Luigi Fagioli: a Grand Prix great

He, too, might have achieved greater things had he not felt demeaned by an astute teammate and fallen foul of an influential team boss.

From a self-made, wealthy family of the Marche region, Fagioli’s racing apprenticeship was similar to Nigel Mansell’s in terms of perception.

When his father forbade his racing motorcycles, a secondhand Salmson voiturette – apparently sturdier than it looked – gave him a low-key but winning start in cars in 1925, by which time he was already almost 27.

He would remain loyal to the French marque until 1931. 

His results weren’t stellar, but they sparkled sufficiently to suggest – to those bothering to look – that this oft-unshaven bruiser, sturdy bulk constrained by a fulsome girdle fastened over grubby overalls, was a rough diamond.

Bologna’s Maserati brothers appreciated him. Fagioli had bolstered his stable in 1928 with one of their 1.5-litre straight-eights, and they brought him fully into the works fold for 1930 – the first of several timely appointments.

Increasingly nationalistic as well as competitive considerations had led national hero/top dog Nuvolari to align with Alfa Romeo.

Varzi, in turn, possessed sufficient clout and prestige to pick and choose: he wore the French blue of Bugatti from 1931-’33, at a time when Italian motorsport was red in tooth and claw.

Relative newcomer Maserati, determined to make it a three-way fight, needed a stout yeoman to put his shoulder to its wheel.

Fagioli, a handy boxer and wrestler in his youth, fitted the bill and repaid the faith by winning Livorno’s Coppa Ciano (1930), the Monza GP (’31) and the Rome GP (’32), his handling of the brutish, twin-engined V5 putting his courage beyond doubt.

Fagioli’s Mercedes-Benz W25B (closest) laps Luigi Soffietti in a Maserati 8CM, 1935 Monaco GP © Getty

These partnerships were running out of steam by mid-1933.

Alfa’s withdrawal and refusal to release its benchmark Tipo B – the first fully resolved monoposto GP car – to semi-works Scuderia Ferrari pushed a frustrated Nuvolari into the arms of Maserati.

Fagioli, disheartened by a string of retirements, went the other way and arrived in Modena just as Enzo’s blandishments – and Nuvolari’s Maserati accomplishments – convinced Alfa to relent.

Victories in Italy’s most prestigious races – Pescara’s Coppa Acerbo and the Italian GP, both at Nuvolari’s expense – saw Fagioli crowned national champion.

His selection by Mercedes-Benz for 1934 was puzzling nevertheless. The Mercedes team was certainly in need of reinforcement for its GP return.

Favoured son Rudolf Caracciola was recovering from leg fractures sustained during practice for the 1933 Monaco GP – and reeling from the February death of his wife Charly in a Swiss avalanche.

But why not choose Nuvolari? Had Tazio already given his word to Bugatti team manager ‘Meo’ Costantini for 1934? Or had another Italian driver, already in negotiations with Mercedes-Benz, vetoed his presence?

There was another suggestion why not: that team manager Alfred Neubauer, an unabashed Caracciola fan, considered Nuvolari too much of a threat to his friend’s eventual number-one status.

Whatever the whys and wherefores, Fagioli got the gig – and Neubauer would have a bellyful of him during three tempestuous seasons.

An ungrateful Italian at odds with authority was an uncomfortable fit within so structured a team.

Neither man could speak the other’s language, but their raised voices and expansive gestures spoke volumes. They set out their stalls at June’s Eifelrennen at the Nürburgring.

Neubauer swapped his drivers’ grid positions – allocated by ballot – so  Manfred von Brauchitsch might start from the middle of the front row.

Tyre change at the 1935 German Grand Prix at the Nürburgring: Fagioli mastered the art of conserving his rubber around the tortuous Nordschleife © Getty

Relegated to the back row, a fizzing Fagioli was second by the first corner and leading by the end of the opening lap.

Although he complied with an order to let his German teammate lead, he sat pointedly on his tail and, having aired his grievances during the pitstops, reportedly parked a healthy car nearing the end of the penultimate lap.

Mercedes-Benz, however, became even more in need of him when von Brauchitsch was hurt testing for July’s German GP. 

