Mike Hawthorn

Mike Hawthorn

Nation:	United Kingdom
Automobile world championship
First start:	1952 Belgian Grand Prix
Last start:	1958 Grand Prix of Morocco
Constructors
1952 Leslie Hawthorn · 1953–1955  Ferrari  · 1955–1956  Vanwall  · 1956  BRM  · 1956  Maserati  · 1957–1958  Ferrari
statistics
World Cup balance:	World Champion ( 1958 )
Starts Victories Poles SR 45 3 4th 6th
World Cup points :	127.64
Podiums :	18th
Leadership laps :	225 over 1635 km

John Michael "Mike" Hawthorn (born April 10, 1929 in Mexborough , Yorkshire ; † January 22, 1959 at Guildford ) was an English racing driver , Le Mans winner and Formula 1 world champion of 1958 . Part of his appearance was that he always wore a bow tie or tie and a white shirt in the racing car .

biography

youth

Mike Hawthorn was born in Mexborough, a small industrial town near Doncaster in Yorkshire.

In 1931 the family moved to Farnham in the south of England . It was there that Hawthorn's father, Leslie Hawthorn, opened a motor vehicle repair and sales workshop called "The Tourist Trophy Garage" . At this point in time, there was no clear separation of terms, as there were only a few works contracts with motorcycle or automobile companies . The usual repair work of all makes could not be dispensed with in view of the variety of types at the time. Owners of JAP engines and Riley sports cars were therefore a target group of the father, who had named his business after the famous “ Tourist Trophy ” race on the Isle of Man .

Mike Hawthorn was ailing a lot at this point. It turned out that he had kidney disease, which would seem to be a constant problem for him. Training as a mechanic in the father's company after completing elementary school was therefore out of the question. Rheumatism and osteoarthritis were already considered typical occupational diseases as a result of drafty workshop halls. The concerned parents therefore probably often thought of the future of their only son, who was quickly “infected” by the general enthusiasm for motorsport of that era. So Winnifred and Leslie Hawthorn rushed to support him whenever possible. Because in his tuning workshop south-west of London, the father prepared sports cars for racing or sold them to privateers. Leslie also tried motorcycle races on the nearby Brooklands course. The prerequisites for a promising racing career were laid against this background. A book published in 2009, Tales from the Toolbox: A Collection of Behind the Scenes Tales from Grand Prix Mechanics , emphasized the important aspect of the influence of the garage environment on an entire generation of racing drivers.

The entry into racing

When Mike Hawthorn was 21 years old, his father provided him with a Riley sports car. He also insisted on working as his son's team manager himself. Hawthorn made his actual racing debut on September 2, 1950, when he was able to win in the 1100 cc class at the Brighton Speed ​​Trials with a 1934 Riley Ulster Imp , KV 9475. As early as 1951, the younger Hawthorn was racing duels with the UK's other emerging talents : Peter Collins and Stirling Moss . This year he was able to win the Motor Sport Brooklands Memorial Trophy with his car on the Goodwood Circuit , which lasted the entire year. He also won the 1951 Ulster Trophy Handicap on the Dundrod Circuit and the Leinster Trophy in Wicklow.

Encouraged by this, Bob Chase, a fatherly and wealthy friend of the family, decided to register Mike Hawthorn , henceforth called "Farnham Flyer" , with a Cooper - Bristol for Formula 2 races.

Without detours to Formula 1

Since Alfa Romeo's withdrawal was feared that the field of drivers would be too small, those responsible had put out the Formula 1 regulations that year after those of Formula 2 until the end of the 1953 Formula 1 season . This should encourage as many teams as possible to enter the world championship competition.

Against the Ferrari 500 , which is considered to be one of the handiest racing cars of all time, all the other teams fought with inferior material, as they usually lacked 30 HP compared to the competition from Maranello . Respectable successes could only be achieved in difficult weather conditions by drivers who had a robust and easy to control vehicle. In the end, the Ferrari 500 won fourteen out of 15 possible races and did not need any special improvements in the two world championship years in which it was used. Only a slightly longer version with a modified vehicle nose was presented for high-speed courses.

