1955
«After passing me, Hawthorn turned too sharply towards the right and braked. In turn, I braked my car as hard as I could to avoid him. My wheels locked and I was carried towards the left. The Mercedes driven by Pierre Levegh hit the back of my car. I was spun round. I saw the Mercedes knocked aside and you know the rest...
In an affair of this kind it is difficult to speeak of responsability. Hawthorn no doubt committed an error, but the real responsability was the speed of our cars.
Going at 137 to 150 mph, Hawthorn could not halt within a distance of 220 yards and he made a mistake in passing me. I attribute this mistake to the fact the Hawthorn was then engaged in a ferocious struggle with Levegh's and Fangio's cars who were following me (sic). In the excitement of this struggle, Hawthorn executed a manoeuvre which astonished me, and he left me no other alternative to either run into him or turn to the left.» |
1955
«A few hundred yards behind me, coming out of White House Corner, a silver and a green car were neck and neck. I moved over to the right-hand side of the road to give them room to pass... The Jaguar came alongside me. It was Hawthorn. I was delighted that he was so clearly leading the race. I thought, Fabulous! Old Mike's doing a great job... By now we were approaching the dangerously narrow pit area at about 150 ft a second. Almost immediately Hawthorn overtook me I was surprised when he shot across to the right slap in front of me. I believe that he misjudged the speed of the Austin-Healey. It was known not to be a fast car, but it was going more quickly then he realised. For a moment I thought he must be making way in case Fangio wanted to overtake him in front of the grandstand. In motor racing people often put on a display for the crowd, and I thought that Mike might be going to let Fangio go past to give the crowd a bit of excitement.
Instead, I suddenly saw his brake lights come on twenty or thirty yards - no more - in front of me. I thought, Christ! What the hell is he doing? I had to stand on my brakes as hard as I could to try to avoid running into the back of him.
And then I realised that I couldn't stop; that he was slowing faster than I was. The jaguars had tremendously powerful double-calliper, power-assisted disc brakes. I had just ordinary little single-pad discs....For a couple of agonising seconds I waited as the gap between my car and the jaguar rapidly diminished. I hoped that Mike might see in his mirror that I was about to crash into him, and ease off his brakes. But I believe he was concentrating too hard on not overshooting his pit.
I was as hard as it was possible to be on my brakes. One of the front wheels locked and I thought, "Oh Christ, I'm going to hit him!" I could really feel myself going into the back of him.
In a last, desperate effort to re-pass him, I pulled the car over to the left. It wasn't a swerve. You can't swerve at that speed without spinning or worse. I just managed to ease the car over enough so that I barely got past without touching him. For a moment I felt a flush of elation, Then the car went into a long slide, with all four wheels tobogganing. It was virtually out of control. There was a terrifying instant when I thought that my right front wing was going to touch the back of the Jaguar as I went by... but I got the thing corrected and pointing straight again with the speed at about 120 mph, although I still wasn't in real control... At the point where I got the car straightened out - there were tyre marks indicating the spot, and measurements were taken for the inquiry - there were 16 ft of road between the nearside of the Austin-Healey and the side of the track. I knew that, even though I was in the middle of the road as we entered the pits area, there was ample room for anyone to pass me on the left side of the road in the normal way.
And then came an indescribable shock. I felt the most almighty BANG! There was a blast of searing heat from an exhaust near my face and my car was catapulted down the road backwards. Out of the corner of my eye I glimpsed a silver shape with the driver hunched over the wheel hurtling through the air ten of fifteen feet above me.
Almost at the same moment there was a roar on my other side, and another Mercedes scraped by with only inches to spare between Hawthorn and myself.» |
(Grã-Bretanha) 