{"id":50818,"date":"2014-12-19T10:36:11","date_gmt":"2014-12-19T10:36:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.motorsportmagazine.com\/issue_content\/shadows-on-the-sands\/"},"modified":"2019-07-19T18:56:24","modified_gmt":"2019-07-19T17:56:24","slug":"shadows-sands","status":"publish","type":"issue_content","link":"https:\/\/www.motorsportmagazine.com\/archive\/article\/november-2008\/86\/shadows-sands\/","title":{"rendered":"Shadows on the sands"},"content":{"rendered":"

Casablanca \u2013 the sunlit scene of Britain\u2019s first World Championship was darkened by tragic events<\/strong>
\nBy Nigel Roebuck<\/strong><\/p>\n

Bernie Ecclestone recently said that, for him, the World Champion each year should be the driver who had won the most races, that only in the event of a tie on victories should \u2018places\u2019 come into the reckoning. And no season better supports Ecclestone\u2019s notion than 1958, when Mike Hawthorn and Stirling Moss went off to settle the issue at the final race, in Casablanca.<\/p>\n

For the two of them the wait was endless, for there was a six-week gap between the Italian and Moroccan GPs, particularly interminable for Moss, whose motto has always been \u2018Movement is tranquillity\u2019, and who loved to compete as often as possible in a variety of cars.<\/p>\n

The weekend after Monza Stirling did compete in the Tourist Trophy at Goodwood (where he shared the winning Aston Martin with Tony Brooks), but thereafter time stood still, and he admits that he was not easy to be around in this period. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe thing was, at that time I really felt I should try and get the World Championship, and obviously I was nervous about it \u2013 no, not nervous, more teed up.\u201d<\/p>\n

Extraordinary as it may seem today, there was not even any testing to take the drivers\u2019 minds off what lay ahead. \u201cNo, nothing like that,\u201d says Moss. \u201cI mean, obviously we\u2019d test a bit before the season started, but once we\u2019d got the cars handling as well as they could, and the engine going as well as it could\u2026 really, what were we going to test?\u201d<\/p>\n

Given that the World Champion was bound to be British, and, moreover, the first to be so honoured, it was hardly surprising that the papers gave the forthcoming battle a huge amount of coverage. Television, too, got in on the act, with Moss and Hawthorn appearing on Sportsview, a weekly programme in the \u201950s.<\/p>\n

There was at the time a celebrated champion racehorse called \u2018Ballymoss\u2019, and as Hawthorn looked ahead to Casablanca, he said he was only worried about one thing: \u201cWhat\u2019s its name? Not Ballymoss\u2026 Stirling Moss, yes, that\u2019s it\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

Good-natured, innocent badinage, you see, and Moss insists that he and Hawthorn always got along. \u201cThere were inevitably suggestions in the papers that we were enemies, but they weren\u2019t true. OK, on the track I fought hard with Mike, as I did with anyone else, but off it I\u2019d say we were friends, but not pals, if that makes any sense. I liked Mike, and I hope he liked me, but we were very different types. He was a great extrovert, who loved drinking beer, and I wasn\u2019t. For him racing was mainly for fun, whereas I took it very seriously. In those days, you were either a Hawthorn fan or a Moss fan.\u201d<\/p>\n

In this, an era in which Grand Prix drivers\u2019 managers have private jets, and cheapo airlines fly to anywhere with a beach, the travel arrangements to the Moroccan Grand Prix in 1958 take a little believing.<\/p>\n

An Air France flight, used by many for the inaugural race 12 months earlier, had proved highly unpopular, and, amazingly, no other scheduled flight appeared to exist. Thus John Webb, later of Brands Hatch fame, chartered a Douglas DC6 and announced that seats were available for sale.<\/p>\n

At the same time Tony Vandervell, the wealthy industrialist who owned the Vanwall team, chartered a Viscount from BEA, and this found greater favour with folk who put comfort ahead of cost. Thus, Hawthorn, Ferrari\u2019s number one driver, travelled on the Vandervell flight, while Moss, the Vanwall team leader, did not!<\/p>\n

\u201cI see from my contract,\u201d says Stirling, \u201cthat Vandervell was paying for my flights, so I can\u2019t understand why I didn\u2019t go on his charter. Probably wouldn\u2019t have made a lot of difference \u2013 we travelled economy, all of us, in those days\u2026<\/p>\n