Mike Hawthorn was the up-and-coming driver of the 1952 season with his Cooper T20 : He clinched fourth place at the Grand Prix in Spa-Francorchamps and third place at the Grand Prix of Great Britain in Silverstone as well as another fourth place at the Dutch GP in Zandvoort . This put him in fourth place in the final standings as the best driver who did not drive a Ferrari. This earned him the respect of Enzo Ferrari during the season .

The move to Ferrari

On the recommendation of the motor sport enthusiast industrialist and later team boss Tony Vandervell , Enzo Ferrari invited the young Briton to Modena . This appeared with his father and a Cooper-Bristol in Italy in order to be able to compare both models.

Ferrari 500

From the understanding of the "Commendatore" , however, it was not about a test of the Ferrari, but that of the pilot . So he pointed out, visibly annoyed, that he could continue to drive the Cooper if he believed it was the better car. But with Hawthorn's good driving performance, Enzo Ferrari quickly forgot his anger. Hawthorn, for his part, was enthusiastic about the Tipo 500 and assured that he really wanted to drive this Ferrari.

The next day, a Grand Prix outside of the World Championship was to be held in Modena. Therefore, it was planned to start Hawthorn with a Ferrari painted atypically in " British Racing Green " during the training there. Whatever the reason, the green Ferrari wasn't finished, so Hawthorn took his Cooper into the race. He made the mistake of trying to match the Ferrari's lap times. After a long straight, Mike Hawthorn chose the braking point according to the Tipo 500 scale all too optimistically, so that he crashed into the straw bales at 130 km / h and was thrown out of the monoposto . He was taken to the nearest hospital with severe back bruises . There the team manager Ferraris announced to him that the "boss" would be happy if he could drive for them.

Hawthorn, who preferred to pilot an English car (according to his own admission in his autobiography ), asked for time to think it over. However, since there was no better alternative, he signed.

Instead of being happy about this promotion to the best team at the time, the British tabloid press started an almost unprecedented smear campaign. Hawthorn was denounced as a traitor to the fatherland who wanted to avoid his military service by moving to Italy. Hawthorn's way to Italy was worth a brief debate even in the House of Commons . It was not taken into account that he had been released from gun duty anyway because of his chronic kidney disease. But the sight of a tall man capable of competitive sport in today's terms, who was bursting with self-confidence and showed no external signs of his suffering, was provocation enough, especially for the right-wing press. Only the presentation of his medical certificates , which proved his frequent kidney infections , brought this campaign to a standstill.

Mike Hawthorn, then characterized by a self-protecting arrogance, hastened to make these irritations forget. Even at its ninth overall Formula 1 Grand Prix he struck at the GP of France 1953 in Reims after a fierce slipstream -Duell over almost the entire race across the great Juan Manuel Fangio ( Maserati ). Hawthorn only succeeded in the overtaking maneuver in the last bend, with which he thanked the Commendatore on his fourth outing . Two third places at the German and Swiss Grand Prix , two fourth places in Argentina and the Netherlands , as well as a fifth place in Silverstone made him finish fourth in the world championship again.

This year was rounded off by winning the Sports Car World Championship , which was held for the first time in 1953 , in which he laid one of the foundations for success with solid racing results alongside Alberto Ascaris and Giuseppe Farina . As a partner of Farina, he won the Spa-Francorchamps 24-hour race .

The 1954 Formula 1 season seemed to be on a promising path when he had a fatal accident at the Syracuse Grand Prix in Sicily in March of that year : When Onofre Marimón had an accident with his Maserati and spun down the track, it caught fire the bales of hay, which were then set up as a route boundary, due to the burning fuel. Hawthorn inevitably raced into this inferno and was dragged out of the monoposto with difficulty by his team-mate José Froilán González , who was also burned and collided with the wrecked car.

Hawthorn was hospitalized in Rome and Milan for two months with second and third degree burns on his face, arms and thighs after the accident . The organizer of Syracuse was obviously so embarrassed about this incident that they later awarded Hawthorn an 18- carat gold medal - an unthinkable admission of the safety deficiencies in today's world. Bales of straw remained the standard for track barriers in many car races well into the 1960s and in motorcycle races well into the 1980s.

Having just returned to Farnham, his father Leslie Hawthorn was killed in an accident driving back from a race at Goodwood . The visibly affected Mike Hawthorn spent the rest of the season more than compulsory, although he scored his second Grand Prix victory at the last World Championship round in Spain . Thanks to other very good placements, he was now ranked bronze among the competition, only to not renew his contract soon afterwards, to the great disappointment of the Ferrari management.

