Modena, September 22nd
The Modena Autodrome is, in reality, the perimeter track of a small private aerodrome, completely flat and a mere 2.306 kilometres to the lap. It is used extensively throughout the year by Maserati and Ferrari for test purposes, being on the edge of the home town of these two teams. The Formula 1 race was held in two Heats, of 40 laps each, the ultimate result being obtained by adding the times for the two races, in which all competitors were intended to take part.
The Maserati team consisted of Behra, Schell and Scarlatti, the first two driving the lightweight-chassis six-cylinder cars, and the third car being the old heavy-chassis model. It had been hoped that Fangio would also drive but he was suffering from a damaged wrist caused in a minor road accident. In practice, Behra and Schell tried the offset transmission 12-cylinder car, but it was not as fast as the six-cylinder cars. Since Monza it had been fitted with a larger radiator and a header tank behind the engine. It was tried on long tail-pipes and short tail-pipes with megaphones, but could not go fast enough to justify its use on this short circuit.
