1958 German GP, Nurburgring
Car: Vanwall
The previous year the Vanwall had been diabolical at the Nurburgring, with no real suspension on what was a very rough circuit. By 1958, however, the team had learned its lessons well and in practice I was just one second slower than Mike Hawthorn in his Ferrari, with a time of 9m15s, whereas in 1957 I could only manage 9m36.1s.
I always thought the ‘Ring was the greatest circuit and even to do well there gave me more pleasure than winning on some others. I was confident of doing well in the race but, although I was four seconds faster [4.9s – ed] than Stirling Moss in practice, I was not there to try and beat him unless, for some reason, he was unable to go fast enough to win.
Obituary: Tony Brooks
This may sound odd today, but I had been brought up to believe in team sports at school. As I was number two to Moss he was entitled to the best car and my job was to back him up and try to win if he was unable to.
Stirling always liked to go like a bat out of hell from the drop of the flag, to try and demoralise the opposition. I had quite the opposite approach, which was to sit back for a while, see what happened to the opposition and then make a move. On this occasion I had no option and lost touch with the leaders because my Vanwall handled like a pig on full tanks.
I had not been allowed to practice with the car in this condition and to make the necessary suspension adjustments. Team manager David Yorke would never allow me to do many laps in practice because whenever I went faster than Stirling, he would feel obliged as number one driver to try and beat my time, which put wear and tear on the car.
Stirling did his standing lap in 9m26.6s and his third in 9m09.2s, which beat Juan Manuel Fangio’s 1957 record and was very quick indeed, even allowing for the improvements which had been made to the circuit since then. Half-way round the next lap, however, his magneto packed up, leaving Hawthorn and Peter Collins in the…
Click Here to Read the Full Original Article at Autosport.com – Formula 1 – Stories…