The sports car interlude and Le Mans in 1955

→ Main article : Accident at the 1955 Le Mans 24-hour race

Route of the Circuit de la Sarthe

Jaguar D-Type

After a single start with the young British Vanwall team, he fell out with the team management and tried his luck at the sports car races . In this class he had already won the Pescara 12-hour race in 1953 - albeit with a Ferrari . Here, too, he emphasized his nationality and very successfully switched to Jaguar . The victory at the renowned Sebring 12-hour race was soon a presentable result.

The next challenge was to be the Le Mans 24-hour race, the crowning glory of all sports car races. But Hawthorn stood in his own way that year. In order to understand the following events, one must perhaps be World War - Trauma considered. As a youth he had seen the bombing of London and the Battle of Britain firsthand. He therefore hated everything that had anything to do with Germany. According to his understanding, this included the almost unbeatable racing cars from Mercedes-Benz .

With his Jaguar D-Type on June 11, 1955, he then engaged in a bitter private feud with the Mercedes 300 SLR in the driver field, above all with Fangio, who was considered the star driver of the German team. Right from the start, both of them hit an excessive racing pace, which corresponded more to a GP distance than an endurance race, so that even after two hours they were barely more than two car lengths apart.

Graphic of the Le Mans accident of 1955

At the end of the 35th lap, around 6:20 p.m., Hawthorn quickly caught up with the Pierre Leveghs (Mercedes) and Lance Macklins ( Austin -Healey) cars waiting to be lapped and wanted to overtake them on the home straight in one train because he was there Fangio was literally on the back of his neck. He was already past them when he noticed that the gasoline was no longer enough for him for another lap. So he let himself be carried away to an impulsive act and shot across the piste in front of the two cars in order to reach the pits, which at that time were not yet structurally separated from the racetrack, as quickly as possible for a refueling stop. Despite a screeching halt , he came only 80 meters behind his pit crew to a halt, which illustrates the nonsense of his maneuver. But behind him he had triggered a drama: Macklin was able to maneuver his car out of the line of fire with an equally daring maneuver, but he had taken the proverbial "space to survive" from the old veteran Levegh. The car's car collided with the rear of the Austin at 240 km / h, was catapulted onto the boundary wall in front of the spectators, overturned and caught fire. Tires, fenders and other vehicle and engine parts hurled many meters into the stands. In addition to the driver, 83 spectators were killed - this was the worst accident of all time in motorsport. Levegh had just been able to warn Fangio with a show of hands, otherwise he too would have had an accident.

The race management did not stop the race, a decision that is difficult to understand today. Levegh was declared a “scapegoat” by the race management - contrary to the opinion of the journalists, the specialist press and the public - which was seen differently even by the English public. Later, the reason for the continuation of the race was that if it had been abandoned, the crowd of spectators would have blocked the access roads and the ambulance .

After the accident, the Mercedes race management withdrew their racing cars from the ongoing competition. However, the Executive Board made this decision to concentrate on series development after the end of the 1955 racing season in the spring, i.e. before the Le Mans accident.

But Hawthorn, of all people, stayed in the race and won it thanks to the lack of competition. During the lap of honor and the award ceremony, he smiled, which is evidenced by photos. The German press in particular then turned him into a figure of hatred. But even at home you never forgot your grossly negligent short-circuit reaction. In his biography , which appeared shortly before his death, he expressed himself distantly about this accident and without sympathy for the victims.

Return to Formula 1 and final triumph

The 1956 Formula 1 season with an unreliable BRM was the weakest phase of his career. He was only able to qualify for third place on the grid with this car at Silverstone, but later had to retire due to technical problems. At the beginning of the season in Argentina he only crossed the finish line in third place with a Maserati belonging to a private team. When he tried a Maserati again at Spa, he already failed during training due to his form fluctuations. A single attempt on a Vanwall in Reims only brought tenth place after sixth on the grid. His efforts to get back to the earlier form were expressed in the erratic change between the makes. From his point of view, the low point of his career lay solely in the material.

