PAST IMPERFECT:The triumph of Brawn GP in the first F1 race of 2009 harks back to the 1954 success of Mercedes-Benz, writes BOB MONTGOMERY.
THE REMARKABLE success of Brawn GP in scoring a one, two victory in the opening race of the 2009 F1 Championship has been rightly applauded. Their extraordinary story, of a team arising from the ashes of Honda GP, is without parallel in the 59-year history of Formula One and without doubt, they fully deserve the acclaim afforded them.
Only once before in F1’s history has a new team debuted with a one, two victory, and there are intriguing connections between them. That team was the Mercedes-Benz team, which in 1954 stunned the F1 world by appearing at the French Grand Prix at Reims with three W196 Silver Arrows for Juan Manual Fangio, Karl Kling and Hans Hermann, a race the former two proceeded to win, against strong opposition from Ferrari and Maserati. Over the course of the next 12 Grand Prix between Reims 1954 and Monza 1955, the Mercedes-Benz team took no fewer than nine victories, four of which were doubles and one an amazing 1-2-3-4 triumph.
The common thread between the two is, of course, the Mercedes engines that power both teams. Brawn GP has already scored its second consecutive victory and no doubt their rivals are hoping they won’t be as successful as the Mercedes-Benz team that preceded them.
When Mercedes-Benz lined up its cars for the start of the French Grand Prix at Reims on July 4th, 1954 it was the first time it had taken part in a Grand Prix since 1939, although its history in GP racing dated to 1914, when Christian Lautenschlager won the French Grand Prix. No less than 300,000 fans turned out at Reims that day to see the return of the Silver Arrows. The Mercedes-Benz team leader, Fangio, had already taken two victories that season, at Buenos Aires and Spa, driving a Maserati 250F. At Reims he was joined by team-mates Karl Kling and Hans Herrmann in similar cars.
Friday practice was the first time the cars had run with fuel injection, having previously only run on the test bench. Time was so short in preparing the three – again, a parallel with Brawn GP – that Herrmann’s car had not run at all before first practice at Reims. All three featured streamlined bodywork that enclosed their wheels. Rivals questioned whether this all-enveloping bodywork was legal under F1 rules, but Mercedes-Benz engineers were sure they had read the rules correctly, a position that was confirmed by the race stewards. Once again, shades of Brawn GP and the current diffuser row.
A problem arose in practice; the cars were found to be using so much fuel that a pit stop would be required.
Armed with the knowledge that their rivals could finish the race without a stop, Rudolf Uhlenhaut drove back to their Stuttgart base after Saturday practice and returned early on race day with three specially-made extra fuel tanks in his Mercedes 300SL.
Fangio and Kling lined up on the front row alongside Alberto Ascari’s Maserati and, despite a spin by Fangio and the retirement of Hermann with a smoking engine, Fangio and Kling drove nose to tail for the second half of the race, with Fangio taking the victory by less than 1m.
As they say, in F1, as in life, nothing is really new. . .