Wednesday 9 March 2011

Circuito Di Modena Grand Prix 1934


At the beginning of the season, Tazio Nuvolari was recovering from a crash in Alessandria. Once he was back in form, Ettore Bugatti offered him the Type 59, which Nuvolari disliked (poor brakes and acceleration). He chose instead to take his skills to the Maserati team, driving their somewhat under-classed 8CM.

This car did not do well for him, finishing very few races he started.

For the Italian Grand Prix, Nuvolari debuted a promising new model, the 6C-34. It ran a 3.7 litre supercharged straight-six cylinder engine giving it 270 bhp, good for 155 mph (250 kph).

Unfortunately for Nuvolari, the mechanics forgot to refill the break-reservoir so that he raced without his breaks, yet he still finished 5
th!

For most of the remainder of the season, the Maserati team worked very hard to find reliability in the new car, with little success.
Pen&ink, markers and pencil on white archival stock
© Paul Chenard 2011

The true potential of the 6C-34 came to the front at the Modena Grand Prix. Nuvolari came against the full might of the Scuderia Ferrari team, passing each one to finally take the lead from Varzi, and merrily thumbing his nose at Ferrari as he won.

Nuvolari would follow this up with another win at the Circuito di Napoli race. This was the last official race of European racing season.

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