Caracciola’s fitness remained questionable: he crashed from the lead of the Coppa Acerbo; had to give up his car at an Italian Grand Prix held in searing heat and around a sapping stop-start Monza layout; and appeared powerless to resist when a teammate took advantage of an order to hold station to close on and overtake him at San Sebastián’s Spanish GP.

Fagioli was the beneficiary on each occasion. Theirs would be a fairer, hairier fight in 1935.

What was maddening was that this hot-headed Italian was capable of cool control and consistency.

He had in the past allowed the faster Alfa Romeo P2s of Nuvolari and Varzi to run themselves into the ground; harried Louis Chiron’s nimbler Bugatti Type 51 around Monaco; and pressured and outlasted Nuvolari’s Maserati 8CM.

Yes, he clashed controversially with the latter during a heat of the 1932 Monza GP, but Fagioli, ahead at the time of the incident, was exonerated.

He launched his campaign for 1935 in calculating fashion.

Leaping from the outside of an all-Mercedes three-car front row – positions decided by lap time – he became the first to lead a Monaco GP from start to finish.

The Autocar reported: ‘Lap after lap [he] gained a little from the field and, running with extraordinary regularity, cornering to a nicety, showed no sign of fluster.’

Later, on the long, 190mph straights of Berlin’s Avus, only the victorious Fagioli was able to manage his tyres – despite starting the final on a used set.

At Silverstone in 1950, Luigi Fagioli led briefly and finished second to his Alfa Romeo teammate Giuseppe ‘Nino’ Farina © Getty

Between times, however, Caracciola had proved that he was back to his best by winning an infernal Tripoli Grand Prix. He won the Eifelrennen and French GP, too. The tables were turning.

Though Fagioli beat his German rival at the minor Penya Rhin GP in Barcelona, when it mattered more – at the Belgian, Swiss and Spanish GPs – Caracciola had prevailed.

Both men ignored team orders to scrap for the lead at Spa-Francorchamps – until a furious Neubauer pulled the outlier from the fray.

Seething, Fagioli watched the remainder of the race from inside a neighbouring pit garage.

Supportive Italian press insisted that his contract gave Fagioli the freedom to drive as he wished in races outside Germany.

It also reported that, having finished runner-up to Caracciola in the revived 1935 European Championship for Drivers, he might retire.

Yet once again Mercedes-Benz retained him. And disaster ensued – through no fault of Fagioli.

The new car, wheelbase shortened by more than 10in, was a wayward mongrel, its intended V12 overweight and shelved for all bar record-breaking – and Avus.

Caracciola pulled two wins from the wreckage before an embarrassed Mercedes team called a premature halt after August’s Swiss Grand Prix. Fagioli had driven his last race for it.

He was to be replaced by his former mechanic Hermann Lang, who had benefitted from Fagioli’s unheralded solicitousness – in contrast to the disdain evinced by Caracciola and von Brauchitsch. 

Be it better by a home-grown blue-collar hero than another entitled blueblood.

Fagioli landed at Auto Union for 1937 – a seat freed because of Varzi’s debilitating morphine addiction – and proved his adaptability by leading the Tripoli GP in the unusual and unfamiliar machine.

He then set a 174mph pole at Avus, with its new, brick-built ‘wall of death’ North Curve. But he couldn’t change all of his spots.

Luigi Fagioli (on right) with Juan Manuel Fangio at the 1950 French Grand Prix, where the pair swapped cars to the Argentinian’s benefit © Getty

Enraged by Caracciola’s blocking as they diced for fifth place in Tripoli – a battle that the Italian eventually won – Fagioli threatened him with a wheel hammer and was bundled away as he reached for a knife, later saying: “Fortunately, they held me back, and I am pleased I have nothing to regret.” 

He would, according to Neubauer, later apologise to Caracciola… in 1952! These incorrigible old foes were still at it into their 50s.

Fagioli would make a gentle post-war comeback – some 10 years after crippling rheumatism curtailed his season with Auto Union.

Following treatment at a Venice spa, and walking with the aid of a cane, he finished fourth at his beloved Coppa Acerbo in August ’37.

Mechanics, appreciative of his ballsy effort, had to lift him, exhausted, from the cockpit.

