1935 Italian Grand Prix

The Autodromo di Milano in its driven version

Maserati V8-RI

The Monaco-Trossi, only driven in training, with an air-cooled two-stroke 16-cylinder radial engine

The XII. The Italian Grand Prix took place on September 8, 1935 at the Autodromo di Milano in Monza . As Grande Épreuve he was part of the European Grand Prix Championship in 1935 and was carried out over 73 laps of 6.890 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 502.97 km.

The winner was Hans Stuck in an Auto Union Type B , who was able to achieve his team's first success of the season.

run

The Italian Grand Prix had always been one of the highlights of the season from the very beginning and although only works teams were admitted in 1935 , a stately 18 entries were received. After Alfa Romeo, despite its success at the German Grand Prix , had generally been left behind by the German Silver Arrows , Scuderia Ferrari , as the official works team of the Milan-based company, was under pressure to succeed in front of a domestic backdrop. For the first time this season, the new Grand Prix model Tipo C (later also known as the Alfa Romeo 8C-35 ) was presented here. Although actually intended to accommodate a new V12 engine, for weight reasons only the well-known eight-cylinder in-line could initially be installed in the chassis, which is now fully equipped with independent wheel suspension, which in its final stage of development delivers around 350 hp with a displacement of 3.8 liters could. The two team captains Tazio Nuvolari and Louis Chiron were , of course, intended to drive the new model , while one of the tried and tested Alfa Romeo Tipo B was used for chief test pilot Attilio Marinoni . During training, however, it turned out that Chiron was still too much affected by his injuries sustained at the previous Swiss Grand Prix , so that his car was taken over by René Dreyfus as the team's reserve driver.

The second Italian Maserati team was also unable to delay the debut of the new Maserati V8-RI Grand Prix model, which had already been announced several times , although the model was far from being fully developed and the capabilities of the relatively small factory were clearly overwhelmed. Similar to Alfa Romeo, Scuderia Subalpina, a nominally independent racing team, took over the use of the two cars, which were driven by the young, talented Italian Giuseppe Farina and the experienced French Philippe Étancelin . In addition, with Goffredo Zehender and Pietro Ghersi, two other drivers competed with older Maserati 6C-34 cars that were already out of date at the time.

The main opponents of the Italians were of course the German teams, above all Mercedes-Benz , which had already won four of the five official Grands Prix of the season. Accordingly, the two team-internal rivals Rudolf Caracciola and Luigi Fagioli had already gained a clear lead in the European championship standings, while Manfred von Brauchitsch, the proverbial unlucky person, had not quite come close to the results of his two team captains. Hermann Lang got a fourth car as a so-called junior driver of the team.

At Auto Union , too, after the difficult start of the season since the race at the Nürburgring, there has now been a clear upward trend for cars with mid-engine engines. The drivers were the tried and tested trio of Hans Stuck , Achille Varzi and Bernd Rosemeyer , plus reserve driver Paul Pietsch with a fourth car from the team. After a long period of abstinence, Bugatti was once again involved with two racing cars for Piero Taruffi and Jean-Pierre Wimille , but the Bugatti Type 59 was no longer competitive for a long time.

Finally, with the Monaco-Trossi , an extremely unusual vehicle turned up during training. With its air-cooled 16-cylinder double radial engine with a displacement of 4 liters built into the front of the car, the car at that time resembled an airplane without a wing, just as the tubular construction of the chassis was inspired by aircraft construction. The project was financed by Carlo Felice Trossi , who also moved the front-wheel drive car together with Giulio Aymini during training. However, the inadequacies of the design quickly became apparent in the form of extreme understeer, insufficient engine power and various other technical problems and teething problems, so that it was immediately withdrawn from the race.

After the route from 1934 had not been assessed as really worthy of the Grand Prix, the route variant that had been used in 1930 and was named after race director Vincenzo Florio in the form of a combination of a street circuit with parts of the high-speed oval was chosen for 1935 . A total of five chicanes were supposed to prevent excessively high speeds, which meant a considerable strain on the brakes in particular. The starting grid, however, was still drawn as in the previous year.

Farina didn’t enjoy his best starting position for long because the new Maserati had a piston defect a few minutes before the start. In contrast, Caracciola and his Mercedes were able to take the lead right at the start, as expected, followed by the two Auto Union drivers Stuck and Varzi with Caraccciola's team-mate Fagioli immediately behind. At Auto Union they had developed a special racing strategy in which Varzi was supposed to play the "rabbit" and set a high pace right from the start in order to put the opponents under pressure in this way. Stuck, on the other hand, should initially hold back in order to benefit from possible problems of the opponents. However, he quickly realized that the Mercedes Silver Arrows could not keep up with the pace, and so the two Auto Union groups were together in the front from the third lap.

The one-two lead didn't last too long, however, because at the end of lap 14 Varzi had to park his car with an engine failure. More and more participants fell victim to the stress on the material, shortly after Varzi, Rosemeyer was also hit at Auto Union, and a little later Fagioli was also out of the race due to increasing brake problems on his Mercedes. Étancelin's ride in the only remaining new Maserati, however, ended in a tree after the accelerator had got stuck, but fortunately the Frenchman suffered only relatively minor injuries.

