"Fun" fact about Rosemeyer's death. The car he died in was, in fact, an unintentional ground effect vehicle. This is 1938. They added fairings to the streamliner speed record car, what we would call sideskirts today, in an effort to increase stability and decrease drag. They did not understand that the floor now acted as a Venturi tunnel. They even measured a model of the car with zero lift in a wind tunnel. But their testing rig was only set up to measure lift, not downforce, because they only cared about the car not taking off at speed. So they thought that the zero lift was a measurement error, and did not realize what's really going on. Of course they knew how airplanes work, and that you could achieve downforce on a car using upside-down wings (which was actually practically tested even in the 1920's), but wings were considered too draggy, and they did not understand that downforce can be produced through other methods. This car had a tiny bit more drag than without the fairings, but much more directional stability, so they ran it, with Rosemeyer in the seat. Unfortunately, the body panels were not ready for the aerodynamic load, a cross wind unsettled the car at a very high speed, some body panels were torn off, and the car flew off the road, throwing poor Rosemeyer out. The scariest thought about this debacle is that the engineers absolutely had the capacity, resources and tools to understand ground effect and use it intentionally. I can't imagine what would racing look like if any of the engineers applied a little bit more of the German perfectionism on one day, investigated the zero lift measurement, and realized what was up with that.
Legend has it that some nights at Donington, at the stroke of midnight, you can still hear the sound of Rosemeyer's Mercedes roaring around the circuit.
SO SAD FORGET POLITICS ROSMEYER & HIS LOVELY GIRL WERE THE ICONS OF THE HIGHSPEED SPORTS WORLD BACK THEN !!!MIKE HAILWOOD HAD THE SAME GUTS AS HIM !!!!😮THEY DONT MAKE THEM LIKE that USED TOO 😨😨😨😨😨😴g
Hey. This is a really great video and captures the vibe I was trying to create when I built this track... I have Since acquired some more great research about the back straight (which right now is a little too wide) so I'm defo gonna update this track in the new year
Jim , you are a dang legend in your sim track creations. Been a fan of all yours and Terra's work for a long time. Thank you so much for all that you do for the community!
The sound of the car is just amazing. Just imagine having >500hp in those days on these tires! Those drivers were just so dedicated to what they were doing! I think when Rosemeyer was killed on the Autobahn doing the record attempts they reached over 440km/h in those cars, beautifully streamlined for the attempts. Rosemeyer stated, that at those speeds he could only hold the steering wheel between his fingertips, because a minimal movement actually put him on the on the other side of the road!
As someone who has a real affinity for auto racing from the first half of the 20th century - thank you! This was amazing. The bit about the shoe being set on fire I’m pretty sure was Herman Lang and if memory serves me right, it was more of a case where the heat transfer from the engine caused the sole of his shoe to melt to the pedal, but he refused to stop and wound up with second and third degree burns (he was a very flinty character who really had to fight for every single thing within the team; giving up was not in his DNA.) Now for a little bit of superfluous pedantry (sorry!) - bernd rosemeyer’s last name is (more or less) best pronounced ‘roe-say-meyer’ (just slur the first two syllables together a little) or think of how us ‘Muricans say ‘Rosé’ (the pinkish wine variety.) you nailed von Brauchitsch, though, and I’d say that one is much harder to get right (and I totally excuse not even mentioning Rudolf Caracciola - that’s a bit tricky even in german.) Lastly, for anyone who wants to read up on this era of racing, Alfred Neubauer’s biography is a pretty fantastic source - if you can find it, that is. His style is more of a raconteur recalling his life and so has an almost novel-like quality to it. Whereas the German version (‘Männer, Frauen und Motoren’ - literally, ‘men, women and engines’) is still in print/readily available (I read it as such when I was a teen), the English version (‘speed was my life’) has been out of print since the initial publication in the late ‘50s (I keep looking for a decent reading copy that doesn’t cost ~$150.) Anyway, maybe you should try tackling pre-world war I Grand Prix racing next...;)
I have heard a different story about the "shoes on fire". The story I heard was that Rudi Caracciola needed to finish a particular race (sorry , not sure which race) in order to win the European Championship and his feet were being roasted. In those days sharing a car was permitted and each driver was credited with the result, so Neubauer decided to swap drivers and ensure the car finished. I'm not sure who the other driver was but Herman Lang sounds about right. The information came from the excellent dvd series "Racing through Time " which was released ,I believe ,in the late '90's . Now this has me curious , think I'll go fish out my copy and take another look..... Stay Safe!
Caracciola is not a German name at all, he had Italian ancestry some three centuries back, the House of Caracciolo. So the pronunciation is anybody's guess. It would be best to use the pronunciation he used himself. But since I have no idea, and do not know if there are any recordings, I use an Italian pronunciation, that feels natural to me.
Funny thing is the Auto Union was a fusion of 4 different brands, thats why they have the 4 rings. If you now look closly on the left side of the steering wheel, there is a small patch that says Horch on it. Horch was the brand that mostly developed the Auto Union Gran Prix Cars. Horch in German can be a slang in some regions for the phrase "höre hin" what basically means "listen to it or hear it". The latin word for hearing is AUDI so yeah i think thats some great background info....
