Ferrari: Race to Immortality Page #2

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was very much a Boy's Own character

at what an exciting racing driver

should be.

The girls loved him and I didn't see

too great an effort on his part

to fight them off.

Mr. Ferrari had always had

a soft spot for the Brits.

Mike went there and the old man

was pretty impressed

because here was somebody

who was prepared to put it on the line

and that was the sort of

thrusting, aggressive young driver

that Mr. Ferrari really rated.

When I was with Mike he just

stood out amongst the others

as being very beautiful.

We were intoxicated by the atmosphere

of these wonderful, wild men.

It was fun. It was like

a big family. Everybody knew everybody.

But it was dangerous and wherever

you get danger, you get this thrill.

Hawthorn did very well

in his first spell with Ferrari.

He won a couple of races,

but then when his father was killed

and he wanted to drive sports cars

for Jaguar, he went back to England,

and I think Ferrari

was very disappointed by that.

I'm sure he wanted to hang on to him.

I think for most of the Grand Prix

drivers, Le Mans was a bit of a bore

because it was a test of the car,

but not the driver.

And I think that Mike and Fangio

got involved in what had become

a Grand Prix more or less,

at the beginning of the race,

so taking the boredom out of it.

Drivers are requested

to get to the places assigned to them.

Stand by.

Five, four, three, two, one, zero!

Lap after lap, Hawthorn

and Fangio, no more than yards apart,

hold the crowd enthralled

with an exhibition of driving skill

no words can adequately describe.

This battle royal that's

been raging in those opening laps

really reached a climax

that was just more cataclysmic

than anybody could possibly imagine.

Everything went normally in practice

and I was given the job

of starting doing the first spell

and I was actually out on the circuit

when this dreadful accident happened.

Coming out of the White House bends

and up towards the pits,

Mike saw the opportunity

to lap one more car

before he pulled across to the right

and braked for his scheduled pit stop.

That one last car was the Works'

Austin-Healey driven by Lance Macklin.

Trouble was that race was the first time

the new rule had come in

where you had to change the driver

every two hours.

So Mike knew that another lap

would have taken him over the two hours.

In braking hard, Lance Macklin

pulled out very sharply to the left

to avoid the back of Mike's Jaguar.

There's an almighty bang and Levegh's

car came sort of right over the top.

His wheel came right past my left ear

and I could feel the heat of his exhaust

as he went by he was so close.

Levegh ran up the sloping tail

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