Unfortunately, he couldn’t muster the same fortitude at the Swiss Grand Prix, where he was physically lifted out so Nuvolari might continue his Silver Arrows debut.

A serious loss of face on the only occasion that they were teammates; Fagioli retreated stiffly to his Umbrian hunting reserve.

Nuvolari, meanwhile, remained active and competitive until the outbreak of war. So, too, did Caracciola – only to be badly hurt attempting to qualify for the 1946 Indianapolis 500.

These were dangerous times. Fagioli was not simply one of the few still standing – he reaffirmed his skill and stamina by finishing seventh overall to win the 1100cc sports-car class at the 1950 Mille Miglia in the Maserati brothers’ sole remaining Osca – but his longevity certainly was a factor in Alfa Romeo choosing him for 1950.

The Milanese marque was returning after a 1949 sabbatical – spent in the updating and preparation of its Alfetta – shorn of its 1948 headliners: Varzi, Jean-Pierre Wimille lost to crashes, while Count Felice Trossi succumbed to cancer.

The latter pair was 10 years Fagioli’s junior; Varzi was six years younger.

Had several even younger men – the likes of Emilio Villoresi, Aldo Marazza and Guy Moll – not also lost their lives to the sport during the 1930s, Fagioli might have been passed over in 1950.

Grand Prix ace Luigi Fagioli was often shaded by teammates, but his combative style carved him a place among the sport’s greats © Getty

Instead, he acquitted himself well. He matched Fangio in practice for the opening round at Silverstone, but usually was the slowest of the Fs.

Yet he was still fast enough to stay in the mix, occasionally leading briefly during the rounds of pitstops for this thirsty car, and he finished a close second to Farina at the British and Swiss GPs (when Fagioli’s earlier self might have had a cheeky nibble), and to Fangio in Belgium and France.

Time, ultimately, was against him, of course.

Upstaged by a worrying margin by chief test driver Consalvo Sanesi in practice for the Italian Grand Prix showdown, Fagioli – despite having scored a second consecutive Mille Miglia top-10 finish and class win for Osca – found himself sidelined by Alfa Romeo in 1951 until July’s French Grand Prix.

Once again outpaced by Sanesi over a single lap, he started seventh and was running third after 20 tours when he was told to cede his car to Fangio.

They shook hands as they did so – and would share the victory – but Fagioli saw no need to hide his disappointment.

He hung around glumly while mechanics replaced the faulty magneto on Fangio’s abandoned car, and he brought it home a very distant 11th.

The oldest World Championship Grand Prix winner – at 53 years, 22 days – vowed to concentrate on sports cars from thereon.

His remarkable performance at the 1952 Mille Miglia in a Lancia Aurelia B20 – third overall and first in the 2-litre GT class – had a bonus: Caracciola’s Mercedes-Benz W194 Gullwing was more than 8 mins behind in fourth.

They were contesting the Prix de Berne at Bremgarten a fortnight later in May when a crash broke the latter’s left leg, ending his career. He was 51.

Nuvolari was forced into unscheduled retirement because of ill health in 1950. He would suffer the first of his two major strokes in 1952 and die, aged 60, because of the second the following year.

An era was coming to a close – and was about to slam shut.

No reason was given for Fagioli’s accident exiting the tunnel during practice for the 1952 Prix de Monaco – the 2-litre support race to a Monaco Grand Prix run uniquely for sports cars.

The news was hopeful, though: serious but stable. A newfangled crash helmet had saved his life – he was in a coma for four days – and doctors were predicting a complete albeit slow recovery: eight to nine months for a mangled left knee.

He celebrated his 54th birthday – on 9 June – still in hospital, and photographs were published of him reading newspapers while sat up in bed.

No doubt he paid close attention to reports of Lang’s leading role in the Mercedes-Benz 1-2 finish at the Le Mans 24 Hours on 14-15 June – and assuredly wondered what might have been.

Because Neubauer, in need of Fagioli again due to Caracciola’s absence, had buried the hatchet – or perhaps the hammer.

The following Friday, three weeks after his accident, Fagioli went under the knife. He never regained consciousness.

Images: Getty/Alamy

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