\u201cMy Aston Martin sports car contract, believe it or not, paid me an annual retainer of 50 quid, but Tony Vandervell \u2013 unlike David Brown \u2013 was quite generous. Checking back, I see that he paid me \u00a31000 a race, and I also got 60 per cent of the starting money for the car \u2013 plus \u2018The sum of \u00a35 per day for expenses\u2019!\u201d<\/p>\n

All his life Moss has religiously kept a diary, and a rich resource it is, not least as a record of motor racing from an era long gone. Thus, for example, we know that the Webb charter left Heathrow at 12.50pm on Thursday, October 16, and arrived in Casablanca at 5.20pm local time. Next morning Stirling gave interviews to the BBC and to Basil Cardew of the Daily Express, and in the afternoon set fourth-fastest time, behind Jean Behra, Hawthorn and Vanwall team-mate Tony Brooks.<\/p>\n

\u201cTried practice car,\u201d he noted. \u201cWiggled. My own felt better.\u201d<\/p>\n

The following day he tried Brooks\u2019s car, and that felt better yet, which meant that numbers were swapped over for the duration. \u201cI had it in my contract that I had choice of cars, and I know that used to get up Tony\u2019s nose a bit, but I\u2019m sure he\u2019d have done the same\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

Brooks good-naturedly agrees that sometimes he found Moss\u2019s demands a touch irksome. \u201cStirling might want my chassis and his engine, or vice-versa, and that all meant more work for the mechanics. So it was always better for them to keep this number two a few tenths slower \u2013 Stirling always made sure he had the best car, and if he thought he hadn\u2019t, he\u2019d mix it! However, I must stress that I\u2019m saying all this in a very light-hearted way \u2013 50 years on, we\u2019re still the best of friends.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it\u2019s fair to say that in Stirling, Stuart Lewis-Evans and myself, Tony Vandervell had one of the strongest driving teams of all time, but one problem we always had with him was that he thought his cars were better than they were. Don\u2019t get me wrong, the Vanwall was a great car, but it was never an easy one to drive, in the sense that you couldn\u2019t steer it on the throttle, like a Maserati 250F, or the Ferrari Dino 246 I drove in \u201959. You had to be very precise with it \u2013 and the gearbox was terrible!\u201d<\/p>\n

Moss agrees. \u201cThe Vanwall was a very quick car, but not a nice one to drive \u2013 it had a lousy gearbox, and quite a bad flat-spot in the engine, which we gradually improved, but never got rid of completely. The engine didn\u2019t have the top-end power of the Ferrari, but, being a big four-cylinder, was bloody good on torque.\u201d <\/p>\n

Hawthorn\u2019s abiding problem through 1958 had lain with getting his car stopped, for Ferrari, extraordinarily, were still using drum brakes, no match at all for the discs on the Vanwalls.<\/p>\n

As the World Championship edged towards its crucial phase, therefore, Mike took matters into his own hands. His friend and team-mate Peter Collins had been killed at the N\u00fcrburgring in August, and this resolved him, come what may, to retire at season\u2019s end, but he wanted desperately to win his last championship, as much for Collins as himself.<\/p>\n

After the Portuguese Grand Prix, in which he ran out of brakes, Hawthorn told Enzo Ferrari he thought it essential that his car have disc brakes for Monza \u2013 and the source of those disc brakes was unusual, to say the least.<\/p>\n

Collins had had a Ferrari road car, and, finding its drum brakes hopeless, had taken it to Dunlop during a visit to England, and had disc brakes fitted all round. Shortly before his death, he had then driven the car back to Maranello so that the engineers could look and learn.<\/p>\n

Hawthorn proposed that the brakes be transferred to his F1 car, and Ferrari agreed. Dunlop sent over a couple of technicians to supervise the work, and at the Italian Grand Prix a disc-braked Ferrari raced for the first time, finishing a clutchless second to Brooks\u2019s Vanwall.<\/p>\n

In point of fact, Mike\u2019s World Championship points lead, going into the final Grand Prix, had essentially come from \u2018places\u2019, for he had won only one race, at Reims, while both Moss and Brooks had won three apiece. The Ferrari\u2019s strong suit was its reliability, for while Stirling had retired five times in nine races, and Tony four, Mike\u2019s car had let him down only twice.<\/p>\n

In 1958 the scoring system in use was 8-6-4-3-2-1, with a further point for fastest lap. Ten Grands Prix (plus, unfathomably, the Indianapolis 500) made up the World Championship, but only a driver\u2019s six best results counted. So Hawthorn\u2019s points lead over Moss, 40 to 32, was more tenuous than it looked, for already he had taken points from eight events, and dropped his two worst scores; further points in Morocco would mean dropping his next worst score, four points from a third place in Argentina.<\/p>\n