Actually, in 1936-37, Alfa Romeo scored several victories over the Auto Union Type C and Mercedes-Benz W25K. In fact, in 1936, the Alfa Romeo 8C-35 and 12C-36 (both built on the Tipo C platform) may well have been a better car than that late variant of the W25. In 1938, Rene Dreyfus driving a Delahaye 145 V12 beat the Mercedes team with the W154 at the Pau Grand Prix, really pissing off Hitler in the process (a French car, and a driver with Jewish heritage, beating his precious German entry). In 1938-39, the Alfa Romeo 312 and 316, as well as the Maserati 8CTF, were fast, but tended to hit reliability issues. Now, the Maserati did manage to win the 1939 and '40 Indianapolis 500 races with Wilbur Shaw at the wheel. On the flip side, a catastrophic day for Mercedes, a lackluster showing for Stuck, and whatever other factors, led to Talbot scoring a podium in the 1939 French GP at Reims. Of course, I wish there were proper 1936-37 and 1938-39 car sets for any of the sims. One car in particular though that I wish there was a mod for is the actual Alfa Romeo 12C-37, which was late in the game and suffered teething problems, only appearing at the 1937 Coppa Acerbo (Pescara) and Italian GP (Livorno), but if there was one non-German car that was closest to matching the Germans in performance potential, that would probably be it. The 12C-37 had a new chassis and bodywork, which were carried over for the Tipo 312 and 316, and the V12 was enlarged from the 1936 car (up to 4.5 liters from 4.1), giving 430 hp, a notable increase from the 360-370 of the 12C-36. And yeah, if the German streamliners could be included in a car set. And in the wake of the 1938 Pau GP, namely the issues with the Alfa Romeo 308, Tazio Nuvolari cut himself loose from Alfa Corse and subsequently joined Auto Union. As for other tracks to try these cars on, Deutschlandring is probably about the best period option. I know there's a slightly crude version for rFactor, but I don't know that any of the newer sims have a mod for the 1926-51 version of Reims. Naturally, the Nordschleife is always a possibility, and there's a good Nurburgring '67 mod that's more faithful to the narrowness, lumps/bumps/jumps, and meanders that the circuit used to have. In addition, I should think that Fonteny, Feldbergring, and Battenbergring (when it comes out), would work pretty well with these cars also. Honestly, while the mod is done very well, and the track is period, Donington is a bit tight for the big German and Italian cars of the 1930s. Maybe include French in there too if you're talking about the Bugatti Type 54 or Type 59/50(B). If the track (Roosevelt Field) were available for AC, I'd suggest looking at the Vanderbilt Cup races from 1936 and '37, in which the Europeans had a heavy presence. Nuvolari won in 1936 with the Alfa Romeo 12C-36, while Rosemeyer won in '37 with the Auto Union Type C. And back to Donington to finish, as Nuvolari won that race in '38 with the Auto Union Type D.
Well, pretty much everybody was trying to make bigger, more powerful engines at the time. So it wasn't just the Germans in pursuit of power, but the Germans certainly had the most funding. Even the brute-force method should have its limits. For one, Farina could only manage 5th at Monaco in 1937, 3 laps behind the leading pair of Mercedes. Farina/Nuvolari merely snagged 7th at that year's Italian GP, which wasn't at Monza, but the street circuit in Livorno. You also have to consider the drivers you're comparing, as if it's one team's A squad versus another's B troupe, that makes a difference. I do think the Alfa Romeo Tipo C variants (8C-35 and 12C-36) may have been the best cars of 1936 in some ways. However, they really didn't pick up the pace, at least not with any consistency, for 1937, while Auto Union, though still using the Type C, improved its lap times significantly. Now, come 1938, I'm not sure Alfa Romeo even had the best Italian GP car, with the arrival of the Maserati 8CTF. Heck, on outright pace, Trossi actually got Fastest Lap during the Tripoli GP, of all events. And the German cars weren't so ungainly under the new, 3.0-liter forced induction or 4.5-liter atmospheric rules.
And as for the Afla Romeo Tipo C variants, I think it's pretty level with the 1936 W25K Mercedes. The Mercedes suffered from understeer and twitchy handling in general, thanks to a big error by Mercedes to chop off the wheelbase just to make an overweight engine get into the weight limit. The Alfa, also had challenging handling. Yeah, the fully independent suspension gave it better roadholding, but the swing rear axle made things hairy under braking and cornering. The current owners who race the existing 8C-35s comment that the car's understeer and oversteer depends on your right foot's location.
And for the 1938-39 cars, Alfa Romeo probably suffered at the time from developing too many cars at the same time to make each one competitive. They reused old Tipo C frames to make the 308, which is also armed with 3 litre versions of the 2.9 litres used in the old P3s, then reused the 12C-37s frames and modified versions of the V12 engine to make the 312, and also developed a V16 engine version to put to the 312s to make the 316. So they're spending precious money developing three different GP cars, plus their Voiturette contender the famous 158 "Alfetta". Maserati's situation is somewhat better. They spent their time honing their Voiturettes, and used what they learned from them to make their 3 litre GP machine, the 8CTF, which is basically the big brother of the 4CL Voiturette. And while they had much less money to make the car reliable, the car's performance started to show, being able to chase down the Mercedes W154s and Auto Union Type Ds despite having much less power, even on fast tracks such as Mellaha. At least they finally got something out of their GP project, though, when Wilbur Shaw won the Indy 500 twice using an 8CTF bought from Maserati.
i would love to host a fictional 1930s European oval championship with the tracks that existed at the time 1. Brooklands (Great Britain) 2. Linas-Montlhery (France) 3. Sitges-Terramar (Spain) 4. AVUS (Germany) 5. Monza (Italy) Would be so much fun!!
