René Dreyfus' French resistance

One thing that Huhnlein and Mrs Schell had in common was almost unlimited funds. The German teams were funded with the help of state reichmarks; Ecurie Bleue was financed out of her $5 million fortune. She was the only daughter of Patrick O’Reilly, a poor Irish immigrant who achieved the American dream by becoming one of the steel barons who built New York’s subway.

But she was no racing dilettante. She was the first American woman to drive in an international grand prix. And following the announcement of the new 1938 formula in 1936, she walked with her bulldogs into the Paris office of Charles Weiffenbach, the elderly MD of Delahaye, and informed him she wanted to order a couple of new V12 GP cars (which hadn’t even been designed yet) for the 1938 race season. Before her 1935 inheritance, she had already impressed Monsieur Charles (as Weiffenbach was known) by racing as a member of the Delahaye rally team, first as a private entrant, and then forcing her way through the ranks to become a works driver. Her husband Latuy, a meek figure who belongs in the pages of a Somerset Maugham novel, also raced, and was an occasional driver for Ecurie Bleue.

The new 4.5-litre V12 Delahaye Type 145 was first tested by Dreyfus was at Montlhery, without fanfare or invited press, in June 1937. On its first public outing, the appearance of this pug-nosed two-seater came as something of a shock to the few Ecurie Bleue friends and guests present Later, Dreyfus himself was to confess that, “It was the most awful-looking car I ever saw”.

Certainly the Germans were not unduly concerned. A sharp illustration of just how seriously Huhnlein took his orders from Berlin to ensure Nazi supremacy on the track was revealed a month later, on August 27, when Dreyfus’s Delahaye was battling it out at dusk on the Montlhery track with Bugatti’s star driver, Jean-Pierre Wimille, for the much-hyped Prix du Million. So anxious were the French to create a racing car capable of beating the Germans, after endless humiliating defeats, that the government had put up a lottery prize of a million francs for any car that could average 146kph for 16 laps or 200km at Montlhery (this being the speed Louis Chiron achieved in 1934 driving a Tipo B Alfa Romeo while outperforming the Germans under the old formula).

Although the German teams were busy preparing for the Italian GP in Livorno on September 12, Huhnlein took the trouble to ensure the huge crowd of press and photographers that witnessed this memorable Ecurie Bleue / Bugatti duel (which Dreyfus narrowly won) included a spy from the Mercedes technical department. Despite the Delahaye victory, the spy told his superiors they had nothing to worry about for the 1938 season.

To be honest, when the two Ecurie Bleue transporters set off for Pau, nobody in the motoring press thought Lucy Schell had any chance against a lineup that included the exciting W154, the new monoplace supercharged 3-litre Bugatti, or Tazio Nuvolari in one of two new eight-cylinder Alfa Romeos (Tipo 308) managed for the new Alfa Corse team by Enzo Ferrari. Against this opposition, Ecurie Bleue was entering a pair of outdated-looking, two-seater ‘bathtub’ road cars — more of a sportscar than a GP car. They were painted duck-egg blue, with red trimming.

Auto Union, who had lost number one driver Bernd Rosemeyer in January during a Nazi speed record attempt, had decided their new cars weren’t ready to race. But the arrival in Pau of the multi-truck Mercedes convoy, after a winding journey through France supervised by manager Alfred Neubauer, was described by the normally unfazed Dreyfus in his autobiography as “awesome”.

Dreyfus had matched Caracciola in practice with a time of 1min 48sec, and Mercedes now had just one car. But the German squad was still an overwhelming favourite.

As the engines fired up, with Mercedes’ secret formula alcohol fuel (shipped over in barrels from Stuttgart) blackening the spring mountain air, excited spectators leant out of the small hotels and apartment buildings overlooking the track.

Charles Faroux, the great French race reporter, dropped the flag and newsreel film dearly shows the extra power of Caracciola’s Mercedes pushing him around the first corner just before Dreyfus. They roared uphill along Avenue Bonaparte before the hairpin at Pont Oscar, and then another quick sharp right before passing the Real Tennis court and the Casino gardens in the Parc Beaumont. The course then wiggles past a convent and a statue of Marshal Foch before drivers open the throttle in the final downhill straight towards the pits.

Neubauer knew his supercharged Mercedes would have to stop and refuel, whilst the Delahaye could manage on one tank, so Caracciola’s plan was to establish a sufficient lead to allow for a single stop. For the first few laps, this seemed to be working, with Dreyfus dropping back behind (Dreyfus claims this was to avoid inhaling the noxious Mercedes exhaust fumes). The problem, however, came when Dreyfus began to challenge Caracciola around the twisty track, where the five-speed gearbox and extra power of the Mercedes proved a liability. According to Dreyfus, who never needed to use his fourth gear throughout the race, he was able to pass Caracciola “easily” on the seventh lap, only to then allow the German to overtake him as he knew that when Rudi came in to refuel he “had the race made”.

Caracciola’s only chance was to push his car beyond the limit, which Neubauer urged him to do from the pits, the oversized Mercedes manager, in his usual dark suit and trilby, frantically waving the red-and-black flag which meant ‘Faster!’

After 25 laps of this round-the-houses circuit, Caracciola led by eight seconds. The bad news, however, was that the Mercedes was gobbling fuel at 2.75 mpg; the Delahaye was averaging ‘7.9mpg. After 50 laps — half distance — Caracciola led Dreyfus by just six seconds, having established what was to be the fastest lap of the day in 1min 47sec (57.90mph).

But it was not enough. And Rudi knew it. Coming in to refuel, he stepped but of the car, muttered something about his hip hurting (if he had a sniff of victory he blocked out the pain from his horrific 1933 Monaco crash) and suddenly handed over the wheel to Lang, who wasn’t even in his racing overalls. He duly hopped in, but after losing 50 seconds to refuelling, made even less of an impression on Dreyfus, who was increasing his lead.

From then on, the race belonged to Mrs Schell’s team. Dreyfus won by 1min 50sec, with Lang second and Comotti six laps back in third. What should have been a routine propaganda victory for Huhnlein turned out to be a public humiliation, with the Marseillaise played at extra loud volume for good measure.

This win — the only time the Germans were beaten in either 1938 or 1939 — had a deep significance. Lucy Schell’s victory over Hitler’s Nazi motor-racing chief provided a final moment of sporting and human glory before war broke out – only five months later came the Munich Crisis. But it was the newspaper headlines following the Grand Prix de Pau that reminded hundreds of thousands across Europe that no matter how improbable the odds seemed, victory against a seemingly superior foe was always possible.