Ferrari: Race to Immortality Page #7

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comprehend what it would have been like.

How Ferrari got through that period

and emerged

is a tribute to Enzo's passion

for motor racing

and his ability to turn the page

and move onwards.

Once you've been through

as much as he had been through,

he was already like a person in war

and it means losing drivers

and everything

and he did his best, I suppose,

to act appropriately.

To what degree he really felt

these things is hard to say.

When you think of Peter Collins

and his grace, his sportsmanship

and what he did at Monza in '56,

constantly Peter Collins doing

these wonderfully humble gestures.

If you look at Luigi Musso

and Eugenio Castellotti,

they were divided in their support,

but they brought to Formula One

the Italian element of glory.

And that's something that

was very difficult for both drivers.

Both drivers crashed

and died under that pressure.

And then there was Alfonso de Portago,

who was basically James Dean on wheels,

was great.

The appeal of the drivers in the 1950s

was that they were all so different

and yet united in this willingness

to take enormous risks.

With each death of a driver,

the pressure mounted

on Enzo Ferrari and the team.

Team manager, Romolo Tavoni,

tells us that Mr Ferrari was devastated.

His initial reaction was to say,

"We must give up Grand Prix racing."

"This is too much."

But Hawthorn went to see him and said,

"I want to finish the season."

"I'll drive another car if I've got to,

but I want to drive a Ferrari."

I think he'd lost the love of racing,

but he was determined

to do it for Peter's sake, really.

Thereafter

for the rest of the season,

each time they finished a race,

Mike would say, "Well, that's another

bloody race I don't have to do again."

But whichever way you slice it,

he was in there with a chance

of the Drivers' World Championship.

In actual fact, he reckoned Peter

would have won the World Championship

and I think that made him upset.

Between the Italian Grand Prix

and the Moroccan Grand Prix,

it was six very tense weeks.

Everybody used

to bug Mike, you know.

Every time he went into a pub they'd

say to him, "Mike, it's not long now."

So we stayed at home.

The British press

were also fired up by the fact

that there was now going to be a British

Formula One World Champion driver

for the very first time.

The Daily Mirror characterized it

as the "showdown in the sun."

Michael was very nervous.

He wasn't at all himself.

You know, the sort of carefree person

that he normally was.

Sometimes he really had to slow down

and rest and take it easy.

So I was always aware

when he felt like that

that he had to take care of himself.

You know, before a race I was amazed

that Mike actually came into my room

and stayed with me for the whole night,

which was most unlike Mike.

He just wanted

to be with somebody, I think.

I think he was very nervous.

All that Moss had to do

to win the World Championship

was to beat Hawthorn

and hopefully set fastest lap,

which scored an extra point,

with Mike finishing lower than third.

At the end of the race in Morocco,

Phil Hill had done the decent thing

and handed second place to Hawthorn.

Moss had done everything he could do.

He'd won.

He'd set fastest lap.

But still, when it was all over,

Mike Hawthorn was the World Champion.

Mr Ferrari's reaction

to winning the World Championship,

after what in so many ways

had been that catastrophic year,

was one of immense overwhelming relief.

Moss ended up one point, just

that solitary point, behind Hawthorn.

So Mr Ferrari knew that they'd

shaded it, but, hey, a win's a win.

With a few laps to go,

Stuart Lewis-Evans was running fourth

but suddenly his engine seized,

the car caught fire,

and by the time the brilliant

young Englishman was out,

he was already severely burnt.

That affected Mike

because he hated drivers being hurt

and he knew that Stuart was very ill.

He told Enzo after the race

that he wasn't going to race anymore

and Enzo was furious.

Can you give us any news

of Stuart Lewis-Evans?

He's quite badly burnt.

He came back in the aeroplane

on a stretcher with us just now.

He was talking and drinking tea,

but, um...

he's obviously in quite a lot of pain.

The flight home was bittersweet

in the truest sense of the word.

On one hand, Mike Hawthorn

had won his World Championship.

On the other,

there was Stuart Lewis-Evans'

terrible agony from these burns.

He died a few days later in London.

You look at footage of Mike

having won the World Championship,

he doesn't look to be happy.

But then why would he?

It was a year that in many ways Mike

would have wanted to have forgotten

and yet he was World Champion.

He was a very good World Champion

because he looked good

and he spoke well,

so he wore the mantle extremely well.

I've had eight years of racing.

In eight years I got to the top.

So I decided now's the time.

Thank you all very, very much indeed

for coming along

and being so patient to listen to me.

And I hope one day some of you

will come along and join me

and we'll empty that lot.

Thank you very much.

On the 22nd of January, 1959,

Mike had a lunch appointment

up in London.

He didn't want to go to London that day.

He wasn't feeling very well.

I knew that he was in a lot of pain

and I'd seen him on the floor

writhing around in agony.

When I came back to England,

my most urgent thing was to see Mike.

We said, "OK, we'll see each other

after that luncheon,"

and he would come to my hotel.

As he went along

the Hog's Back road,

he came up behind

a Mercedes-Benz 300SL Gullwing

and he recognized

the driver immediately as Rob Walker.

I saw a Jaguar come up behind me

and I saw it was Mike Hawthorn

and we both accelerated as hard

as we could alongside each other.

Rob was thinking, "Oh, this is all

getting a bit much for me"

and I'm not really a racing driver,

though I'm keen."

I was so looking forward to seeing him.

I wanted very much to have Mike

tell me what it's like

to be in a serious accident.

Does your whole life run in front of you

or what happens?

When I walked into the hotel,

the receptionist knew me.

Peter had always stayed in that hotel.

He was very aware of things.

The receptionist didn't look at me.

And I got into the elevator,

up to whatever floor I was on,

went into my room and knock on the door,

and it was the manager of the hotel

and he told me that Mike had died.

And I just... I mean, I...

It was shattering. It was shattering.

It was just awful.

Rob managed to get the back door open

and bent down

and he told me

that as he looked at Mike,

Mike's eyes glazed

and there was a gentle gasp

and that was it.

I was up in Yorkshire

when I heard the news

and I just didn't believe it.

But, um...

When I did believe it, a lot of...

I had a lot of friends

in that part of the world and they...

I think... I seem to remember

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