ADENAU, June 1st.
THE annual sports-car race over 44 laps of the tortuous Nurburgring once again counted for points in the Manufacturers' Championship and there was an excellent entry of possible winners, while there was also a strong list of runners in the various classes, the event being open to sports cars, Gran Turismo cars and Special Touring cars. The sports cars were divided into two groups, up to 1,500 c.c. and 1,501-3,000 c.c., and obviously the winner would come from the larger-capacity group. Aston Martin entered three DBR1/300 cars of the type that won the race in 1957 and their drivers were Moss/Brabham, Brooks/Lewis-Evans, Salvadori/Shelby, while Ferrari entered four 12-cylinder cars with drivers Hawthorn/Collins, Musso/Hill, Seidel/Munaron and von Trips/Gendebien. Jaguar were represented by Ecurie Ecosse with three D-types fitted with 3-litre engines driven by Gregory/Flockhart, Fairman/Lawrence, Bueb/Sanderson and the winner could be chosen from these 10 cars. For other positions, even as high as second place, the 1,500-c.c. sports cars could not be overlooked and for once Porsche were not having it all their own way, for the three RSK cars were to be hotly opposed by three factory Borgwards.
Practice went on continually all day Thursday and Friday, and on Saturday morning, and lap times set up counted for the line-up on race day, a Le Mans-type run-and-jump start being used, but unfortunately, time-keeping at the Nurburgring is vague in the extreme and the published times bore no relation to fact. For example, the first day's official bulletin gave Car No. 4, Collins/ Hawthorn (Ferrari), 10 min. 15.3 sec., as the fastest time recorded; admittedly Car No. 4 did do that time and it was a Ferrari, but neither Collins nor Hawthorn arrived until long after practice was finished that day. Their car was being used by the other team members, and this shuffling about went on throughout practice with no record being kept of who did what time, each lap time going to the car irrespective of the driver. As a result, the third car in the line-up on Sunday was Ferrari No. 6, driven by Seidel and Munaron, with a time of 9 min. 45.8 sec., whereas in actual fact they were both struggling hard to get below 10 min. 30 sec. This nonsense happens every year at the 1,000-km. race but nothing is ever done about it, which makes one wonder whether the race as a whole can be taken seriously, and, in addition, there were some lamentably slow G.T. Ferraris running and two family saloons, a Peugeot 403 and a Volvo 444, all mixed up with Grand Prix drivers in thinly-disguised G.P. cars with 3-litre engines.