I am a enthusiastic collector of Donington 1937/38and am very impressed with this post. If you want to learn more about Donington, an excellent book is PIONEERS by John Bailey. Would highly recommend it. The real race was crazy in that the Silver arrows were hitting 200 mph down the back straight and actually lapped the ENTIRE field 7 times. Really excellent races. Keep up the great work on these videos.
Love this track, 10 miles away from my house! Donington used to have a great museum collection of Grand Prix cars from throughout the history of Formula 1, sadly it was closed a couple years back :(
Your commentary is so good in all your videos. You also have such a good knowledge of all the races you do, naming drivers as you pass them, naming corners, explaining how the car is behaving... its really entertaining! Let's be clear about something, watching people drive in a sim is 99% boring, you just watching some dude do laps... but your videos are next level. I could watch you lap random cars around random circuits for hours. Basically, well done on a quality channel, and thank you!
Man, I just LOVE your content! I am a vintage racing fan (in fact, I am fairly vintage myself!) and you provide not only high quality videos, but really engaging commentary. Thank you!
When I was a kid my dad had a slot car set and it came with a huge picture on the box of one of those Mercedes coming off the ground at the Nurmbergring.
If you're interested in the story of those cars and Auto Union as a whole, I really recommend the August Horch Museum in Zwickau, if you ever find yourself in eastern Germany. It tells the story of the Horch cars, Horch leaving and founding Audi, forming Auto Union (and the Piech family working there before moving to Porsche), the racing, Audi taking over the Auto Union logo after the war and the rest of Auto Union being deleted due to the Soviet occupation and producing the Trabant (lots of those on display as well). Also lots of other cars from DKW and Wanderer which formed the other two rings of Auto Union. Highlight are the replicas of a Typ C and Typ D race car. There's just so much weird and interesting history behind the whole Auto Union thing.
Honestly when the Auto Unions and Mercedes cars started showing up at GPs it was a bit like taking an F1 car to an F2 race today. Everything else was so much slower compared to them. I can't even begin to imagine how it would be to race something with this much power, yet with brakes and chassis that, while advanced for the time, where nowhere near enough for cars of such raw speed.
Isn’t that what Merc is doing the last years? 😅 I am just amazed how many opportunities you had back then to kill yourself in a race. You needed really big ⚽️ 🏀 back then.
Dude I recommend a book called The Grand Prix Saboteurs by Joe Saward. About grand prix drivers who became British secret agents during the war. Interesting read!
7:50 Well, Gand Prix of Germany 1935: Winner Tazio Nuvolari with Alfa Romeo, Hitler was not amused and they didnt even had the music for the italian anthem....But yes, it was just an episode.
Amazing stuff, crazy to think these cars were basically carts with airplane engines and bicycle tyres. An incredible story from those times is the one of the 1935 German Grand Prix: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1935_German_Grand_Prix Tazio Nuvolari won with an old Alfa Romeo Tipo B against far more performant German cars at the Nuerburgring... it was a time when drivers could sometimes make a crazy difference in those machines.
They’re not hard to drive, they are extremely hard to drive fast. Everyone could agree to stay at a reasonable, safe pace, but this is a race.. The moment one driver starts pushing over the safe limit, everyone else has to.
I was lucky enough to be able to skip across the pond to attend the 2004 MotoGP British GP at Donington. This was fun seeing the old circuit layout and the difference in scenery. The old archway you drive through is still there but it just runs along close to the circuit now after you go through the Old Hairpin. Super enjoyable watch!
That Auto Union type C was special. It had a V16 engine with roller bearings everywhere. The crank shaft was bolted together in order to install all of those bearings.
This channel deserves way more eyes. I've learned a lot from watching your assorted videos The narration is top notch, the editing and production values are sublime. Congratulations!
The A-U Type C was actually difficult to handle compared to the rather conservative Mercedes W125. The suspension, tires and chassis could not deal with the awkward weight distribution, and drivers had much less experience driving mid-engined cars. The oversteer was snappy, extremely hard to control. It took Rosemeyer, a *flat track motorcycle* rider, to perfect the car. Another thing, the Type C had about 100hp less peak power than the W125, but it was not slower in the straight line. Thanks to the mid-rear layout, Type C had much better traction and less drag. Also had a wider power band, and a 5-speed gearbox (only 4-speed in W125). These two very different cars had an interesting balance, which made for great races in 1937. I really hope the streamliners are modded into a simulator at some point, they are my favourite racing vehicles of all time. I've only seen a very unrealistic representation in Gran Turismo. Imagine the slipstream battles on Avus, I would totally buy a sim rig and install a simulator after 5 years of not playing if the streamliners came out in good quality.
Amazing recreation of the track and can still see the similarities to todays track, like old hairpin to starkies bridge and the Dunlop straight to the Melbourne loop. Great content as always bud 👍🏁🏁
I have been round this track a few times. (The modern version obviously lol) It is just down the road from my home, 20 minute drive at most. You can, as I am sure you know, still see a little of that bridge and the layout is still recognisable enough that you can place yourself very quickly. Awesome to see what it looked like. This is a very believable version of the track. I think they have gotten as close as is humanly possible without a time machine. Well done getting that thing round the track at all :D Awsome car I have a model of it.
