What a race we saw yesterday at the 1935 Grand Prix de Pau – we got everything – crashes, failures and a controversial repair that almost cost Siegfried Happe a disqualification.

A lot of practice – Happe starts on a good foot

While the race start was met by a nervous laughter from Siegfried Happe, it turned out to be not bad at all:

“Well to start with, we had the Auto Union and several Maseratis behind us. Since we used our Voiturette for this race, we had a clear disadvantage in terms of speed. If you look at T1 now *Happe looks and points to the breaking zone of T1* , you can feel my fear, hopefully. We don’t have much room here and every car behind me is much faster and going into a heavy braking zone. To prevent my car to get caught up by crashes in the front, i have to brake very early, so the braking zone for everyone else in the back gets shorter and shorter as well.”

After the start the W25 Mercedes of Sebastian Gunderson in front of Happe failed to start, so Happe tried his best to get out of the way. One position up as we approached T1, when there happened to be a bit of a desaster with 3 cars involving Bernd Kreuzner, Heinrich Withof and Evgeni Borisov – giving additional positions to Siegfried Happe right after the first sharp turn.

One Lap in – Kreuzner regained the place from Happe in his way faster Alfa Romeo P3 at that point and Guy Don stands on the side of the road at T1. While Happe is getting ready for his 55 laps in this Grand Prix, everyone else seems to run into trouble. Evadne Cleo for example, collecting the crashing car of Guy Don at the start of Lap 2, tried to give room to the upcoming Carlevaro in the very fast left, but in doing so crahed into a haybale, jumping back on the road, forcing Carlevaro off track, having to rejoin 2 turns later, going over grass int he process.

Problems with Happe – The controversial repair

After a fuel tank patch at 10 laps in and 10 more laps of wrestling the car, Happe tried moving out for the approaching Fontaine and hit the same haybale, that Evadne hit at lap 2, turning his wheel inwards, making the car unable to drive. Saving himself on the grass off track, his mechanic started to work on the wheel of track, not fixating it according to the rules, but just enough to make it to the pits for a repair. This is considered dangerous and Happe was expecting to receive a disqualification in the process

“Of course we didn’t want to end the race at that point and the team tried everything so we could get the car back into the pits for repair. The affected tyre barely held on until we were in the pits, so we expect to be disqualified for doing a very dangerous half lap with a tyre that barely held the car up.”

The spokesperson of the AIACR gave clearance today: There will be no disqualification for the T51A, but the team will receive a 1 lap penalty for it.

Exciting until the last second – Happe overtakes Lah on the last lap

What followed was a very messy 27 laps from Happe – frequently touching the walls and having to pit for repairs an additional 2 times. Siegfried Happe ran in the background not being able to catch up to the drivers in the front until the very end.

“We are not happy with todays results, to be quite honest. We had a good shot at P8 to P9 now we have to face a possible disqualification. In all honesty, my head wasn’t in the race today, even though we put in quite some time into practice and hoped for a good result.

After Lap 20, when the crash happened, my general motivation towards the race fell flat and i made more and more mistakes. If our sponsor gives me another shot at the next race – I will make large adjustements to my own driving and push for everything possible at Nancy-Seichamps.”