To add to his total at all, therefore, Hawthorn had to finish second in Casablanca, guaranteeing him the championship, whatever happened to Moss. Stirling, by contrast, had scored in only five races, so any points that came his way in the last Grand Prix he would keep. And in a way that relieved the pressure on him, for there were no tactical decisions to be taken: to take the title, he had to win, and set the fastest lap and hope that Mike finished lower than second.<\/p>\n

On Saturday afternoon the grid was set, Hawthorn taking pole position, a tenth faster than Moss, and they were joined on the front row by Lewis-Evans. Behra\u2019s BRM and Phil Hill\u2019s Ferrari made up row two, while Brooks was on the third, with Gendebien\u2019s Ferrari and Jo Bonnier\u2019s BRM.<\/p>\n

The Ain Diab circuit, purpose-built and of 4.7 miles in length, was in Anfa, a sandy and barren area on the outskirts of Casablanca, and lined with straw bales in the custom of the day. While not as fast as Spa or Reims, it was way quicker than a place like Silverstone, Hawthorn\u2019s pole lap being all but 120mph, and on paper that should have favoured the Ferraris. As it was, though, Moss was never headed.<\/p>\n

The Ferrari game plan was clear from the outset: Hill was going to put Moss under as much pressure as possible. Away from the grid Phil, racing an F1 Ferrari for only the second time, latched on to Stirling\u2019s tail, and the pair quickly left the rest behind.<\/p>\n

Unlike Hawthorn and Gendebien, though, Hill had drum brakes on his Dino 246, and on lap three he disappeared up the escape road at the first corner. Such had been the early pace set by the leaders that he lost only two places, to Hawthorn and Bonnier, and, once back on the track, lost no time in catching and repassing them. Moss, though, was now long gone.<\/p>\n

Vanwall\u2019s hope had been that Brooks would run second to Moss, thus keeping Hawthorn out of the crucial place he needed. After a slow start Tony did indeed get ahead of Mike on lap 19, but still he was only third, and before he could go after Hill the Vanwall\u2019s engine blew up, streaming oil on to the rear tyres and giving Brooks quite a moment. <\/p>\n

At the front, meantime, Moss sailed on serenely, his car\u2019s elegant nose dented by contact with the Maserati of slow journeyman Wolfgang Seidel. \u201cIt was actually a very uneventful race for me,\u201d Stirling says. \u201cI was leading, and I\u2019d got the fastest lap \u2013 what happened in the championship was out of my hands, really.\u201d<\/p>\n

So it was. On lap 39, with 14 to go, Ferrari team manager Romulo Tavoni signalled to Hill that he should let Hawthorn through, and Phil duly complied. <\/p>\n

\u201cI remember Jenks got very upset about that!\u201d Moss recalled. \u201cHe thought Phil did absolutely the right thing \u2013 as did I \u2013 but at the same time it offended him to see a driver almost stop, to let another driver past. Mind you, it was the smart thing for Phil to do. I don\u2019t suppose Ferrari would have been too thrilled if he hadn\u2019t\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

Two laps later came tragedy, as noted in Moss\u2019s diary: \u2018Poor Stuart had a ghastly shunt at 160. Burnt 70 per cent\u2019.<\/p>\n

As had Brooks, Lewis-Evans suffered a blown engine in his Vanwall, but he spun off on his own oil and hit some small trees, in the course of which a fuel line was torn away. In an instant the car was engulfed in flame, and as the unfortunate driver freed himself from the cockpit his overalls were ablaze. Worse yet, in his confusion and agony, Lewis-Evans ran in the opposite direction from the marshals trying to aid him. After being flown back to England, he died the following weekend.<\/p>\n

After two hours and nine minutes, Moss went over the line to win the Moroccan GP, and take nine points from the day, for his fastest lap \u2013 well under the pole time \u2013 was unapproached. Hawthorn duly came in for the second place he needed, and thus beat Moss to the World Championship, 42 points to 41. Stirling, with four victories to Mike\u2019s one, had lost.<\/p>\n

That day fundamentally shifted his attitude to the World Championship, and he was never to care so much about it again.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think I considered retiring \u2013 in fact, I can\u2019t ever remember thinking of that. In my own mind, I had every intention of going on until I was about 50, like Fangio did.<\/p>\n

