Fifty years ago Mike Hawthorn, a young, unknown driver from Farnham, took the motor racing world by storm, winning the French Grand Prix after a classic duel with the great Juan Fangio. Here, PETER THOMPSON turns the clock back to that momentous day at Reims.
FOR many motor racing aficionados it was the greatest French Grand Prix of all time. Some observers elevated it to an even higher status – the greatest Grand Prix ever contested.
It was the occasion, 50 years ago, when Farnham's Mike Hawthorn, a 24-year-old newcomer to the Ferrari team, beat the legendary Juan Fangio by just 45 yards after 306 miles of the most fiercely competitive driving ever witnessed at the famous Reims circuit.
Until then, Hawthorn had been unknown to all but a few followers of the sport. It is on record that, by 1952, he had shown sufficient promise racing a pre-war 1500cc Riley Sprite for a family friend to buy a Formula Two Cooper-Bristol and offer it to the young Hawthorn to race at Goodwood's Easter Monday meeting.
Hawthorn, who had never driven a true single-seater racing car before this event, won two races and took second in another. The 'Farnham Flyer' was on his way, going on to win six more single-seater races that year and bringing home a Coupe des Alps from the Alpine Rally.
This success did not escape the notice of Enzo Ferrari, always looking to recruit new talent to the Italian marque. The offer of a test came Hawthorn's way early in 1953.
It should have been an easy decision for Hawthorn, the chance to impress the maestro and to go on to compete against the finest drivers on the Grand Prix circuit.
But Hawthorn, hugely patriotic and very much the amateur in his attitude to life and motor racing, was reluctant to sell himself to the Italians.
He made it clear that he would much rather be driving a British car, but, fortunately for the Ferrari team, no British cars were available to him; at least none which could be thought competitive at Grand Prix level.
Enzio Ferrari got his man, but injuries to Hawthorn – suffered while testing his Cooper-Bristol at Modena – delayed his debut with the team of the prancing horse.
But on July 5, at Reims, Hawthorn found himself on the starting grid for the French Grand Prix. The grid was occupied by the most illustrious names in motor racing – Fangio, Stirling Moss, No 1 Ferrari driver Alberto Ascari, who would go on to be world champion that year, Giuseppe Farina and Jose Gonzalez. What chance a young unknown from Farnham in such company?
Half an hour into the race, Hawthorn began to weave his way through the field; by halfway he was holding second place. Soon it was the youthful Hawthorn and the 45-year-old Fangio, in his Maserati, who were clear of the field and engaged in a spectacular duel which took each man to the limits of concentration and endurance.
For 150 miles, the lead switched between the Englishman and the Argentinian, and the knowledgeable French crowd rose to salute the brilliance of the two drivers.
The wheel-to wheel epic continued to the final hairpin, where Fangio, sensing an opportunity, gambled on overtaking his young rival for what he believed would be the last time.
Fangio failed to find an opening, lost speed and Hawthorn used the Ferrari's power to take the chequered flag, winning, some said, by inches; others settled for feet. Records put it at 45 yards.
Whatever the distance, Hawthorn had won the French Grand Prix, the first Englishman to do so since Henry Segrave in 1923. He had done it, moreover, in his first year of world championship racing, and in a manner which proclaimed a new hero for motor racing in particular and British sport in general.
Hawthorn quickly consolidated his position with third places in the German and Swiss events, raising hopes that he, and Ferrari, would dominate the Grand Prix scene in 1954.
It was not to be; Fangio would win what was to be the first of four consecutive world championships, although Hawthorn did finish third, helped by a win in the Spanish Grand Prix.
Overall, though, it was a year Hawthorn wanted to forget. His father was killed while driving home to Farnham from Goodwood, he attracted adverse publicity for his failure to do National Service (even though a kidney complaint had caused him to fail his medical) and received severe burns to his legs in a crash at Syracuse.
In 1955 he left Ferrari to sign with British Vanwall, only to find the car was some way short of being competitive. Consolation came with victory in the Le Mans 24-hour race, driving a D-type Jaguar, though even this was tainted by the accident which claimed 80 lives and led to Mercedes withdrawing its drivers from the event.
Ferrari welcomed him back in 1957 and the following year he held off Stirling Moss to become world champion – the first Briton to hold the title.
It all came down to the last race, in Casablanca. And what a dramatic finale it proved, awakening huge interest across the media.
The stage was set for the battle of the Brits. Hawthorn led the championship with 40 points, eight ahead of Moss. To take the title, Moss had to win the race and take the bonus point awarded for the fastest lap.
He also had to hope that Hawthorn would wilt under the pressure. Victory, a second placing or a third placing with the bonus point, would leave the 'Farnham Flyer' as champion.
At the start, Hawthorn wasted pole position and by the 13th lap Moss's Vanwall was leading the field, with the Farnham man in fourth place. If these placings could be maintained, Moss would collect the title that had eluded him for so long.
With two thirds of the race completed, Moss held a commanding lead over Hawthorn's Ferrari team-mate Phil Hill, with Hawthorn himself now improved to third.
As the tension rose, team tactics were employed to Hawthorn's benefit. Hill was instructed from the pits to let Hawthorn through, which he did, and now it was the Farnham driver who had the title in his sights.
Moss's only hope was that his Vanwall team-mate, Stuart Lewis-Evans, could attack Hawthorn and deprive him of the second place he needed. This did not happen. With 11 laps remaining Lewis-Evans's engine blew up and his car caught fire, leaving him with terrible and, as it was to prove, fatal burns.
Moss went on to win the race, by more than a minute, and he also set the fastest lap, but Hawthorn's second place was enough to make him champion by a single point.
Spare a thought for Moss: he had won four of that year's 10 Grand Prix, while Hawthorn had just the one victory, in France. It was the Farnham driver's consistency – five seconds and a third as well as the one victory – which just tilted the balance in his favour.
Motor racing enthusiasts rubbed their hands at the prospect of great battles to come – two Britons bringing the best out of each other on the Grand Prix circuit.
But, as we know, it was not to be. As soon as he became world champion, the sociable, outgoing Hawthorn announced his retirement. The death of his team-mate and friend, Peter Collins, in that year's German Grand Prix affected him greatly; despite taking the championship, he no longer had the hunger or desire for competition.
There were those who thought that, given time for reflection, Hawthorn would be lured back to the track. But we were never to know. A few months after that world championship triumph, Hawthorn himself was dead, killed not on a racing circuit, but on the Guildford bypass as he drove his Jaguar from Farnham to London. He was 29.