Unlucky , had survived in practice already a rollover relatively unscathed and are now being repaired at the Mercedes still on the grid a radiator leak had which meant that the car only got going with a little delay. After a race behind him in midfield, he finally had to give up shortly before the end with a compressor defect.

At Auto Union, the tactical instruction was given that Stuck should set as high a speed as possible regardless of the material, while Hasse should above all keep an eye on tire wear and make only one planned pit stop. In the end, however, the two strategies turned out to be roughly equivalent, so that, together with Lang's Mercedes, an interesting three-way battle developed at the top.

According to the plan, Stuck initially pulled away unstoppably, but had to pit in the ninth lap with the tire dissolving. Lang also came to his first scheduled stop two laps later, so that Hasse was now leading the race by about 40 seconds. When he made his fuel and tire stop in the middle of the race, Stuck and Lang passed again, so that the race practically started all over again. Shortly afterwards, Stuck had to stop again and when a tire on Lang's car finally came off on lap 23, the Auto-Union-Junior was back in front. Lang, who had come back on the track just before Stuck, was about to turn the tide again, but on the 29th lap he suffered a defect on the rear axle, after which he could hardly see the car on the track could hold. This meant that Hasse could no longer take the deserved first Grand Prix victory of his career, while Stuck was also able to overtake the ailing Mercedes and thus ensure the double success for Auto Union.

Results

Registration list

team	No.	driver	chassis	engine	tires
Daimler-Benz AG	02	Hermann Lang	Mercedes-Benz W 125	Mercedes-Benz M 125 F 5.7L I8 compressor	C.
	04th	Manfred von Brauchitsch
	06th	Christian Kautz
		Hans-Hugo Hartmann
Auto Union AG	08th	Hans Stuck	Auto Union C	Auto Union 6.0L V16 compressor	C.
	10	Luigi Fagioli
	12	Rudolf Hasse
	14th	Hermann Paul Muller
Scuderia Ferrari	16	Raymond Summers	Alfa Romeo 12C-36	Alfa Romeo 4.1L V12 compressor	E.
	18th	Carlo Felice Trossi
Lancia Belgium	20th	Franz Gouvion	Maserati 8CM	Maserati 3.0L I8 compressor

Race result

Item	driver	constructor	Round	Stops	time	begin	Fastest lap	Failure reason	EM points
01	Rudolf Hasse	Auto Union	34	1	3: 01: 22.0 h	5			1
02	Hans Stuck	Auto Union	34	2	+ 42.0 s	3			2
03	Hermann Lang	Mercedes Benz	34	2	+1: 45.0 min	4th	5: 04.7 min		3
04th	Christian Kautz	Mercedes Benz	34		+ 3: 03.0 min	7th			4th
05	Raymond Summers	Alfa Romeo	33		+ 1 lap	1			4th
-	Manfred von Brauchitsch	Mercedes Benz	31		DNF	2		Compressor damage	5
-	Hermann Paul Muller	Auto Union	13		DNF	8th		cracked oil pipe	6th
-	Carlo Felice Trossi	Alfa Romeo	5		DNF	6th		Engine failure	7th

Legend
colour	meaning	EM points
gold	victory	1
silver	2nd place	2
bronze	3rd place	3
neutral	covered more than 75% of the race distance	4th
	covered between 50% and 75% of the race distance	5
	covered between 25% and 50% of the race distance	6th
	covered less than 25% of the race distance	7th
	DNF - race not finished (did not finish)	8th
	not started or not started
black	DSQ - disqualified

Web links

Commons : Automobilsport 1937  - Collection of Pictures, Videos and Audio Files

• VII Belgian Grand Prix. www.teamdan.com, accessed on August 3, 2014 (English). 
• Leif Snellman, Felix Muelas: VII GRAND PRIX DE BELGIQUE. www.kolumbus.fi, May 8, 2014, accessed August 3, 2014 . 

Individual evidence

1. ↑ The type designation of the Auto Union racing cars was only introduced later by specialist authors to differentiate between the individual models