NOW THAT WAS A RACE
The 1953 French Grand Prix
Mike Hawthorn again glanced to his right. Juan Manuel Fangio, head down, huge, bare forearms relaxed on the wheel, edged his Maserati ahead. No matter. Mike would continue the routine on this long run from the tight right-hander at Muizon.
Fangio duly pulled in front, heating up the air and throwing gravel. Mike, already hunched forward in the cockpit of his Ferrari 500 to minimise frontal area, tried to wriggle even lower as he eased back on the throttle. The golden-brown champagne fields of Reims flashed past on either side, the telegraph poles on this new section of the straight a mere blur in his peripheral.
If only he knew what was going on behind! He’d yet to see a pit signal from Ferrari and could therefore only guess: where were González, Ascari, Bonetto, Villoresi and Farina?
Mike extinguished the thoughts almost as quickly as they came. The Thillois hairpin was fast approaching. It was time to dive-bomb Fangio. Again.
Right on cue, Mike floored the throttle, darted out of the tow, seized the inside and hit the Ferrari’s drum brakes, pumping them once, just to be sure. The little car jinked then settled as Mike downshifted neatly towards the first-gear apex.
A TACTICAL MASTERCLASS
Mike accelerated onto the long pit straight, eyeing the massive grandstand on the left and the pits complex on the right. Second… third… As he glanced in his mirrors he noticed that a small gap had suddenly opened up between himself and the Master in the Maser. Could Fangio have locked a brake? It seemed unlikely. But could it…? Could it…?
And so it hit him: he, Mike Hawthorn, in only his second season of Formula 1, and his first with Ferrari, could win this race. He would take the gamble; he would do the opposite of what Fangio might expect.
He would race Fangio wheel-to-wheel around the final lap of the French Grand Prix, but when they reached the RN31, the final, ultra-fast back straight between Soissons and Reims, he would call the great man’s bluff. Fangio would be expecting Mike to try to be second into Thillois to take the slipstream run towards the line; Fangio would probably brake early for the hairpin, obliging Mike to do the same…
Mike eyed the slowest part of Thillois from a long way back and braked deeply into it, with impeccable timing. He was leading by a length as he headed towards the finish-line – but had the gamble paid off?
The chequered flag was flying! He had it! He had won the French Grand Prix! And, yes, he had been absolutely correct: Fangio had been nursing his gears in the closing stages and had been using only second for Thillois. Had Mike hung back in the traditional way, he might have lost.
Mike was mobbed by the throng in the late afternoon after that two-and-three-quarter-hour duel, his green jacket, bow tie and blond locks signifying the birth of a dazzling new era. Despite winning the world championship five years later, Mike Hawthorn was savouring a moment the like of which he would never feel again.