Interesting to see the current sections of the track; Hollywood, down the Craners, under Starkeys Bridge and back round through the houses at current Coppice Corner and down the straight past the exhibition centre. With the new main Donington pedestrian entrance at Hollywood you can now see the original extended Melbourne hairpin section on the left as you drive round to the car park/ entrance.
IT's too bad that no other racing sim has a replay engine as good as the original GPL replay engine. The data you could extract and use from those replays was amazing. Thanks for sharing this cool version of A.C.
This is my bucket list "go back in time" event! I am fascinated by this era ! Ive been to Donington many times for sports cars and F1 Grand Prix which Senna won,and many other races!! Thanks for this. P.s The hair pin corner and the old track leading down the hill and back up is still there now, they have a sunday market on it.
Well any person who knows how to race with the wheel/clutch/shifter combo should be able to drive these, I mean you would want to practice old muscle cars etc first maybe but other than that it’s just hard focusing .
watched another video of yours the other racing the pre- wars cars at fonteny, and liked your idea of doing pre war at donington, so i ended up racing 1930 benz SSk's there, and it was a great time.
The house is actually a farm and the track goes through the farm yard, hence the building on both sides of the track. The germans thought it very uncivilised!
I love learning GP history from this channel, as I love racing but I don't know as much about the historical details (I'm an aviation history guy, usually)
Loving your videos mate! IMO the best sim racing content on RUclips. Would you mind uploading the skins you've created for the Auto Union and Mercedes for us?
You GOTTA love the PC modding scene! A wonderful piece of early / 1990s internet culture that has amazingly managed to survive into modern times (with its extremely powerful and all pervasive online profit-motive) by sheer hobbyist passion alone! Just for the LOVE of it! Bravo all you fabtastico game modders! 💖 💖 💖
I love these classic race cars, when drivers actually had to drive the car, no traction control or abs on these beasts. GPLaps, you should put where to get these mods, thanks and keep doing these videos
FYI the house was probably there before it was a circuit; due to it having been an airfield before that; the circuit came later. And those cars from what footage I've ever seen didn't take modern racing lines; even in the later races post war they seem to slide more like rally cars just not quite so pronounced.
There's a video on RUclips with these cars in the rain where the commentator says "Dick Seaman blinds everyone with his spray." I couldn't help but lmao 😂
Thank you, thank you, thank you for taking me back to the thirty's... Wonderful cars and also scarey cars. You may take me too more of the same race's every time...🤗🍀
Would have loved to have seen Rosemeyer race. Apparently he was the Gilles of his day. I read that he was the only driver to come close to getting the most out of the Auto Union. A thousand BHP going through skinny tyres, very poor braking and a heavy, awful handling car must have been unimaginably frightening. There's an excellent 1984 documentary called Supercharged made by our state broadcaster, the BBC as part of their Horizon series, about this period. ruclips.net/video/NCP_GJ8JBOE/видео.html
Wonder if anyone will ever make/ has made a Circuito Montenero mod, would love to see that track. Not the longest ever Italian track, Pescara was longer but the layout wasn't as interesting. Montenero is what i consider the Italian Nordschleife with the layout used from 1922-35. Looking at the road map of the layout it looks like it'd be a blast to drive.
I always think before a video like this: Way too long and probably will get bored after a minute What it always turns out to be like: Already finished? daaamn
For those interested in this era of racing but unaware of the history there is fiim made by Shell: The History of Motor Racing Volume 4 'The Titans' (www.dailymotion.com/video/xj3rj7) which shows these cars racing in period.
I realize I said "Buckle Up", however of course, seatbelts were not a thing in 1937... So try to hold on!
I love how von Brauschitz are lighting up his tires EVERYWHERE
No seat-belts? '😨' (Because motorsports in 1937 wasn't deadly enough already)
@@zetetick395 Seatbelts weren't introduced in F1 until 1972 as drivers would rather be thrown from a burning car than trapped in it.
XD
@@gr0bbelaar
Just as he did in reality
“And was killed shortly thereafter. Never ever really raced again.” Well I’d hope not.
He could have at least made the effort.
"Fun" fact about Rosemeyer's death. The car he died in was, in fact, an unintentional ground effect vehicle. This is 1938. They added fairings to the streamliner speed record car, what we would call sideskirts today, in an effort to increase stability and decrease drag. They did not understand that the floor now acted as a Venturi tunnel. They even measured a model of the car with zero lift in a wind tunnel. But their testing rig was only set up to measure lift, not downforce, because they only cared about the car not taking off at speed. So they thought that the zero lift was a measurement error, and did not realize what's really going on. Of course they knew how airplanes work, and that you could achieve downforce on a car using upside-down wings (which was actually practically tested even in the 1920's), but wings were considered too draggy, and they did not understand that downforce can be produced through other methods. This car had a tiny bit more drag than without the fairings, but much more directional stability, so they ran it, with Rosemeyer in the seat. Unfortunately, the body panels were not ready for the aerodynamic load, a cross wind unsettled the car at a very high speed, some body panels were torn off, and the car flew off the road, throwing poor Rosemeyer out.
