In an era when motor racing had a disturbingly high mortality rate, most drivers regarded serious injury – or worse – as an occupational hazard. But few treated it in quite as cavalier a fashion as Tazio Nuvolari. From the moment he first arrived on the scene on two wheels back in the 1920s, the Italian ace had made it clear that in the event of a pre-race accident, only a formal death certificate was likely to prevent him competing. Doctors despaired of him. A crash in the 1925 Italian Grand Prix at Monza put him in hospital, where he was swathed in bandages like an Egyptian mummy. Yet seven days later he took part in a motorcycle race, having persuaded medics to bandage him in such a manner that he could be placed on his machine in a riding posture.
Having moved up to four wheels on a regular basis, he broke a leg at Alessandria in 1934 when his Maserati skidded into a tree on the wet road. After four weeks in hospital as the world’s most impatient patient, Nuvolari defied the advice of the doctors and entered to drive a Maserati in the Avus Grand Prix in Germany. He had the pedals of the car specially adapted so that all three could be operated with one foot (the other still being in plaster), and before the race he was presented by a local gymnastic club with a chunk of the tree which he had hit in Alessandria. The inscription read: ‘To Tazio Nuvolari, intrepid ace of the wheel, as a record of the providential obstacle which though preventing a sure victory saved a precious existence.’ The sight of him hobbling out on crutches for practice sessions and having to be helped in and out of the cockpit must have done wonders for his opponents’ confidence but, despite being plagued by cramp, he managed to finish a gallant fifth. The fourth-placed Earl Howe said of Nuvolari’s drive: ‘Let any who say it was foolhardy at least be honest and admit it was one of the finest exhibitions of pluck and grit ever seen. By such men are victories won!’
Two years later, while Nuvolari was practising for the Tripoli Grand Prix, a wheel of his Alfa Romeo caught a marker stone at over 125mph (201.2km/h). The tyre burst, the car turned over and ended up in the sand which bordered the circuit. For his part, Nuvolari was flung into the air like a doll and landed in a heap of parched grass. Helpers who rushed to the scene found the smoking car but no sign of its driver until, ten minutes later, the stricken Nuvolari was located deep in the grass, lying unconscious with damaged ribs and severe bruising. In hospital he was put into plaster and ordered to rest for several days. ‘But of course,’ came the reply. ‘After the race I shall do so!’ The next day, although scarcely able to move in his plaster corset, he drove a replacement Alfa into seventh place. It was the stuff of which legends are made.
The Donington Grand Prix had first attracted the mighty German teams in 1937 and had proved such a success (Bernd Rosemeyer winning in an Auto-Union) that they returned in force to the tree-lined Leicestershire circuit for the 1938 race. It was scheduled to be the last major event of the season, listed for 2 October, but when the German teams arrived a week earlier to start practice, they found themselves slap in the middle of the Munich crisis. In case war was about to break out, the Germans hurried home and the race was cancelled, but once Chamberlain had returned with his promise of ‘peace for our time’, the contest was rearranged for 22 October and the Germans returned.
Three days before the race the 45-year-old Nuvolari took his Auto-Union out for a practice session. That he was now at the wheel of a German car was the result of a considerable fall-out with his Italian employers. He was approximately halfway round the circuit when a huge stag emerged from some woods and ran straight across the track, ploughing into Nuvolari’s car. Nuvolari stopped 200 yards (183m) further on and limped back to attend to the animal which was lying in a pool of blood. Back at the pits ambulance men were worried by Nuvolari’s non-appearance and so they drove off to search for him. They found him stroking the dead stag. ‘You cannot take anyone to the hospital,’ he said gravely, ‘not even this unfortunate one. He died on the spot.’ In fact Nuvolari was in need of hospital treatment, having fractured a rib in the collision, but he no longer wanted to be bothered with doctors and nurses. He was not prepared to risk being told he could not drive in the race. Instead he asked for the stag to be taken away and prepared himself for the race. After persuading the organisers to agree to his request to have the stag’s head stuffed and mounted, he got out his lucky corset, which he had improvised for himself using tight bandages, and set out to thrill the British public in the same way that he had captivated spectators all over mainland Europe.
In the absence of Rudolf Caracciola, who had burnt his foot during the Italian Grand Prix and in any case was said not to like Donington as a circuit, Hermann Lang took pole in a Mercedes from Nuvolari, Manfred von Brauchitsch in a second Mercedes and the great British hope, Richard Seaman, in a third. Near the back of the grid was an ERA driven by band-leader Billy Cotton. A crowd of 60,000 turned up to watch the Duke of Kent start the 80-lap race with a Union Jack. From the off, Nuvolari shot into the lead from his Auto-Union team-mate Hermann Müller and the Mercedes trio of von Brauchitsch, Seaman and Lang, and stayed at the head of affairs until lap 20 when he went into the pits for a change of plugs. Emerging in fourth spot behind Müller, Seaman and Lang, Nuvolari was about to lap Hanson’s Alta when the tail-ender dropped a sump full of oil on the descent to the hairpin. Nuvolari picked his way through the hazard but Seaman was not as fortunate and spun off the road, promoting Nuvolari to third. He was still third after the mid-race refuelling stops but Lang had now taken over pole position from Müller. Driving with typical verve and flair and, according to contemporary reports, a huge grin on his face, Nuvolari proceeded to reel in the front two. He passed Müller and on lap 67 overtook Lang for a lead he was never to relinquish. Showing no ill effects from his severely restricted movement, he pulled away to win by 32 seconds from Lang, Seaman, Müller and von Brauchitsch.
Nuvolari received a rapturous welcome from all except some of the serious punters in the bookmakers’ enclosure. They had torn up their tickets when he had looked to be out of the race following his practice accident and now they were furious with themselves. Two days after crossing the finish line the ‘Maestro’, as he was known, was presented with the Grand Prix trophy along with the mounted stag’s head, which he intended to take with him to other tracks as a lucky mascot. It would be another 16 years before a German Grand Prix car would again race on English soil, but in the meantime Nuvolari’s epic drive under unbelievably difficult circumstances would provide a lasting memory through the dark days of the Second World War.