He was the first English World Champion, or if you prefer, the first English to become World Champion. He would have preferred it, because being English was definitely his favorite thing. He was also the last first level driver, now we would say “top driver”, to wear a jacket and the inseparable bow tie, and at the same time one of the first, if not the first ever, to abandon the goggles for the futuristic plexiglass visor.
Mike Hawthorn was able to elicit, in equal measure, admiration and resentment, he was a controversial figure who was given heavy responsibility in fatal crashes, but also one of the fastest drivers in the most critical period for the safety of drivers and spectators in the history of motor racing. Undoubtedly, his untimely death due to a car accident a few months after winning the drivers’ world title and the announcement of his retirement, not yet thirty, from racing, contributed to create this sinister halo around his name. In a sense, however, he had died running.
At Guilford, not at Silverstone, while with his Jaguar 3.4 numbered VDU881 he was in full brawl with Rob Walker’s Mercedes. A witness will speak of an overtaking attempt that ended badly, the hypothesis of a spontaneous challenge between two rich and bored young men for whom powerful engines and slimy asphalt were an irresistible attraction, is acceptable for everyone. Friends and enemies. For the former it’s Mike’s style, dead as he lived, for others it is confirmation that Mike Hawthorn was as dangerous on the road as he had been on the track. Of all the cars that Jaguar had driven, the VDU881 was the one Mike had loved the most, the one he knew best. He called it “Merc-heater” (literally Mercedes-eater) because he had won so many challenges at Goodwood against the 300 SL, challenges in which only those who kept their foot down because the differences were often minimal, the performances much more level than in the Sports or Formula 1 races.
The dynamics of the accident were meticulously examined, the causes clear from the beginning: high speed, treacherous asphalt for rain, a tree on which the Jaguar had crumpled instead of flying into the lawn and giving Mike Hawthorn a chance. Rob Walker was immediately relieved of all charges: one does not like to investigate the heir of a whiskey manufacturer in which the only thing wrong is the label. Not even in England. And maybe Mike, all things considered, would have preferred it that way too.
Mike Hawthorn hadn’t been easy. In the racing world, after his father passed away, he had no friends except for Peter Collins, with whom he had become inseparable. It had been discovered by Tony Vandervell who had suggested it to Enzo Ferrari. Someone says imposed: either let this guy try, or I no longer supply you with my bushings for your precious engines. It seemed the usual recommended, but just a few laps at the Aeroautodomo di Modena were enough for it to pass the toughest test, that of the mechanics who renamed it “piombon”. When he had defeated Fangio in Reims, the others also understood that he was someone. Mike had the art of complicating his life and wanted to race in an English car. With the Vanwall he was the only one to get something good, while with the Jaguar, in sports races, he was strong. Even too much.
Unfortunately, there is his hand in the Le Mans tragedy, in ’55. Suddenly cuts the way to Lance Macklin’s Healey to return to the pits triggering the carom that will cost the lives of Pierre Levegh and 83 spectators. There are many who point the finger, but among those who do not accuse him there is Fangio, who narrowly escaped the tragedy.
In 1956 at the Nurburgring he threw Musso off the track who miraculously got out of his overturned Ferrari after a contact with Hawthorn’s Type D, but was seriously injured. That day not only poor Musso’s pelvis is cracking but also the relationship between the two. English is isolated from the environment: at the German Grand Prix that year, also at the Nurburgring, no insurance company is willing to take out a policy if Hawthorn kicks off and the organizers leave him on foot. Exaggeration? Persecution or due precaution? Questions that have never been answered.
Mike Hawthorn returns to Maranello, perhaps because no one seems to want him anymore e Ferrari wants to be different. Ferrari is different and that English, ice and fire, is what he needs to spice up his team. Not only that: Hawthorn, the outcast, takes the place of Fangio, the myth. Should he win at the Drake it would certainly not be displeasing to show that with his Hawthorn or Fangio machines it makes no difference. In Maranello he finds Peter Collins again. He also finds Luigi Musso, but there is no good blood for the Nurburgring accident and the rumor goes around insistently that in sports racing Hawthorn and Collins, “British” as they call them in Ferrari, they pool with the prizes, penalizing their Italian teammates who collect the crumbs. They go strong, though.
Only in Monte Carlo do they challenge Ferrari’s patience when they leave the scene for an accident on the seafront and both of their cars are seriously damaged. ’58 is the decisive year: Peter Collins, Mike Hawthorn, Luigi Musso and Stirling Moss. Up for grabs is the legacy of Fangio who, after winning the fifth World Champion title, has announced his next retirement. The first three run with Ferrari, the rivalry is very strong: Musso accuses the team of favoring “the English” and the tragedy arrives in Reims. After a few laps of the French Grand Prix Hawthorn is in the lead and Musso is second when the Italian goes off the track in the fastest corner of the circuit and dies a few hours later in hospital without regaining consciousness. Hawthorn is still there, as if he were Mackie Messer. Perhaps he is not to blame, but someone remembers the 1000 Km of the Nurburgring two years earlier, his maneuver that had thrown out Musso’s Ferrari. In Ferrari they defend him, but on the night Musso dies he and Collins are seen laughing and playing football with a can of beer in the hospital square. Hawthorn withdraws into himself, does not react to even heavy insinuations, think of the World Championship that is threatened by Stirling Moss with the Vanwall on which two other English youngsters are strong: Lewis-Evans and Brooks. Friendship with Collins becomes his fortress. They are increasingly accomplices, on and off the track.
At Le Mans, when Gendebien and Phil Hill were too far away to be reached, the two had voluntarily burned their “Red Head” clutch to return to England first. At least this is what was reported to Enzo Ferrari who, to put it mildly, did not like it and who had made them race as a couple at the request of Musso to avoid the prize game. Enzo Ferrari had dedicated one of his legendary outbursts to them, and they understood that the wind could change. The environment, after Reims, is even more tense. At the German Grand Prix another tragedy hits Formula 1 and this time Mike directly: at the Pflantzgarden Peter Collins’ Ferrari, who follows his closely, flies through the trees. Peter Collins dies and Mike stops a few laps later, officially for a failure that no one finds. It’s destroyed. He still runs for the World Championship with Moss, but he doesn’t smile anymore.
At the last Grand Prix, in Casablanca, the title becomes his. For one point. Vince Moss, he is second thanks also to teammate Phil Hill who gives him the way, and in fact the title, taking it away from Moss. It is not a happy victory, though: Lewis-Evans was the victim of yet another accident of a cursed season and is badly burned. When he dies, in England where they have taken him to try what was impossible in Morocco, Hawthorn announces his retirement from racing: he has not yet turned thirty. And it will never do them: the January 22, 1959, at the Guilford Bypass, he performs the last maneuver that the others will be able to judge negatively.
”… At the 1956 German Grand Prix at the Nurburgring, no insurance company was willing to take out a policy if Hawthorn got underway. And the organizers leave him on foot … “
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