At the 12 Hours of Oulton Park , he made a driving mistake with a Lotus similar to that in Le Mans last year. Nevertheless, Ferrari hired him again for the 1957 Formula 1 season and Hawthorn achieved further good placings, so that at the end of the year he again reached fourth place in the final classification. The following year, 1958 , seemed to be difficult for Ferrari because the cars were still front-engined. The Cooper-Climax with a mid-engine were superior and Vanwall , with the two top drivers Stirling Moss and Tony Brooks , pushed forward with all his might. Ferrari's chief designer Carlo Chiti indirectly preferred it by letting him, in cooperation with tire manufacturer Dunlop , be the only factory driver to install disc brakes instead of drum brakes .

Mike Hawthorn, Argentina Grand Prix, 1958

The vanwalls of the industrialist Tony Vandervell were extremely fast, but also capricious and prone to defects. Moss and Brooks each achieved three wins, but otherwise could hardly score any points. Hawthorn, on the other hand, drove extremely reliably. With just one win in Reims, five second places and three fastest race laps (for which there were also special points at the time) as well as thanks to the fairness of his worst rival Moss and the renunciation of his new teammate Phil Hill , he won the world championship with 41 to 40 points . Moss had given him the tip when driving past in Porto at the Grand Prix of Portugal to get his car running again in reverse to the downhill direction next to the track in order to win important points with second place. When the stewards wanted to disqualify Hawthorn, Moss dissuaded them. He stated that Mike Hawthorn had not endangered anyone and that after all, unlike those responsible, he was there. The last point that Hawthorn could only achieve with his fastest race lap also became legendary. Moss did not work against this, as he misinterpreted a pit signal at the Grand Prix of Morocco .

Hawthorn was the first British Formula 1 World Champion after the Italians Farina and Ascari and the Argentine Fangio and the first driver to win the title with just one win. Only Keke Rosberg became world champion in 1982 thanks to his persistence with just one victory. Hawthorn lost his two last friends in the paddock in racing accidents : Luigi Musso and Peter Collins . Perhaps that was the reason why he announced his retirement from racing at the end of 1958.

For a long time, Hawthorn was considered a downright party animal and “prankster” (joker) who, to the horror of his team, could not say “no” to beautiful women as well as to a good drop of alcohol, even before racing days. To the disappointment of his fans, however, he did not record a single episode of that time in his autobiography. These are only documented by anecdotes and photographs like at the wedding of his colleague Moss. It was not until late that his biographer found evidence that an illegitimate son from a relationship with a French woman existed in 1954. Enzo Ferrari saw in these antics the real reason for the unsteady fitness of his driver, who often looked bloated in his last season.

The fatal accident

On the evening of January 22, 1959, in heavy rain, Hawthorn ran into a Mercedes 300 SL with his Jaguar Mark I on the bypass road near Guildford and spontaneously overtook him. While overtaking, he recognized the driver as an acquaintance, the Scottish racing team owner Rob Walker , whom he challenged to a race. Walker didn't want to back down, but soon had to acknowledge Hawthorn's superiority. Shortly afterwards he lost control of his car in a long left bend in strong crosswinds and aquaplaning in the face of an oncoming truck, crashed into an oak tree and died of severe head injuries. The autopsy, as well as the results of an operation in 1954, provided little consolation for his relatives that he would only have had a few years to live because of his kidney disease, and thus explained the fluctuations in shape that the experts had registered up to then.

Many critics forgot that Hawthorn had said goodbye to his formerly displayed coldness in the last years of his life and was popular with his teammates as well as his opponents, as he was available to everyone with advice. Nevertheless, he was still considered the least popular world champion by many racing journalists . Mike Hawthorn was after all the first Englishman who was able to achieve a regular Grand Prix victory and a Formula 1 world championship title after the Second World War, thus establishing a long tradition of English dominance in motorsport.

