Page 84 - Decadence

In this 70th year at Ferrari we thought we would look at not one but two of its greatest drivers from the years of deadly road and track races, a time
when Grand Prix was at the height of its glamour in Europe.
With more advanced media coverage and TV coverage the viewing audience was now a global spectacle, and it didn’t hurt the viewership that in the days before safety fencing and equipment and the highly developed track facilities of present day circuits, the sport was spectacularly violent, dangerous and a lot of the times... deadly. Funerals were a regular occurrence within this elite group of sportsmen. No team was as haunted as Ferrari, between 1957 and 1961 six Ferrari drivers perished in high speed accidents.
We look at the life of Phil Hill and in particular the 1961 season and his rival at Ferrari, Count Wolfgang von Trips and the tragedy that befell Monza that year.
Phillip Hill, born in Miami Florida in 1927 was the only American born driver to win the Formula one World Drivers Championship Title. Along side this accolade he also notched up three wins at each of the 24 hours of Le Mans and 12 hours of Sebring. Moving to Santa Monica, California he went to college to study business administration at UCLA. After leaving UCLA he decided to pursue a career in motorsport, starting out by working as a mechanic on the cars of other racing drivers.
Hill began racing at an early age, leaving for England as a Jaguar trainee in 1949. The next rung of the ladder was being signed to Enzo Ferrari’s team in 1956. He made his debut in the French Grand Prix at Reims in France in 1958 driving a Maserati. The same year, paired with Belgian teammate Olivier Gendebien, Hill became the rst American, born and bred to win the 24 Hours of Le Mans, with Hill driving most of the night in horri c rainswept and at times torrential conditions.
He and his teammate would go on to win the world famous endurance race again in 1961 and 1962.
Hill began driving full time for the Ferrari Formula One Team in 1959 earning three podium nishes and fourth place overall in the Drivers Championship.
In 1960 he won the Italian Grand Prix at Monza, the rst Grand Prix win for an American driver in nearly 40 years, since Jimmy Murphy’s win in the 1921 French Grand Prix. Hill played a major role in luring stateside fans from stock car ovals to the twisty circuits overseas. The American press called him “Mickey Mantle in a Ferrari”. Phil Hill was the rst American to break into the top ranks of elite European racing.
Count Wolfgang von Trips was also driving for Ferrari. A German Nobleman whose family owned a vast agricultural concern in the Rhineland who had by the 1961 season earned himself the nick name “Count von Crash” as he had survived many a major accident. Trips participated in 29 Formula One world Championship Grand Prix races, debuting on the 2nd of September 1956, throughout his career he won two races, the 1961 Dutch Grand Prix and the 1961 British Grand Prix, secured one pole position, six podiums and a total of 56 championship points.
During some memorable crashes, one such example was sustaining a concussion when he spun off track at the Nurburgring during trials for a sports car held in May 1957. His Ferrari was destroyed and was the only one of its marque to be entered in the Gran Turismo class, further deserving of his ‘von crash ‘monicker.
He was eventually dropped by Ferrari; as Enzo told reporters “I am not amused by drivers who smash up my cars! I expect them to win!” As Ferrari was famous for being of the opinion that drivers who came close to dying, like those who married, were of no use to him. They rarely mustered the nerve to face the limit.
After von Trips‘s accident in Monza in 1958 he had a slow road to recovering his old pace and to prove to Ferrari his old instincts had returned, but Enzo had been watching his progress from his Modena principality.
He had gained a maturity in which he learned to keep his impetuousness and cavalier driving reigned in, Hill had always understood the old adage, going faster sometimes means slowing down, It took von Trips an altogether different road to end at the same junction.
As the horri c death toll had taken it‘s tally on the top drivers available, Ferrari now needed von Trips maybe more than he needed them. Towards the end of 1959 Il Commendatore summoned Trips to Modena and over lunch reinstated him.
Count Wolfgang von Trips was back in the inner Ferrari circle, with his amboyant lifestyle, movie star looks and demeanour, living life as fast as he drove his Sharknose Ferrari and his vast army of female admirers cheering him on, looked set for a winning streak in the next season.
The date is September the 10th 1961, the place, Monza and what could be the decider for the championship.
Phil Hill and Wolfgang von Trips, Ferrari’s best; the two begin the race day as friends and rivals, knowing that by the end of the day one of them was
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