It was the first post-war appearance of the Works Alfette 158s in their 1940 configuration for Wimille and Farina. Facing them were no less than 6 Delahayes including the single-seater 155 which had been raced by Rene Dreyfus at the 1938 Donington Grand Prix, a single works-entered Lago Talbot for Louis Chiron and a mass of Maserati (of more later) driven by Sommer, Nuvolari, Schell, Trintignant. Ruggieri, Louveau and Mazaud.
Great Geo. Ham artwork too -
Alas, neither the entry list printed in the programme (reproduced here) nor the lap chart insert details the entrants for the cars and the lists that are available in books and on-line are somewhat inconsistant, especially when it comes to the Maserati cars.
The dominant Maserati entrant in 1946 was Scuderia Milano - a semi-works outfit who entered several 4CLs on behalf of the Modena manufacturer. The team's patron was Arialdo Ruggeri (or Ruggieri) who drove one of the cars. A second entry was made for Raymond Sommer. The third Scuderia Milano driver is listed by Pritchard (1976) "Maserati - a History" as Tazio Nuvolari. However a detailed report of the race of the Forix 8W website published in 2000 states that their third 4CL was driven by Henri Louveau and that Nuvolari drove a privately entered 4CL, retiring on lap 11. Can any of our Maserati experts confirm who had the third Milano car, please?
Mazaud's 4CL entry is sometimes given as "Ecurie Franco-Americaine". Harry Schell is entered by "Ecurie Lucy O'Reilly Schell" and "Raph" by "Ecurie Naphtra Course".
The Grand Prix was dominated in the early stages by the two Alfa 158s but both dropped out with clutch problems leaving Sommer to win from a hard charging Chiron (Lago-Talbot) followed by the Maseratis of Mazaud, Ruggeri and TASO Mathieson in front of Chaboud's Delahaye.
In all the large crowd saw 4 races in one day including 2 motorcycle events of 12 and 15 laps, a 20 lap race for " les petites cylindrees" plus the 30 lap Grand Prix.
Tony
Edited by taylov, 30 November 2011 - 19:59.