statistics

Statistics in the automobile world championship

Grand Prix victories

• 1953:  France  ( Reims )
• 1954:  Spain  ( Barcelona )
• 1958:  France  (Reims)

general overview

season	team	chassis	engine	run	Victories	Second	Third	Poles	nice Race laps	Points	WM-Pos.
1952	Leslie D. Hawthorn	Cooper T20	Bristol 2.0 L6	4th	-	-	1	-	-	10	4th
	AHM Bryde	Cooper T20	Bristol 2.0 L6	1	-	-	-	-	-
1953	Scuderia Ferrari	Ferrari 500	Ferrari 2.0 L4	8th	1	-	2	-	-	19 (27)	4th
1954	Scuderia Ferrari	Ferrari 625	Ferrari 2.5 L4	6th	-	3	-	-	1	24.64	3.
		Ferrari 553 Squalo		2	1	-	-	-	-
1955	Vandervell Products Ltd.	Vanwall VW55	Vanwall 2.5 L4	2	-	-	-	-	-	-	NC
	Scuderia Ferrari	Ferrari 555 Super Qualo	Ferrari 2.5 L4	2	-	-	-	-	-
		Ferrari 625F1	Ferrari 2.5 L4	1	-	-	-	-	-
1956	Owen Racing Organization	Maserati 250F	Maserati 2.5 L6	1	-	-	1	-	-	4th	12.
		BRM P25	BRM 2.5 L4	1	-	-	-	-	-
	Vandervell Products Ltd.	Vanwall VW2	Vanwall 2.5 L4	1	-	-	-	-	-
1957	Scuderia Ferrari	Ferrari D50	Ferrari 2.5 L4	2	-	-	-	-	-	13	4th
		Ferrari 801		4th	-	1	1	-	-
1958	Scuderia Ferrari	Ferrari Dino 246F1	Ferrari 2.4 V6	10	1	5	1	4th	5	42 (49)	1.
total				45	3	9	6th	4th	6th	127.64

Single results

season	1	2	3	4th	5	6th	7th	8th	9	10	11
1952
			4th	DNF	3		4th	NC
1953
	4th		(4)	6th	1	(5)	3	3	(4)
1954
	DSQ		4 1	DNF	2	DNF / 2 2	DNF	2	1
1955
		DNF		DNF	7th	6 3	10
1956
	3	DNS		DNS	10 4	DNF
1957
	DNF	DNF / DNF 5		4th	3	2		6th
1958
	(3)	DNF	(5)		2	1	2	DNF	2	2	2

¹ Mike Hawthorn and José Froilán González shared the car with the number 10. Hawthorn drove the first 20 laps and then handed over to González.

² Mike Hawthorn started the race in the no. 3 car he retired with. He then took over vehicle no. 1 from José Froilán González .

³ Mike Hawthorn and Eugenio Castellotti shared the car with the number 16. Hawthorn drove the first 60 laps and then handed over to Castellotti.

⁴ Mike Hawthorn and Harry Schell shared the vehicle with the number 24. Hawthorn drove the first 10 laps and then handed over to Schell.

⁵ Mike Hawthorn started the race in car # 28, which he retired. He then took over vehicle no. 24 from Wolfgang von Trips .

Legend
colour	abbreviation	meaning
gold	-	victory
silver	-	2nd place
bronze	-	3rd place
green	-	Placement in the points
blue	-	Classified outside the point ranks
violet	DNF	Race not finished (did not finish)
	NC	not classified
red	DNQ	did not qualify
	DNPQ	failed in pre-qualification (did not pre-qualify)
black	DSQ	disqualified
White	DNS	not at the start (did not start)
	WD	withdrawn
Light Blue	PO	only participated in the training (practiced only)
	TD	Friday test driver
without	DNP	did not participate in the training (did not practice)
	INJ	injured or sick
	EX	excluded
	DNA	did not arrive
	C.	Race canceled
		no participation in the World Cup
other	P / bold	Pole position
	SR / italic	Fastest race lap
	*	not at the finish, but counted due to the distance covered
	()	Streak results
	underlined	Leader in the overall standings

Le Mans results

year	team	vehicle	Teammate	placement	Failure reason
1953	Scuderia Ferrari	Ferrari 340MM	Giuseppe Farina	Disqualified
1955	Jaguar Cars Ltd.	Jaguar D-Type	Ivor Bueb	Overall victory
1956	Jaguar Cars Ltd.	Jaguar D-Type	Ivor Bueb	Rank 6
1957	Scuderia Ferrari	Ferrari 335S	Luigi Musso	failure	Engine failure
1958	Scuderia Ferrari	Ferrari 250TR	Peter Collins	failure	Clutch damage

