Ferrari: Race to Immortality

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You'll find that drivers

are a very happy lot of people

because they appreciate life

far more than the average man does.

A driver usually

gets killed on a Sunday

and if he's a close friend of yours,

well,

you think what a stupid sport this is

and you think seriously of giving it up.

Then on Monday you think,

well, maybe he was just unlucky.

Maybe I shouldn't give it up yet.

I'll give it up next year.

Then on a Tuesday you start thinking

about, now, there's a race next Sunday,

maybe I'll go.

Then on Wednesday you go to the race.

Enzo Ferrari once said,

"Win or die, you'll be immortal,"

talking to his drivers,

and of course he's right

because every time I go to a Grand Prix

those essences are part

of what makes the sport what it is.

Without drivers like Mike Hawthorn

and Peter Collins,

it would be all the poorer.

The Ferrari name is

very important to Formula One today

because it's a symbol

of the history of the sport

that was once

the most dangerous sport on earth

and still trades on those associations

of risk and glamour.

We think these guys must be daredevils

because Collins and Hawthorn

were daredevils.

I look back on it now and I just

perceive them, the drivers of the time,

as an entirely different breed.

Controlling this powerful beast

under your rear,

balancing this car on this tightrope,

and taking the best line

through the corner,

this gave you a sense of ecstasy.

It was an era

of great glamour and great risk.

These men went out

to drive these red cars

not knowing

whether they would come back alive.

Mike Hawthorn described

how we, as young men,

were all willing

to jump into the cooking pot

under which Mr. Ferrari

kept the fire stoked.

When it came to running drivers,

Ferrari's approach was

the more pressure you put on them,

and the more unsettled they feel,

the faster they will go.

These guys were experiencing

the buzz of competition in cars,

but they were subjecting themselves

willingly to all the attached dangers.

There is something

about the motor racing world

that, as far as we were concerned,

when catastrophes would happen

we would kind of just carry on

and not let it get us down.

And I think that was the attitude

of a lot of people then.

Fear is really a lack of

understanding of what is happening,

like a child frightened of the dark

'cause you don't understand

what's there.

I am not normally afraid

of killing myself.

I am frightened of being killed by

something over which I have no control.

The great thing about

Mike Hawthorn and Peter Collins

is that they would do what land speed

record-breaker John Cobb described.

He said, "It's pretty much akin

to seeing how far you can lean out of

the window before you finally fall out."

And that's what those boys

with Ferrari did in the 1950s.

They willingly leant out of the window

as far as they possibly could

and a few of them, and in retrospect

far too many, fell out.

At age ten you watched your first race.

How did you experience that moment?

I was shaking like a boy

who is dreaming of having the chance,

one day,

to take part in that competition.

Ferrari had a difficult early life.

His father died when he was quite young

and then his only brother also died,

leaving him more or less alone

when he was still in his teens.

But he was very keen on cars.

So when he had

to make his own way in the world,

cars and motor racing were the things

that attracted him most.

What mattered the most in your life,

your passion or the drive to succeed?

Mostly, it was passion.

What do you feel before the "Go"?

Anxiety? Fear?

Before the "Go", I feel...

a mix of feelings,

all of which disappear

as soon as the race starts.

The hero of the event

was the brilliant young British driver,

Mike Hawthorn, number four.

Peter Collins in the Ferrari

took and held the lead

from the beginning.

Enzo Ferrari was a great talent scout

and after the war, although there were

many good young Italian drivers,

he'd spotted that there was

a bunch of English drivers

who were starting

to do very well indeed.

Hawthorn and Collins

had some years between them.

Mike was the older

by two or three years.

He really made his name in the little

Riley that was prepared by his father.

Every time they went to a race meeting,

here was a young man who expected

to come away with a trophy.

Peter, when he started racing

with a 500cc Cooper

that his father, Pat, bought for him,

he was immediately quick

and he was only 17 years old.

Hawthorn and Collins

met as rivals on the race track,

but eventually when they both

found themselves in Modena

driving for Ferrari,

they became enormous friends.

Mike was a sports-jacketed

beer-drinking one of the lads.

He and Peter Collins were like a pair

of rather irresponsible schoolboys.

Tremendously fun-loving.

Peter was a life enhancer.

When he came into the room,

things got jollier, noisier

and altogether more entertaining.

When I first met Mike

he was tall, good-looking.

I thought, "That's a lovely-looking

man." So I set my heart on him.

He was a great character, a very flash

sort of a guy, who was a lot of fun.

I think he used motor racing as

a stepping stone to enjoyment of life,

whereas to me it was the life.

You were either a Hawthorn fan or

a Moss fan. You couldn't really be both.

Peter, in particular, I think,

was very much a Boy's Own character

at what an exciting racing driver

should be.

The girls loved him and I didn't see

too great an effort on his part

to fight them off.

Mr. Ferrari had always had

a soft spot for the Brits.

Mike went there and the old man

was pretty impressed

because here was somebody

who was prepared to put it on the line

and that was the sort of

thrusting, aggressive young driver

that Mr. Ferrari really rated.

When I was with Mike he just

stood out amongst the others

as being very beautiful.

We were intoxicated by the atmosphere

of these wonderful, wild men.

It was fun. It was like

a big family. Everybody knew everybody.

But it was dangerous and wherever

you get danger, you get this thrill.

Hawthorn did very well

in his first spell with Ferrari.

He won a couple of races,

but then when his father was killed

and he wanted to drive sports cars

for Jaguar, he went back to England,

and I think Ferrari

was very disappointed by that.

I'm sure he wanted to hang on to him.

I think for most of the Grand Prix

drivers, Le Mans was a bit of a bore

because it was a test of the car,

but not the driver.

And I think that Mike and Fangio

got involved in what had become

a Grand Prix more or less,

at the beginning of the race,

so taking the boredom out of it.

Drivers are requested

to get to the places assigned to them.

Stand by.

Five, four, three, two, one, zero!

Lap after lap, Hawthorn

and Fangio, no more than yards apart,

hold the crowd enthralled

with an exhibition of driving skill

no words can adequately describe.

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