Taken from Motor Sport, April 2020

At the end of a bright spring day at Monza, the timing sheets told the story. For Alfred Neubauer, studying the meticulously compiled chart headed Nachwuchsfahrer Ausbildung (New Driver Training), there was only one conclusion. The Mercedes-Benz team manager had summoned five young men to the test, and brought a pair of obsolete W25 grand prix cars down from Stuttgart for them to drive. Three were Germans: Heinz Brendel, Walter Bäumer and Heinz-Hugo Hartmann. One – Christian Kautz, an Oxford graduate – was Swiss. The fifth candidate was a 24-year-old Englishman whose promise had been evident over the preceding two seasons as he drove first an ERA and then a 10-year-old Delage to victory in some half a dozen important continental races.

Seaman won at Donington with Reusch’s Alfa 308C.