Tall ratio tale

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Sir,

In the May issue Bill Boddy has repeated the story told to some by Juan Fangio that he could not have beaten Moss at Aintree in 1955 because his car had a lower axle ratio than the W196 driven by Stirling.

This was not the case, as the records of the Rennabteilung show. All four cars at Aintree had the same 15:42 final-drive ratio. Fangio used the lowest revs, 8950, while Moss and Kling used 9150 and 9200 respectively. Winner Moss had the lowest fuel consumption at 32.5 litres/100 km, while Fangio consumed 33.0 and Kling 35.5.

The only occasion in 1955 when the cars did have different final-drive ratios was the Italian Grand Prix at Monza, where the two streamliners were geared slightly higher than the cars running with open-wheeled bodywork.

I am, yours etc,
Karl Ludvigsen, Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk