PastImperfect/The Greatest?The recent retirement of Michael Schumacher from Grand Prix racing has predictably prompted a round of 'Who was the Greatest Driver' debates among all those with even the slightest interest in motor racing. Inevitably, many will consider Schumacher the greatest, pointing to his domination of the motor racing record books.
Those whose memory goes back only as far as recent times will champion the late Ayrton Senna, while those with longer memories and some knowledge of the sport's history will declare the great Fangio or Jim Clarke the greatest.
But any debate on the respective merits of the handful of truly great drivers must take into account their skill and tenacity and in this regard there is one driver who is head and shoulders above all others. Il Mantovano Volante - 'The Flying Mantuan', Tazio Nuvolari.
For Nuvolari, adversity brought out his greatest qualities. A small, almost emaciated man, his thin frame cloaked a tremendous inner strength. His greatness lay in his utter refusal to accept defeat. His rival René Dreyfus described his total mastery of the machines he drove thus "You had the impression of a man on an unbroken horse, but instead of fighting it, he let it run free."
This was amply demonstrated at the Ards TT in 1933, Tazio was invited to drive a MG K3 Magnette. That he had never seen the track or driven the car before bothered him not at all and he proceeded to destroy his rivals by setting a new lap record from a standing start on what was regarded as a particularly difficult and dangerous circuit. Fascinated by his speed, one of the other drivers, Captain Edgar Fronteras, spent a lot of time analysing Tazio's speed. He was surprised to find that they both had basically the same braking points, lines through the corners and gearing around each lap.
Where they differed was on the difficult and dangerous section through Newtownards square. In discussion with Nuvolari, Fronteras told the great man that he used third gear through there. Nuvolari became animated, holding up four fingers, implying that he went through this section in fourth gear. Fronteras found this impossible to believe but after watching him again, realised that he was quite simply in the presence of genius.
His comment: "Given the nerve of a tightrope walker and the kind of eye that can thread a needle first time, it is possible to go through there in fourth. But the slightest mistake, of course, and it would have been the end."
Tazio Nuvolari lived in that sublime place above the abilities of his fellow drivers, leaving all who saw him drive with an image of a small, brown-skinned man in his trademark yellow shirt, arms flailing as he flashed by. Never one to win at the slowest speed, he always did the opposite at a time when racing cars were physically very tiring to drive and races were marathons compared with today's 'sprint' races.
In the final analysis, there was only one reason Tazio ever stepped into a racing car: it was simply something he loved. Small wonder that no less than Dr Ferry Porsche described him as "the greatest ace of the past, the present and probably the future."