The scariest thought about this debacle is that the engineers absolutely had the capacity, resources and tools to understand ground effect and use it intentionally. I can't imagine what would racing look like if any of the engineers applied a little bit more of the German perfectionism on one day, investigated the zero lift measurement, and realized what was up with that.
Legend has it that some nights at Donington, at the stroke of midnight, you can still hear the sound of Rosemeyer's Mercedes roaring around the circuit.
@@MentalParadox in that case " never ever really raced again " would be a false statement... cause he is still racing there...
SO SAD FORGET POLITICS ROSMEYER & HIS LOVELY GIRL WERE THE ICONS OF THE HIGHSPEED SPORTS WORLD BACK THEN !!!MIKE HAILWOOD HAD THE SAME GUTS AS HIM !!!!😮THEY DONT MAKE THEM LIKE that USED TOO 😨😨😨😨😨😴g
Hey. This is a really great video and captures the vibe I was trying to create when I built this track... I have Since acquired some more great research about the back straight (which right now is a little too wide) so I'm defo gonna update this track in the new year
Jim , you are a dang legend in your sim track creations. Been a fan of all yours and Terra's work for a long time. Thank you so much for all that you do for the community!
That’s great news. This is one of my favourite mod tracks.
Excellent track, you can really see the lines of the current Donnington circuit as tweaks to this 1937 layout.
"Back then, Germany seemed an entire world away from England."
B-17s: "It's not that far."
And wimpeys and lancs .
The sound of the car is just amazing. Just imagine having >500hp in those days on these tires! Those drivers were just so dedicated to what they were doing! I think when Rosemeyer was killed on the Autobahn doing the record attempts they reached over 440km/h in those cars, beautifully streamlined for the attempts. Rosemeyer stated, that at those speeds he could only hold the steering wheel between his fingertips, because a minimal movement actually put him on the on the other side of the road!
As someone who has a real affinity for auto racing from the first half of the 20th century - thank you! This was amazing.
The bit about the shoe being set on fire I’m pretty sure was Herman Lang and if memory serves me right, it was more of a case where the heat transfer from the engine caused the sole of his shoe to melt to the pedal, but he refused to stop and wound up with second and third degree burns (he was a very flinty character who really had to fight for every single thing within the team; giving up was not in his DNA.)
Now for a little bit of superfluous pedantry (sorry!) - bernd rosemeyer’s last name is (more or less) best pronounced ‘roe-say-meyer’ (just slur the first two syllables together a little) or think of how us ‘Muricans say ‘Rosé’ (the pinkish wine variety.) you nailed von Brauchitsch, though, and I’d say that one is much harder to get right (and I totally excuse not even mentioning Rudolf Caracciola - that’s a bit tricky even in german.)
Lastly, for anyone who wants to read up on this era of racing, Alfred Neubauer’s biography is a pretty fantastic source - if you can find it, that is. His style is more of a raconteur recalling his life and so has an almost novel-like quality to it. Whereas the German version (‘Männer, Frauen und Motoren’ - literally, ‘men, women and engines’) is still in print/readily available (I read it as such when I was a teen), the English version (‘speed was my life’) has been out of print since the initial publication in the late ‘50s (I keep looking for a decent reading copy that doesn’t cost ~$150.)
Anyway, maybe you should try tackling pre-world war I Grand Prix racing next...;)
I have heard a different story about the "shoes on fire". The story I heard was that Rudi Caracciola needed to finish a particular race (sorry , not sure which race) in order to win the European Championship and his feet were being roasted. In those days sharing a car was permitted and each driver was credited with the result, so Neubauer decided to swap drivers
and ensure the car finished. I'm not sure who the other driver was but Herman Lang sounds about right.
The information came from the excellent dvd series "Racing through Time " which was released ,I believe ,in the late '90's .
Now this has me curious , think I'll go fish out my copy and take another look.....
Stay Safe!
Caracciola is not a German name at all, he had Italian ancestry some three centuries back, the House of Caracciolo. So the pronunciation is anybody's guess. It would be best to use the pronunciation he used himself. But since I have no idea, and do not know if there are any recordings, I use an Italian pronunciation, that feels natural to me.
Still, one had to take Neubauer's stories with a pinch of salt. He's not averse to spicing stories up...
Silver arrows in the front and then the rest of the finishers behind them. The more things change, the more they stay the same.
Yeah but the driver is a Brit now rather than a German Baron.
Sadly we don’t get to see quite the variation in engines across the field this time round.
A year later, hoo boy did this not age well
Red Bull Honda didn't exist yet
The music, the car sounds, just the whole vibe is on point. Absolutely brilliant
Damn.. imagine this remastered with all cars Maserati, Alfa, Bentley Bugatti or final edition like Mafia 1 & 2 -- > epic..
Funny thing is the Auto Union was a fusion of 4 different brands, thats why they have the 4 rings. If you now look closly on the left side of the steering wheel, there is a small patch that says Horch on it. Horch was the brand that mostly developed the Auto Union Gran Prix Cars. Horch in German can be a slang in some regions for the phrase "höre hin" what basically means "listen to it or hear it". The latin word for hearing is AUDI so yeah i think thats some great background info....
Actually, in 1936-37, Alfa Romeo scored several victories over the Auto Union Type C and Mercedes-Benz W25K. In fact, in 1936, the Alfa Romeo 8C-35 and 12C-36 (both built on the Tipo C platform) may well have been a better car than that late variant of the W25.
