Ferrari: Race to Immortality Page #6

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But I had full confidence

that Peter would never die.

It was very easy to ignore

any possibility of things going wrong.

Summer came

to Silverstone on Saturday July 19th

for the 1958 British Grand Prix,

sixth race of the ten events

counting for the World Championship.

The crowds came too,

in their tens of thousands,

lining the three-mile circuit

to watch the major event

in the British calendar,

a race made more dramatic

by the fight for Championship honors.

Peter had decided

that because of our marriage

that he would drive the few races that

were left that year and then retire.

Congratulations, Mike, on Reims.

You don't happen to have a spare bottle

of champagne on you, do you?

No. I haven't got it yet.

What about the British Grand Prix?

Because we won the last race,

people are saying

Ferrari will win this one,

but it's a completely

different type of circuit.

It's Collins number one

and Silverstone sees

a high-speed tactical exercise

carried out by three of the greatest

masters of the art of motor racing.

Collins was just

absolutely on it that day

and he just controlled the race

from start to finish.

And Collins

leads Hawthorn by 2'! Seconds

at a race average

of 102.5 miles an hour.

He was supremely quick,

Peter Collins, by then,

and you can't describe his pace

any other way

because of what he did at Silverstone.

Peter Collins wins

after a magnificent drive

and Mike Hawthorn is second.

Nobody expected him

to win at Silverstone.

He was on the second row and

he just took the lead from the start

and won with abandon.

He drove beautifully that day.

You know, it was a British crowd,

home victory.

One golden boy

in Peter Collins had won it

and the other golden boy, Mike Hawthorn,

had come in in second place.

I mean, what could be better?

In the two weeks between

the British Grand Prix and Niirburgring,

we had just put money down on a house,

so we were looking forward

to getting back.

The trouble

with poor Mr Ferrari, in a way,

was he'd suffered the very real personal

tragedy of losing his son, Dino.

He'd transferred some of his almost

paternal affection and ambition

to Peter Collins.

The old man just feared

that Collins's focus in life

was not gonna be any more on his racing.

I mean, it was a wonderful time for us

because we were making

all these future plans.

And Peter asked me

not to come to Niirburgring.

He said, "We have so much work to do

with this house."

"Why don't you just stay

and manage that?"

And I said, "Oh, no.

I'm not gonna let you go without me."

When you think of circuits of that time,

there was Spa and it was very fast,

but the Niirburgring

was miles of torture.

It was 180 corners per lap and you

had any comer you'd like to name.

The weather could change dramatically,

as it could in the mountains

at any mountain circuit.

It was, I think,

the most challenging circuit we had.

Undulating, narrow,

demanding and unforgiving.

The car was airborne a lot

and the drivers, of course,

when they're in a groove,

they're doing it from memory,

they're doing it from muscle memory.

At the end of the day there's always

the unexpected around the next comer

and that was probably

the biggest problem of the Niirburgring.

I thought it was just another race

at Niirburgring.

I, um...

l-l didn't really have a lot of fear.

I just had complete confidence in Peter.

Phil Hill was leading

the Formula Two class

until his dampers began

to give up and his drum brakes.

And in their Formula One cars,

Hawthorn and Collins

would have been experiencing

exactly the same difficulties,

but they're running up

at the sharp end of the race,

going for the lead,

and battling with Tony Brooks.

And Tony was the smoothest of drivers.

I caught them,

past Mike, I think, initially, one lap,

and then he re-passed me.

We swapped places on a couple of laps.

And then I got back into the lead.

So as these two ailing Ferraris

became capable of only returning

slower and slower lap times,

their drivers had to drive more

and more desperately to compensate.

I pulled into the straight

and, of course, the first thing to do

was to look behind

and see where Mike or Peter were

and I looked behind

and there was no sign of either of them.

I was in the pits

with my time-keeping stuff.

Peter didn't come around again

and I thought, "What's happening?"

But I focused on that lap chart.

Mike's account, following Collins,

was that he saw the car drift off

onto the grass and thought,

"Well, you silly arse.

You've overcooked that one."

And he expected him

to ride up the bank a bit

and then come back off the grass

on to the road

and he was a bit concerned

that he might spin across the road

and might, himself, might hit him.

But then, to his horror,

the car reared up on that bank

and he just got a glimpse

of his great friend Peter Collins

being thrown out

and flying through the air.

Mr Hawthorn, you were driving

just behind Peter Collins, I think,

when this accident occurred.

Just how did it happen?

Well, um... there was a little dip

and we went into that.

And there's

a sharp right-hander after that

and he took it just a little too wide.

He didn't turn into it soon enough...

and, um... the car hit the bank

and turned over.

- How fast was he traveling?

- I don't know.

- How fast were you...?

- I don't know.

So it wasn't until after the race

that I was told Peter had an accident

and he's being flown to Bonn

to the hospital.

And I said, "Can I go too?"

And they said no.

My father at the United Nations,

he had always been having someone

keeping track of Peter's racing,

so this UN man called my father

and said, "Peter's been in an accident,"

and then my father pulled a few strings

and then he called the hospital.

And when I got into the hospital,

the first thing that happened

was I was told,

"Oh, you have a phone call

at the reception desk."

And I went there and my father

was on the phone from New York

and he told me that Peter had died.

That just, I thought, was so beautiful,

that he would say, "I will tell her."

I said, "Well, I want to see him."

And I... They took me down.

He was in the basement,

which was cooler, you know.

I went down there and I looked

and I saw one foot.

The covering that was over him,

that, that one foot was out.

And in an instant I knew he was dead,

and so that was that.

And we only had a year and a half,

but it was a great year and a half.

Michael was desperately upset and it was

the first time I ever saw Mike cry.

He was beside himself, really,

because he'd lost his great mate.

Could you say

a few words, as a friend of his,

about Peter Collins

as a man and as a driver?

Well, as a driver, I mean,

he was definitely one of the best.

As a friend, well, he was my friend.

Do you know what fear is?

I would say I've always lived in fear.

What are your most frequent fears?

All of them.

It's very difficult even now trying to

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