Rudolf Caracciola

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Monument in Remagen

Rudolf Caracciola (b. January 30, 1901 at Remagen, Germany, d. September 28, 1959), was a racing driver.

Caracciola, born in Germany to a hotelier family in the Rhine valley, was a champion racer in Europe in the Grand Prix motor racing era of the 1920s and 1930s, and even into the early 1950s.

Nicknamed Regenmeister (Rainmaster) for his prowess in rainy conditions, Caracciola began racing as an employee for Mercedes (not yet unified with Benz) in 1922. In 1926, he entered the first-ever German Grand Prix at the AVUS track in Berlin and promptly won the race, much to the amazement of the 500,000 spectators.

In Sportscar racing, he won the 1930 European Hillclimb Championship and made history in 1931, becoming the first non-Italian driver to win the Mille Miglia, a feat not repeated on the full circuit until Stirling Moss' victory in 1955.

In 1933, Caracciola, while driving a privately-entered Alfa Romeo, suffered a serious accident at the Monaco Grand Prix, seriously disabling him for the rest of his life. He would forever after walk with a limp, as his shattered hip had left one leg shorter than the other. During his convalescence in Switzerland, his wife Charly died after being buried by an avalanche.

Nevertheless, Caracciola eventually recovered enough to take up racing once more, this time with the newly re-formed Mercedes-Benz racing team. He went on to win the new European driving championship three times between 1935 and 1938. As the two drivers who all but defined success for the two German car makers, Mercedes-Benz and Auto Union, Carracciola and fellow countryman Bernd Rosemeyer battled for supremacy year after year during the "no limits" era of motor racing (1934-1937). For 1938, the engine sizes were limited to 3 liter, while Rosemeyer was already killed in January.

After spending World War II in exile in Lugano, Switzerland, Caracciola returned to auto racing in the late 1940s for the Indy 500 but crashed in practise. Age and injuries took their toll, the love for driving was there but he did not have the success he had before the War. When the new Formula One staged its first world championship season in 1950, he was not part of it. Caracciola finished 4th at the 1952 Mille Miglia in a Mercedes-Benz 300SL, but a broken leg at the Swiss Bremgarten ended his career finally.

His legacy is that of one of the greatest European race car drivers of the first half of the 20th century and a person who overcame serious injury and misfortune to excel and succeed in the sport he loved. In that regard, but also in his almost unbelievable prowess in races held in inclement weather, Carracciola foreshadowed the great German racing champion of the current era, Michael Schumacher.

Caracciola died of a bone disease in 1959. He donated his trophies to the Indy 500 museum. In 1998, Rudolf Caracciola was elected to the International Motorsports Hall of Fame.

Major career wins:

European Hillclimbing Champion 1930
European Champion 1935, 1937, 1938
AVUSrennen 1931
Coppa Acerbo 1938
Coppa Ciano 1937
Belgian Grand Prix 1935
Czechoslovakian Grand Prix 1937
Eifelrennen 1927, 1931, 1932, 1935
French Grand Prix 1935
German Grand Prix 1926, 1928, 1931, 1932, 1937, 1939
Italian Grand Prix 1934, 1937
Lemberg Grand Prix 1932
Mille Miglia 1931
Monaco Grand Prix 1936
Spanish Grand Prix 1935
Swiss Grand Prix 1935, 1937, 1938
Tripoli Grand Prix 1935

[edit] Further reading

Rudolf Caracciola, Caracciola: Mercedes Grand Prix Ace - An Autobiography (G. T. Foulis, London, 1955)
Rudolf Caracciola, A Racing Car Driver's World (Farrar, Straus and Cudahy, New York, 1961) This is a later edition of the above work, with much additional material