\u201cI did, though, absolutely change my feelings about the championship \u2013 I felt I deserved it that year, and I didn\u2019t get it. But I suppose what concerned me most was having the respect of the other drivers, and how they regarded me. That was what really mattered \u2013 or, at least, that was what I told myself really mattered.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hawthorn, having won a single race, and having had second place handed to him by a team-mate in Casablanca, must surely have had some equivocal feelings about his World Championship.<\/p>\n

\u201cYes,\u201d Moss shrugs, \u201cI guess it might have been a bit empty for him \u2013 but at the same time he must have felt euphoric about being Britain\u2019s first World Champion, and all that stuff. I certainly didn\u2019t begrudge Mike his title, but the importance of it lessened for me after that year.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a bad time in every respect, particularly, of course, because of Stuart\u2019s accident. Tony Vandervell was very gruff, and \u2013 like Ferrari \u2013 he didn\u2019t let anything stand in his way: he\u2019d do whatever it took, to get something done. But he was always quite nice to his drivers, and he was completely distraught that Stuart had died in one of his cars. There\u2019s no doubt in my mind that that was why he withdrew his team at the end of the year.\u201d<\/p>\n

So, an era was over. In 1958 Fangio had driven his last Grand Prix, and four Englishmen \u2013 Moss, Brooks, Hawthorn, Collins \u2013 had won races, two of them going on to dispute the World Championship. If one of them won it in a Ferrari, the other driver\u2019s team \u2013 Vanwall \u2013 won the constructors\u2019 title. Within a few weeks, Moss had shaken hands with Rob Walker on a deal for 1959, and within a few weeks more Hawthorn, the retired champion, had died in a road accident near Guildford.<\/p>\n

Casablanca, meantime, disappeared for ever from the World Championship calendar.<\/p>\n

DSJ on…<\/strong>
\nThe first year of racing at the Ain Diab track in Casablanca in 1957, and how getting there was the first major challenge<\/strong><\/p>\n

To conclude the 1957 Formula 1 season the Royal Automobile Club of Morocco organised an event at Casablanca, on a scale equal to any of the Grandes Epreuves held this year, though the event did not count towards the championship. Much effort and money was poured into the meeting in the hope that next year it will receive Grand Epreuve status. In a matter of weeks a circuit was laid out at Anfa, just on the edge of Casablanca, and pits, grandstands and control tower all showed a permanent frame of mind in the construction. <\/p>\n

The circuit itself, of Tarmac, was smooth and fast, having many high-speed bends rather than long straights, and it undulated over 7.618 kilometres of sandy desert soil on the Moroccan coast. The only serious fault was in not providing a sharp dividing line between the edge of the track and the sandy infield, such as a bevelled kerb, for many drivers used quite a lot of the sandy edges, throwing sand and gravel onto the road. Only at the sharper corners were straw bales used and these were the only scenery around the circuit, the general d\u00e9cor being rather barren and arid.<\/p>\n

Getting to Casablanca presented a major project in itself, some of the teams travelling by boat from Bordeaux or Marseilles, the more adventurous driving their lorries to Gibraltar, taking the ferry to Tangier and driving down the coast, while most of the drivers and important personnel travelled direct by air. By Thursday, all the regular members of the European Grand Prix circus were assembled, with teams from Ferrari, Maserati, Vanwall, BRM and Cooper ready to practice on this new circuit. Private owners were not encouraged by the club\u2019s European agent, Giambertone, though Piotti, Godia and Lucas managed to get entries through influence. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":753,"featured_media":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","categories":[],"tags":[167,44591,230,34089,34162,199,34370,35937,34435,25343,35885,34369,34434,34427,51255,27720,34061,34634,117019,115534,115479,115461,115838,115766,115466,34628,37007,48488,115465],"issue_decade":[121591],"issue_year":[121626],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.motorsportmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/issue_content\/50818"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.motorsportmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/issue_content"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.motorsportmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/issue_content"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.motorsportmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/753"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.motorsportmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=50818"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.motorsportmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/issue_content\/50818\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":227003,"href":"https:\/\/www.motorsportmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/issue_content\/50818\/revisions\/227003"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.motorsportmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=50818"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.motorsportmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=50818"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.motorsportmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=50818"},{"taxonomy":"issue_decade","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.motorsportmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/issue_decade?post=50818"},{"taxonomy":"issue_year","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.motorsportmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/issue_year?post=50818"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}