In 1938, Rene Dreyfus driving a Delahaye 145 V12 beat the Mercedes team with the W154 at the Pau Grand Prix, really pissing off Hitler in the process (a French car, and a driver with Jewish heritage, beating his precious German entry).
In 1938-39, the Alfa Romeo 312 and 316, as well as the Maserati 8CTF, were fast, but tended to hit reliability issues. Now, the Maserati did manage to win the 1939 and '40 Indianapolis 500 races with Wilbur Shaw at the wheel. On the flip side, a catastrophic day for Mercedes, a lackluster showing for Stuck, and whatever other factors, led to Talbot scoring a podium in the 1939 French GP at Reims.
Of course, I wish there were proper 1936-37 and 1938-39 car sets for any of the sims. One car in particular though that I wish there was a mod for is the actual Alfa Romeo 12C-37, which was late in the game and suffered teething problems, only appearing at the 1937 Coppa Acerbo (Pescara) and Italian GP (Livorno), but if there was one non-German car that was closest to matching the Germans in performance potential, that would probably be it. The 12C-37 had a new chassis and bodywork, which were carried over for the Tipo 312 and 316, and the V12 was enlarged from the 1936 car (up to 4.5 liters from 4.1), giving 430 hp, a notable increase from the 360-370 of the 12C-36.
And yeah, if the German streamliners could be included in a car set.
And in the wake of the 1938 Pau GP, namely the issues with the Alfa Romeo 308, Tazio Nuvolari cut himself loose from Alfa Corse and subsequently joined Auto Union.
As for other tracks to try these cars on, Deutschlandring is probably about the best period option. I know there's a slightly crude version for rFactor, but I don't know that any of the newer sims have a mod for the 1926-51 version of Reims. Naturally, the Nordschleife is always a possibility, and there's a good Nurburgring '67 mod that's more faithful to the narrowness, lumps/bumps/jumps, and meanders that the circuit used to have. In addition, I should think that Fonteny, Feldbergring, and Battenbergring (when it comes out), would work pretty well with these cars also.
Honestly, while the mod is done very well, and the track is period, Donington is a bit tight for the big German and Italian cars of the 1930s. Maybe include French in there too if you're talking about the Bugatti Type 54 or Type 59/50(B).
If the track (Roosevelt Field) were available for AC, I'd suggest looking at the Vanderbilt Cup races from 1936 and '37, in which the Europeans had a heavy presence. Nuvolari won in 1936 with the Alfa Romeo 12C-36, while Rosemeyer won in '37 with the Auto Union Type C.
And back to Donington to finish, as Nuvolari won that race in '38 with the Auto Union Type D.
The germans tried to win by brute force with their 500 hp engines, but the Alfas were much better cars overall.
Well, pretty much everybody was trying to make bigger, more powerful engines at the time. So it wasn't just the Germans in pursuit of power, but the Germans certainly had the most funding.
Even the brute-force method should have its limits. For one, Farina could only manage 5th at Monaco in 1937, 3 laps behind the leading pair of Mercedes. Farina/Nuvolari merely snagged 7th at that year's Italian GP, which wasn't at Monza, but the street circuit in Livorno.
You also have to consider the drivers you're comparing, as if it's one team's A squad versus another's B troupe, that makes a difference. I do think the Alfa Romeo Tipo C variants (8C-35 and 12C-36) may have been the best cars of 1936 in some ways. However, they really didn't pick up the pace, at least not with any consistency, for 1937, while Auto Union, though still using the Type C, improved its lap times significantly.
Now, come 1938, I'm not sure Alfa Romeo even had the best Italian GP car, with the arrival of the Maserati 8CTF. Heck, on outright pace, Trossi actually got Fastest Lap during the Tripoli GP, of all events. And the German cars weren't so ungainly under the new, 3.0-liter forced induction or 4.5-liter atmospheric rules.
A 1950 version of Reims Gueux just came out for rFactor. There's a video of it here in RUclips.
And as for the Afla Romeo Tipo C variants, I think it's pretty level with the 1936 W25K Mercedes. The Mercedes suffered from understeer and twitchy handling in general, thanks to a big error by Mercedes to chop off the wheelbase just to make an overweight engine get into the weight limit. The Alfa, also had challenging handling. Yeah, the fully independent suspension gave it better roadholding, but the swing rear axle made things hairy under braking and cornering. The current owners who race the existing 8C-35s comment that the car's understeer and oversteer depends on your right foot's location.
And for the 1938-39 cars, Alfa Romeo probably suffered at the time from developing too many cars at the same time to make each one competitive. They reused old Tipo C frames to make the 308, which is also armed with 3 litre versions of the 2.9 litres used in the old P3s, then reused the 12C-37s frames and modified versions of the V12 engine to make the 312, and also developed a V16 engine version to put to the 312s to make the 316. So they're spending precious money developing three different GP cars, plus their Voiturette contender the famous 158 "Alfetta".
Maserati's situation is somewhat better. They spent their time honing their Voiturettes, and used what they learned from them to make their 3 litre GP machine, the 8CTF, which is basically the big brother of the 4CL Voiturette. And while they had much less money to make the car reliable, the car's performance started to show, being able to chase down the Mercedes W154s and Auto Union Type Ds despite having much less power, even on fast tracks such as Mellaha. At least they finally got something out of their GP project, though, when Wilbur Shaw won the Indy 500 twice using an 8CTF bought from Maserati.