In the meantime, Stuck was able to slowly break away from Caracciola, who in turn was now increasingly put under pressure by Nuvolari in the new Alfa Romeo. Although the Italian was thrown back a few seconds by a driving mistake, the scheduled refueling and tire stop at Mercedes completely failed, as part of which Caracciola handed over the wheel to local hero Fagioli, who was waiting at the pits. Since Stuck also changed shortly afterwards, Nuvolari was even in the lead for a short time until his own stop and was then able to continue the race in second place, one minute behind.

But the new order shouldn't last too long either, because while Stuck at the front apparently turned his laps completely unimpressed, the elimination race continued behind. One after the other, the two Mercedes drivers von Brauchitsch met first in the 41st and Fagioli in the 45th lap - the latter for the second time in this race - who had to give up with defective brakes, and when Lang's car also lay down some time later with engine failure remained, Mercedes-Benz was even completely out of the running in the end. Only two laps after Fagioli, Nuvolari was finally in the pits with a smoking engine, so that Dreyfus took over the position in the race with the second of the new Alfa Romeo from him, albeit with a significantly larger gap to the leader. When the Frenchman came in to stop for fuel, of course he had to hand over the car to his team captain and local hero Nuvolari, who tried everything again to wrest the victory from Stuck and Auto Union. In the end, however, the loads were too high for the Alfa Romeo and Nuvolari had to be content with second place with slowing brakes and an engine running only on seven cylinders. Third, with several laps behind, was Rosemeyer, who had taken over Pietsch's car and had even driven it around the course without braking for the last few laps.

Results

Registration list

team	No.	driver	chassis	engine	tires
Scuderia Subalpina	02	Giuseppe Farina	Maserati V8-RI	Maserati 4.8L V8 supercharger	P
	14th	Philippe Étancelin
	24	Goffredo Zehender	Maserati 6C-34	Maserati 3.7L V6 supercharger
	32	Pietro Ghersi
		Eugenio Siena
Automobiles Ettore Bugatti	04th	Piero Taruffi	Bugatti T59	Bugatti 3.3L I8 compressor	M.
	16	Jean-Pierre Wimille
		Robert Benoist
Daimler-Benz AG	06th	Rudolf Caracciola	Mercedes-Benz W 25B	Mercedes-Benz M 25 B 4.0L I8 compressor	C.
	18th	Luigi Fagioli
	26th	Manfred von Brauchitsch
	34	Hermann Lang
Count Carlo Felice Trossi	08th	Carlo Felice Trossi	Monaco-Trossi	Monaco-Trossi 4.0L S16 compressor	M.
Scuderia Ferrari	10	Tazio Nuvolari	Alfa Romeo 8C-35	Alfa Romeo 3.8L I8 compressor	E.
	20th	René Dreyfus
		Louis Chiron
	28	Attilio Marinoni	Alfa Romeo Tipo B / P3	Alfa Romeo 3.2L I8 compressor
Auto Union AG	12	Hans Stuck	Auto Union B	Auto Union 5.6L V16 compressor	C.
	22nd	Achille Varzi
	30th	Bernd Rosemeyer
	36	Paul Pietsch

Race result

Item	driver	constructor	Round	Stops	time	begin	Fastest lap	Failure reason
01	Hans Stuck	Auto Union	73		3: 40: 09.0 h	5	2: 50.8 min
02	René Dreyfus Tazio Nuvolari	Alfa Romeo	73		+1: 41.0 min	9	2: 53.0 min
03	Paul Pietsch Bernd Rosemeyer	Auto Union	70		+ 3 rounds	17th	2: 54.2 min
04th	Attilio Marinoni	Alfa Romeo	68		+ 5 rounds	13	3: 07.0 min
05	Piero Taruffi	Bugatti	59		+ 14 rounds	2	3: 05.2 min
-	Hermann Lang	Mercedes Benz	55		DNF	16	2: 54.2 min	Leak in the oil tank
-	Tazio Nuvolari	Alfa Romeo	45		DNF	4th	2: 49.8 min	Valve damage
-	Manfred von Brauchitsch	Mercedes Benz	42		DNF	12	2: 52.0 min	Accident after a brake defect
-	Rudolf Caracciola Luigi Fagioli	Mercedes Benz	42		DNF	3	2: 53.2 min	Power transmission after a brake defect
-	Jean-Pierre Wimille	Bugatti	27		DNF	7th	2: 59.2 min	Engine fire after misfire
-	Bernd Rosemeyer	Mercedes Benz	19th		DNF	14th	2: 54.2 min	Power transmission after a brake defect
-	Goffredo Zehender	Maserati	15th		DNF	11	3: 19.0 min	Brake defect
-	Philippe Étancelin	Maserati	14th		DNF	6th	3: 02.6 min	accident
-	Achille Varzi	Auto Union	14th		DNF	10	2: 53.6 min	Engine fire after valve damage
-	Luigi Fagioli	Mercedes Benz	11		DNF	8th	2: 53.8 min	Brake defect
-	Pietro Ghersi	Maserati	4th		DNF	15th	3: 40.2 min	defective oil pump
-	Giuseppe Farina	Maserati			DNS	1		Engine damage before the start of the race

Web links

• XIII Gran Premio d'Italia. www.teamdan.com, accessed on August 11, 2014 . 
• Leif Snellman, Felix Muelas: XIII ° GRAN PREMIO D'ITALIA. www.kolumbus.fi, May 6, 2014, accessed on August 11, 2014 . 

Remarks

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