Sebring results

year	team	vehicle	Teammate	placement	Failure reason
1955	Briggs Cunningham	Jaguar D-Type	Phil Walters	Overall victory
1956	Jaguar New York Inc.	Jaguar D-Type	Desmond Titterington	failure	Brakes
1957	Jaguar Cars North America	Jaguar D-Type	Ivor Bueb	Rank 3
1958	Scuderia Ferrari	Ferrari 250TR / 58	Wolfgang Graf Berghe von Trips	failure	Power transmission

Individual results in the sports car world championship

season	team	race car	1	2	3	4th	5	6th	7th
1953	Scuderia Ferrari	Ferrari 250MM Ferrari 340MM	SEB	MIM	LEM	SPA	ONLY	RTT	CAP
				DNF	DNF	1
1954	Scuderia Ferrari	Ferrari 750 Monza	BUA	SEB	MIM	LEM	RTT	CAP
							1
1955	Briggs Cunningham Jaguar	Jaguar D-Type	BUA	SEB	MIM	LEM	RTT	TAR
				1		1	DNF
1956	Jaguar New York Inc. Jaguar Scuderia Ferrari	Jaguar D-Type Ferrari 860 Monza	BUA	SEB	MIM	ONLY	KRI
				DNF		DNF	3
1957	Scuderia Ferrari Jaguar Cars North America	Ferrari 290S Jaguar D-Type Ferrari 315S Ferrari 335S	BUA	SEB	MIM	ONLY	LEM	KRI	CAR
			DNF	3		3	DNF	4th	2
1958	Scuderia Ferrari	Ferrari 250TR	BUA	SEB	TAR	ONLY	LEM	RTT
				DNF	3	2	DNF

Quotes

• “This tall blonde worried me because of his moodiness. He was able to master the most difficult situations in cold blood, only to commit a hair-raising stupidity the next moment. " (Enzo Ferrari)
  • The original quote: “Mike Hawthorn è stato un pilota sconcertante per le sue possibilità e la sua discontinuità. Un giovane capace di affrontare e risolvere qualunque situazione con un coraggio freddo e calcolato, con una prontezza eccezionale, ma incline anche a cadere vittima di paurosi cedimenti. .. "

• "He could be very nice if he liked you." ( Phil Hill )

• "After passing me (Mike) Hawthorn turned too sharply towards the right and braked, (...) I braked my car as hard as I could to avoid him. My wheels locked and I was carried towards the left. Levegh's car hit the back of my car. In an affair of this kind it is difficult to speak of responsibility. Hawthorn no doubt committed to an error but the real responsibility was the speed of the cars. In the excitement of his struggle (with Levegh and Juan Manuel Fangio) Hawthorn executed a manouevre which astonished me and he left me no other alternative than to either run into him or turn to the left. " (Lance Macklin to the investigative court for the Le- Mans accident)

literature

• Derick Allsop: The British Racing Hero . Stanley Paul, London 1990. ISBN 0-09-174491-1 .
• Pino Casamassima: The History of Scuderia Ferrari . Heel, Königswinter 1999. ISBN 3-89365-745-2 .
• Enzo Ferrari: Le mie gioie terribili . Cappelli Editore, Bologna ² 1962.
• Peter Gruner: The Formula 1 Lexicon . ECON, Düsseldorf 1997. ISBN 3-612-26353-6 .
• Jörg-Thomas Födisch, Erich Kahnt: 50 years of Formula 1. The winners . Heel, Königswinter 1999. ISBN 3-89365-615-4 .
• Mike Hawthorn: Challenge Me The Race . William Kimber, London 1958. (autobiography)
• Mike Hawthorn: Champion year. My battle for the driver's world title . William Kimber, London 1959, Aston, Bourne End 1989. ISBN 0-946627-33-9 .
• Chris Nixon: Mon Ami Mate - The Bright Brief Lives of Mike Hawthorn & Peter Collins . Transport Bookman, Isleworth, 1991, ²1998. ISBN 0-85184-047-7 .
• Peter Scherer: 50 Years of British Grand Prix Drivers . TFM, Kemberton 1999. ISBN 0-9530052-8-3 .
• Achim Schlang: The Formula 1 aces of our time . Motorbuch Verlag, Stuttgart 1984. ISBN 3-613-01035-6 .