Years ago i say a lot of your races of GPL , i am happy to see that you are back now, and great race!
i would love to host a fictional 1930s European oval championship with the tracks that existed at the time
1. Brooklands (Great Britain)
2. Linas-Montlhery (France)
3. Sitges-Terramar (Spain)
4. AVUS (Germany)
5. Monza (Italy)
Would be so much fun!!
I am a enthusiastic collector of Donington 1937/38and am very impressed with this post. If you want to learn more about Donington, an excellent book is PIONEERS by John Bailey. Would highly recommend it. The real race was crazy in that the Silver arrows were hitting 200 mph down the back straight and actually lapped the ENTIRE field 7 times. Really excellent races. Keep up the great work on these videos.
Love this track, 10 miles away from my house! Donington used to have a great museum collection of Grand Prix cars from throughout the history of Formula 1, sadly it was closed a couple years back :(
Not only, but especially the engine sound is so atmospherical! It's almost like being set back to this ara by real! Awesome, GPLaps!
Your commentary is so good in all your videos. You also have such a good knowledge of all the races you do, naming drivers as you pass them, naming corners, explaining how the car is behaving... its really entertaining! Let's be clear about something, watching people drive in a sim is 99% boring, you just watching some dude do laps... but your videos are next level. I could watch you lap random cars around random circuits for hours. Basically, well done on a quality channel, and thank you!
So glad I'm here for your channel's renaissance.
the only damn racing channel I can watch, this is still the best one going. Brilliant
Man, I just LOVE your content! I am a vintage racing fan (in fact, I am fairly vintage myself!) and you provide not only high quality videos, but really engaging commentary. Thank you!
I can't wait for the GPL 1937 mod. I got the attention back on SRMZ
Are they making that? How do you know? That would be awesome
I would like to see a gt car mod for gpl as well
@@kristijanpavlovic ruclips.net/video/VY0OBpZk5WY/видео.html
@@LowEndPCGamer100 I vaguely remember there was plans for some sort of GT Mod like 1964 or 65 somewhere in SRMZ
Your enthusiasm and knowledge of motor racing is amazing... Love it.
When I was a kid my dad had a slot car set and it came with a huge picture on the box of one of those Mercedes coming off the ground at the Nurmbergring.
That's probably "flugplatz" corner...👍
If you're interested in the story of those cars and Auto Union as a whole, I really recommend the August Horch Museum in Zwickau, if you ever find yourself in eastern Germany. It tells the story of the Horch cars, Horch leaving and founding Audi, forming Auto Union (and the Piech family working there before moving to Porsche), the racing, Audi taking over the Auto Union logo after the war and the rest of Auto Union being deleted due to the Soviet occupation and producing the Trabant (lots of those on display as well). Also lots of other cars from DKW and Wanderer which formed the other two rings of Auto Union. Highlight are the replicas of a Typ C and Typ D race car. There's just so much weird and interesting history behind the whole Auto Union thing.
Man I LOVE this!! Thank you GPLaps!
Oooh Donny 1937, not too far from my gaff in South Yorkshire. 😁 Nice one GPLaps!!
Honestly when the Auto Unions and Mercedes cars started showing up at GPs it was a bit like taking an F1 car to an F2 race today. Everything else was so much slower compared to them.
I can't even begin to imagine how it would be to race something with this much power, yet with brakes and chassis that, while advanced for the time, where nowhere near enough for cars of such raw speed.
Isn’t that what Merc is doing the last years? 😅
I am just amazed how many opportunities you had back then to kill yourself in a race. You needed really big ⚽️ 🏀 back then.
Dude I recommend a book called The Grand Prix Saboteurs by Joe Saward. About grand prix drivers who became British secret agents during the war. Interesting read!
7:50 Well, Gand Prix of Germany 1935: Winner Tazio Nuvolari with Alfa Romeo, Hitler was not amused and they didnt even had the music for the italian anthem....But yes, it was just an episode.
Amazing stuff, crazy to think these cars were basically carts with airplane engines and bicycle tyres.
An incredible story from those times is the one of the 1935 German Grand Prix: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1935_German_Grand_Prix
Tazio Nuvolari won with an old Alfa Romeo Tipo B against far more performant German cars at the Nuerburgring... it was a time when drivers could sometimes make a crazy difference in those machines.
Nuvolari for us from Italy is a legend, there are plenty of stories about him and how crazy and heroic he was.
Love the pre-war stuff!
My god, these cars look like they're really hard to drive. Can't imagine how much guts you need to race them in real life
They’re not hard to drive, they are extremely hard to drive fast. Everyone could agree to stay at a reasonable, safe pace, but this is a race.. The moment one driver starts pushing over the safe limit, everyone else has to.
@@matttondr9282 That's a pointless distinction. You can say that literally about any car
I was lucky enough to be able to skip across the pond to attend the 2004 MotoGP British GP at Donington. This was fun seeing the old circuit layout and the difference in scenery. The old archway you drive through is still there but it just runs along close to the circuit now after you go through the Old Hairpin. Super enjoyable watch!
That Auto Union type C was special. It had a V16 engine with roller bearings everywhere. The crank shaft was bolted together in order to install all of those bearings.
