A TRAGEDY AT MONZA

Italian Grand Prix (Monza) 10 September, 1961

There was no impending sense that this race would decide the World Championship. The driver standings were led by Wolfgang Von Trips with 33 points followed by Phil Hill with 29 points with two races to go. Now, with four Ferraris at the front of the grid – Von Trips on pole and Ricardo Rodriguez (making his F1 debut) alongside him, Richie Ginther and Hill behind – the always nervous Hill was wound up tight.

PHIL HILL (Ferrari driver): "For me, race day is always the same. I'm asleep in a warm bed, the sun is shining in the window, and I start to wake up and I'm lying there all warm and secure. And then I start to think: this is not just any day. This is race day. Then in an instant all the warmth and security is gone, the bed is cold, and I sit up wide awake."

Phil Hill. (dianefineart.ca)

Count Wolfgang Von Trips, 33 years old, was the son of a noble German family and heir to the family castle and lands near Cologne. His full name was Wolfgang Alexander Albert Eduard Maximilian Reischgraf Berghe Von Trips. Now nicknamed ‘Taffy’ by his peers, his propensity for crashing earlier in his career earned him the rather cruel sobriquet ‘Von Krash’. In one of his accidents (at Monza in 1956) his Ferrari’s steering broke on Monza’s Curva Grande, the car flew into the trees at 120mph and somersaulted itself into destruction.

ROBERT DALEY (Journalist who interviewed Von Trips the evening before the title race at Monza, asked him about that accident and the danger factor.)

VON TRIPS (Ferrari driver): “I saw those trees coming at me. There was nothing I could do. I said to myself: You’re dead, Trips. I lay on the ground and thought Is this what it’s like to be dead? 
And then I realized I was smelling the dirt and said to myself: Trips, you’re not dead.

But the line between maximum speed and crashing is so thin, so thin. It could happen tomorrow. That’s the thing about this business. You never know.”

DENIS JENKINSON (Journalist): "Coming off the South Banking to end the opening lap, there were seven cars closer together than seemed reasonable and, though they crossed the timing line in the order Phil Hill, Ginther, Rodriguez, Clark, Brabham, von Trips and Baghetti, it meant nothing, for by the time they were out of sight the order had changed completely."

JIM CLARK (Lotus driver): "I was on Taffy's tail, slipstreaming round the Vialone to keep up as we came down at full speed to the braking point for the North Curve. I was preparing to overtake him and my front wheel was almost level with  his back wheel as he started to brake. Suddenly he began to pull over towards me and he ran right into the side of me. I honestly don't think 'Taffy' realised I was there. I am sure that, when he passed me earlier, he had decided his was the faster car and I would be left behind. Everything happened at lightning speed. We touched wheels and I had a split-second to think about the accident before it actually happened. I thought: 'God, he can't do this.' I remember mentally trying to shout at him to look in his mirror and see me."

DENIS JENKINSON: "What happened next was one of those strokes of ill-fortune that strike every so often, for the German's Ferrari spun, and shot up the grass bank on the outside of the straight and flung von Trips out. It cannoned off the wire mesh protecting fence and bounced back on the track, after rolling over a number of times, and stopped a crumpled wreck nearly in the middle of the track. Clark's Lotus also spun as a result of the impact, stayed on the track most of the time and came to rest on the grass verge, the driver badly shaken but unhurt. The unfortunate von Trips landed heavily and, though being taken to hospital, he died before anything could be done, the only saving grace being that he died not knowing that his Ferrari in running berserk killed 11 spectators leaning on the fence and injured many more, three of these dying later.

"With the whole field being so close behind, it was remarkable that no other cars were involved in the crash, and for those in the grandstands and pits, and around the rest of the circuit, the race went on, details of the accident being unknown and unannounced by the organizers."

PHIL HILL: "I had been ahead of the accident and, as we came round on the next lap, I saw the two cars by the edge of the road. The accident looked bad, but no worse than many others. I turned my thoughts to the job in hand: winning the Italian Grand Prix."

One by one, the other Ferraris trickled down pit-lane with broken engines and, at the finish, Hill led Dan Gurney's Porsche by half a minute, with Bruce McLaren third in a Cooper. But Hill's victory, even his World title, paled into insignificance when he was finally given the dreadful news of the fatalities.

PHIL HILL: "I was stunned, deeply shocked. The papers reported that I broke down and sobbed, but that was not true. There were no tears. When you've lived as close to death and danger as long as I have, then your emotional defences are equal to almost anything. Von Trips died doing something he loved and he was willing to accept the risks. Just as I am willing. When I love motor racing less, my own life will become worth more to me, and perhaps I will be less willing to risk it."

PHIL HILL (He was a pallbearer at the funeral of Von Trips): "I never in my life experienced anything so profoundly mournful."


– excerpt from Formula 1 The Autobiography (edited by F1 Speedwriter)