Tazio Nuvolari

For 1935, Tazio Nuvolari set his sights on a drive with the German Auto Union team.

 They lacked to p-line drivers but relented to pressure from Achille Varzi, who did not want Nuvolari in the team.

 Nuvolari then approached Enzo Ferrari, who at first rebuffed him as he had previously walked out on the team. Italy's prime minister Mussolini helped persuade Ferrari to take Nuvolari back.

 This was the year that Nuvolari achieved the 'Impossible Victory', which many regard as the greatest win in all of motor racing history:
 driving an outclassed Alfa Romeo P3 in the 1935 German Grand Prix at the Nürburgring, he beat all the dominant German cars—five Mercedes-Benz W25s driven by Caracciola, Fagioli, Lang, von Brauchitsch, and Geyer, and four Auto Union Bs driven by Rosemeyer, Varzi, Stuck, and Pietsch.

The small 42-year-old Italian ended up finishing in front of 8 running Silver Arrows- and 2nd placed Hans Stuck was 2 minutes behind Nuvolari.

The crowd of 300,000 applauded Nuvolari, but the representatives of the Third Reich were enraged.



“Adolf Hitler was in the crowd, and Third Reich Korpsfuhrer Adolf Hunnlein tore up his speech and refused to have anything to do with Nuvolari’s victory appearance...  Someone dug out a shabby old Italian flag and hung it up.

There was no Italian national anthem to play, until Nuvolari pointed out that he always carried with him a gramophone record of ‘Marcia Reale’ and that they were welcome to put it on. Which they did.”

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10210639877733324&set=a.1617402035143.2077580.1239146710&type=3
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1935_German_Grand_Prix
http://pinakghosh.blogspot.com/2012/07/the-impossible-victory.html

At age 23, he worked as a driver for the Italian army during World War I, piloting everything from staff cars to ambulances.

Nuvolari—the "inventor," Enzo Ferrari once said, of the all-wheel drift

Ferdinand Porsche declaring him the "the greatest driver of the past, the present and the future."

During the 1930 Mille Miglia, in the dark of night, he drove up from behind with his headlamps off to prevent his competition from noticing.

 He tore through the public roads near Bologna at speeds of over 93 mph, reeling his rival in with every passing mile, despite the perils of darkness.

One might assume that manhandling an Alfa Romeo 6C 1750 GS Spider Zagato in the pitch black of night, sleep deprived and coated in oil and bugs, would be, distressing. But not Nuvolari, he was afraid of nothing. Nuvolari caught up with just three kilometers to go.

At which point, he switched his headlamps back on, made a daring pass, and tore off into the distance.

http://www.roadandtrack.com/motorsports/a29267/the-legend-of-tazio-nuvolari/