Web links

Commons : Mike Hawthorn  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• "The driver to lead the way to British dominance" (English recognition of his world title)
• Detailed description of the Le Mans accident with numerous photo documents (Spanish)
• Presentation of a blue Ferrari Coupé 212 owned by Hawthorn ( Memento from December 5, 2004 in the Internet Archive )
• Mike Hawthorn at motorsportmemorial.org (English)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ See Robert Daley: The Cruel Sport: Grand Prix Racing 1959-1967 . Motorbooks, St. Paul 2005, p. XV.
2. ↑ Lung carcinomas and other lung diseases were only added later due to the frequent exposure to asbestos : cf. Hans Dörfler u. a. (Ed.): Medical reports , Springer Medicine, Heidelberg 2008, p. 223. See also: Hilke Stamatiadis-Smidt / Christian Beitel: Topic Cancer , Springer Verlag, 3rd revised NA, Berlin a. a. 2006, p. 36. The express risk to this occupational group is emphasized here.
3. ↑ Michael Oliver, Jackie Stewart : Tales from the Toolbox: A Collection of Behind the Scenes Tales from Grand Prix Mechanics , Veloce Publishing Ltd., Dorchester 2009, p. 103.
4. ^ Motor Sport, October 1950, p. 493; Motor Sport, August 1951, p. 379.
5. ^ Tony Gardiner: The Brighton National Speed ​​Trials . Veloce, Dorchester 2004, p. 6.
6. ^ Motor Sport, September 1951, p. 432.
7. ^ Motor Sport, January 1952, p. 11.
8. ^ GN Georgano: The Encyclopedia of Motor Sport , Viking Press 1971, p. 232.
9. ^ Automobile Quarterly, Vol. 9, # 1, p. 87.
10. ↑ http://www.ddavid.com/formula1/fer500.htm
11. ↑ u. a .: http://www.forix.com/8w/frazernash.html and http://www.forix.com/8w/250f.html : "one of the most successful designs of its day or any day" .
12. ↑ Leonardo Acerbi: Ferrari: A Complete Guide to All Models . Motorbooks, St. Paul 2006. p. 43.
13. ↑ Picture of a Cooper T20 on Flickr
14. ↑ Sam S. Collins, Gavin D. Ireland: Autodrome: The Lost Race Circuits of Europe , Veloce, Dorchester, pp. 48-50.
15. ↑ cf. on this: Jörg-Thomas Födisch / Erich Kahnt: 50 years of Formula 1. The winners . Heel: Schindellegi 1999
16. ↑ Brock W. Yates: Against Death and Time: One Fatal Season in Racing's Glory Years . Thunder's Mouth, New York / Enfield 2006, p. 153: According to this, he asked the American John Fitch, who was known to him and who reported on an upcoming meeting with Mercedes-Benz representatives in Stuttgart, whether he could take a bomb for him .
17. ^ Contemporary description of the accident, in: LIFE, June 27, 1955
18. ^ Battlefield Le Mans , in: FAZ , June 13, 2005, No. 134 / page 25
19. ↑ Picture of a BRM from 1956 on Flickr .
20. ^ Graham Gauld: Modena Racing Memories: Italian Sports Car and Grand Prix Racing, 1957-1963 , MBI Pub. Co., Osceola, 1999, p. 66.
21. ↑ Dick Salmon: BRM: A Mechanic's Tale . Veloce, Dorchester 2006, p. 31.
22. ↑ Another variant is reported in places. Hawthorn and Walker met by chance at lunch in a pub and then decided to race towards London . See Brock W. Yates: Against Death and Time: One Fatal Season in Racing's Glory Years , New York 2006, p. 153.
23. ↑ Archive link ( Memento of the original from December 19, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
24. ↑ See Martin Buckley: Stars, Cars & Infamy . Motorbooks International, St. Paul 2003, p. 33.
25. ↑ James Lambie: The story of your life: a history of the Sporting Life newspaper (1859-1998) . Matador, Leicester 2010, p. 467.
26. ↑ cit. n. Födisch / Kahnt, p. 94
27. ↑ Enzo Ferrari, Le mie gioie terribili , Cappelli Editore, Bologna, December 1962, 2nd edizione, p. 106
28. ↑ cit. n. Födisch / Kahnt, p. 95
29. ↑ cit. n. www.grandprix.com

This article was added to the list of excellent articles on December 7, 2004 in this version .