NIGEL ROEBUCK
On Italy’s only world champion, the great Alberto Ascari
…all had their days in the sun, but the last truly great driver from Italy died 65 years ago. Many rated Alberto Ascari the best of his generation, above even Juan Manuel Fangio.
On 22 June 1952 Ascari won the Belgian Grand Prix for Ferrari, and on 21 June 1953 did the same again. In the course of those 12 months none but he won a world championship grand prix.
True, there were fewer then than now, but non-championship races abounded, and in those Ascari was similarly dominant, winning at such as Syracuse, Pau, Marseille, La Baule and Bordeaux. At his best, which invariably he was, Ascari stands comparison with anyone who ever raced a car.
His father, Antonio, had also been a top driver, winning many races for Alfa Romeo before losing his life while leading the French Grand Prix at Montlhéry in 1925, when Alberto was seven years old.
Like many of his generation, he began his racing career with motorcycles, then drifted into cars. In 1940 he competed in the Mille Miglia, and his car – known as the Tipo 815 – was in fact the first Ferrari, although it did not yet carry the name.
At the end of the war, by now married with two children, Ascari was initially equivocal about returning to racing, but his friend Luigi Villoresi had already seen in him a talent far beyond his own, and Alberto, once wooed back, was ensnared. For two years he raced Maseratis, in 1948 winning at San Remo and finishing second to Villoresi at Silverstone in the first British Grand Prix.
At Reims that year Ascari was offered a factory Alfa, and he ran comfortably with team-mate Jean-pierre Wimille. Logically Alfa should have signed Alberto for 1949, but when Wimille was killed early in the season, the company decided to sit it out. Thus began the legend of Ascari and Ferrari: at Berne he scored the team’s first grand prix victory, then won for the first time at Monza.
In 1950, the year of the first world championship, Alfa returned, and there followed two fabulous seasons of slugging it out with Ferrari, for whom
Ascari won races, if not the title.
He did, though, finish second to Fangio in 1951. In the two following years, when the championship was run for two-litre ‘F2’ cars, Ascari was unstoppable. “When I saw Jim Clark,” Fangio said to me, “I thought of Alberto ten years earlier – pole position, leading from the start, everything so natural…”
Close as they were – Ferrari said he thought of Ascari as a son – their association ceased at the end of 1953. The racing world was stunned. Simply, Ascari had come to feel that, in light of everything he had achieved for Ferrari, he wasn’t being paid enough. He had a pleasant apartment in Milan, but back in the day drivers did not get rich.
By now Ascari was a national hero, rivalled in Italian affections only by Fausto Coppi, the first man to win the Tour de France and Giro d’italia road cycling races in the same year. The two men became friends, and Alberto’s resentment towards Ferrari only increased when he learned from Coppi that top Italian cyclists were paid greatly more than racing drivers.
Thus he moved to Lancia, which was building an F1 car, the D50. Unfortunately, though, it took a long time to become ready – although Ascari conducted a first test in February 1954, the car did not make its debut until October. In the meantime, absurdly, the double world
champion had little to do. At Reims and Silverstone he drove a Maserati, but each time the car broke. The high point of 1954 was the Mille Miglia, which Alberto won.
Hopes that the Lancia might make its debut at Monza came and went, and, given that it was unthinkable the country’s greatest star should be absent from the Italian GP, a factory Ferrari was made available. Instantly on it, Ascari fought with Fangio’s Mercedes for the lead until his engine failed.
In the crowd that day was 14-year-old Mario Andretti, preparing to leave for a new life in the USA. “Ascari was my man,” says Mario. “My life just revolved around him – I never met the man, but he had a greater influence on me than anyone else.”
On the Lancia’s first appearance, in Barcelona, Ascari took pole position – a full second faster than Fangio – and led until his clutch broke. Although disappointed, he looked to 1955 with optimism, and began the season with non-championship wins at Turin and Naples. At Monaco, round two of the championship, he started from the front row, between Fangio and Moss.
For once no Mercedes made the finish, and when Moss blew up, on lap 81, Ascari – for a few seconds – took the lead. At the chicane, though, he hit oil from Stirling’s car, and that, together with the snatching brakes that always plagued the D50, put him through the flimsy barriers and into the harbour.
Among the eyewitnesses was the actor Peter Ustinov, who told
MARIO ANDRETTI me the moment remained clear in his memory: “I remember the car shooting out of the tunnel – and then nothing! I couldn’t quite take in that Ascari had actually gone into the water, and then I started to feel quite sick. Assuming he had survived, it seemed likely that he’d have been knocked unconscious, and might drown. After what seemed an eternity, we saw him come to the surface.”
Four days after this remarkable deliverance, Ascari went to Monza, where his protégé Eugenio Castellotti was testing a yet unpainted Ferrari 750S in preparation for Sunday’s sportscar race. Wearing suit and tie, Alberto had no intention of driving, but in late morning decided that maybe he should get back in the saddle for a few laps in this new car. Thus he put on Castellotti’s white helmet and climbed aboard. On his third lap he crashed at the Curva Vialone, a corner which should never have troubled one such as he.
Vialone – now renamed Ascari – had no chicane in those days, and was a flat-out left-hander. Vivid black tyre marks indicated the Ferrari had got sideways, then begun to somersault, in the course of which Ascari was thrown out. Castellotti, Villoresi and others rushed to the scene, where they found him barely alive. His funeral, a few days later, brought Milan to a standstill. “I have lost my greatest opponent,” said Fangio. “Alberto was a driver of supreme skill – but more, a great man, a loyal and generous friend.”
In Ascari’s mind always was the well-being of his wife Mietta and their children, and he was well aware that his life might not be a long one. Although he adored his kids, people thought him a little stern with them, and Enzo Ferrari once took him to task over it. Alberto replied that one day he might not come home, and they would suffer less if he didn’t let them get too close to him.
Why then, Ferrari asked, did he not retire? “Ascari put his hands on my shoulders, and looked me in the eye. ‘You know me,’ he said. ‘Without racing I would not know how to live.’”
“ASCARI WAS MY MAN. MY LIFE JUST REVOLVED AROUND HIM – I NEVER MET THE MAN, BUT HE HAD A GREATER INFLUENCE ON ME THAN ANYONE ELSE”