The usual practice among teams running three or four cars in a race when the drivers were evenly matched was to allow them to sort out the placings for themselves over the opening laps and then to signal to them to maintain those positions for the duration. No team wanted its drivers cutting each other’s throats by risking needless overtaking manoeuvres, so it made sense to have an arranged finishing order. And it was equally desirable for the drivers to play some part in reaching that decision. Alfa Romeo, however, had its own ideas. Alfa insisted on picking the winner itself and often signalled the leading Alfa driver to slow down so that a team-mate could overtake him. Not surprisingly, this policy did not always go down well with the drivers.
The first signs of rebellion occurred at the 1946 Turin Grand Prix when the Frenchman Jean-Pierre Wimille was instructed by the Alfa pit to ease off and allow team-mate Achille Varzi through to win. This resulted in a huge post-race row, as a result of which Wimille was dropped from the Alfa team for the forthcoming Milan Grand Prix, an event which was run over two heats and a final. Alfa driver Giuseppe ‘Nino’ Farina, an Italian doctor of engineering, finished first in his heat but was subsequently relegated to third for jumping the start. As far as Farina was concerned his moral victory in the heat had earned him the right to be allowed to win the final, but instead Alfa announced that Count Felice Trossi was to be given preferential treatment. Obeying team orders, Varzi let Trossi through to the front after a few laps. Farina was now close up in third, but there was no way that Varzi was going to give way this time. Instead the pair were locked in a ferocious duel with Varzi seemingly desperate to prevent Farina from going after Trossi. Eventually the battle took its toll and Farina’s brakes started to give him trouble. When he spun at a corner, instead of rejoining the race in third place, he simply retired in a huff because he hadn’t been permitted to win. That evening at a local café, his behaviour was described as ‘aloof and sulky’.
In the wake of his temper tantrum at Milan, Farina was told that his services were no longer required by Alfa. He did not compete anywhere in 1947, raising speculation that he had retired, but he was back in 1948, and the following year’s Italian Grand Prix at Monza found him at the wheel of one of the new Maseratis. The race was eagerly anticipated in Italian circles since it marked the Grand Prix debut of Ferrari and was expected to herald the return to competitive action of Alfa Romeo. The Alfa presence failed to materialise, however, leaving the Ferrari boys to have matters pretty much their own way. Although running in third place, Farina soon realised that his Maserati was no match for the two leading Ferraris. The further into the distance they disappeared, the more despondent he became until finally he once again dropped out for no obvious reason. There was nothing mechanically wrong with his car – he had just given up because he was unable to catch the Ferraris. One of these subsequently retired, meaning that Farina could have finished second, but he was never interested in being second best. Alberto Ascari went on to gain a comfortable victory in his Ferrari from Philippe Etancelin’s French Talbot and the Maserati driven by Prince Bira of Siam. Piero Taruffi in the other works Maserati struggled on to finish seventh, 16 laps behind the winner. Farina could not be bothered.
Ironically, following the deaths of Varzi and Wimille in crashes and Trossi from cancer, Farina was given another chance by Alfa in 1950 and went on to win the inaugural World Drivers’ Championship. For once he was happy.