This channel deserves way more eyes. I've learned a lot from watching your assorted videos
The narration is top notch, the editing and production values are sublime.
Congratulations!
Probably like seeing Hannibal's elephants for the first time by those that only heard stories. Intimidating and jaw-dropping.
The A-U Type C was actually difficult to handle compared to the rather conservative Mercedes W125. The suspension, tires and chassis could not deal with the awkward weight distribution, and drivers had much less experience driving mid-engined cars. The oversteer was snappy, extremely hard to control. It took Rosemeyer, a *flat track motorcycle* rider, to perfect the car. Another thing, the Type C had about 100hp less peak power than the W125, but it was not slower in the straight line. Thanks to the mid-rear layout, Type C had much better traction and less drag. Also had a wider power band, and a 5-speed gearbox (only 4-speed in W125). These two very different cars had an interesting balance, which made for great races in 1937. I really hope the streamliners are modded into a simulator at some point, they are my favourite racing vehicles of all time. I've only seen a very unrealistic representation in Gran Turismo. Imagine the slipstream battles on Avus, I would totally buy a sim rig and install a simulator after 5 years of not playing if the streamliners came out in good quality.
Not to forget the high torque of 850 Nm.
Just discovered your channel! Love it, can’t wait to see your growth
A rather fitting choice of music lol most excellent! As well as the track!
So little of that is recognisable as Donington. Fantastic video and effort.
I'm not sure if the trees are accurate, bit through the bridge is still at the left of the current old hairpin.
Amazing this is like the third time I've watched this, Thank You Senpei!
You are an asset to the racing sim world. Keep it up!
I love how you give credit to the content makers, doesn't happen enough.
Amazing recreation of the track and can still see the similarities to todays track, like old hairpin to starkies bridge and the Dunlop straight to the Melbourne loop. Great content as always bud 👍🏁🏁
I have been round this track a few times. (The modern version obviously lol) It is just down the road from my home, 20 minute drive at most.
You can, as I am sure you know, still see a little of that bridge and the layout is still recognisable enough that you can place yourself very quickly. Awesome to see what it looked like. This is a very believable version of the track. I think they have gotten as close as is humanly possible without a time machine.
Well done getting that thing round the track at all :D Awsome car I have a model of it.
Trees, walls, houses, bridges...plenty of ways to come to a sudden stop. Ouch! What an experience, love your channel with it's historical perspective.
Love the new intro and channel art!
i like the cars and the entire atmosphere of that era.
Interesting to see the current sections of the track; Hollywood, down the Craners, under Starkeys Bridge and back round through the houses at current Coppice Corner and down the straight past the exhibition centre.
With the new main Donington pedestrian entrance at Hollywood you can now see the original extended Melbourne hairpin section on the left as you drive round to the car park/ entrance.
IT's too bad that no other racing sim has a replay engine as good as the original GPL replay engine. The data you could extract and use from those replays was amazing. Thanks for sharing this cool version of A.C.
This is my bucket list "go back in time" event! I am fascinated by this era ! Ive been to Donington many times for sports cars and F1 Grand Prix which Senna won,and many other races!! Thanks for this. P.s The hair pin corner and the old track leading down the hill and back up is still there now, they have a sunday market on it.
u deserve more than 10k subs, love ur vids
4:24 Richard Seaman? Dick Seaman? Those old school racers were a different breed.
Another great history lesson and very impressive driving, I could not do the Auto Union 2 laps in a row without crashing. Well done Sir!
Another master piece ! Outstanding video and driving.
How do you not have more subs/views? Gonna need to give my people access to this content
doing 10 laps of the nurburgring in these things in forza was hell. and forzas not close to a sim. cant imagine what its like in AC.
Well any person who knows how to race with the wheel/clutch/shifter combo should be able to drive these, I mean you would want to practice old muscle cars etc first maybe but other than that it’s just hard focusing .
Some of the best content on youtube. Thank you very much
You need to do the 1935 German Grand Prix on the Nürburgring. Race alongside Tazio Nuvolari against the best the Germans could offer.
Jake its always a pleasure. Pristine content. 🍾
Recently came back to Sim racing, i like your content, keep it up!
Amazing track, definitely my next download.
watched another video of yours the other racing the pre- wars cars at fonteny, and liked your idea of doing pre war at donington, so i ended up racing 1930 benz SSk's there, and it was a great time.
The house is actually a farm and the track goes through the farm yard, hence the building on both sides of the track. The germans thought it very uncivilised!
Wow what a race! Love these cars and love this track!! I think I can see Prince Bira's ERA type B at the back of the grid, amazing!!
I love learning GP history from this channel, as I love racing but I don't know as much about the historical details (I'm an aviation history guy, usually)
this track is so much fun,i use it all the time.
Loving your videos mate! IMO the best sim racing content on RUclips. Would you mind uploading the skins you've created for the Auto Union and Mercedes for us?
V16 - excellent choice!
You can see the Auto Union race cars from the 1930s at the August Horch Museum in Zwickau, Germany.
It's almost as if safety was absolutely of no concern back then. The tracks seemed like death traps.
One of my favorite things to do in Assetto Corsa. Good video. Thanks!
Congrats on this - I love AC and also the Vintage cars - ( much of whom need to be tuned before use )
You GOTTA love the PC modding scene!
A wonderful piece of early / 1990s internet culture that has amazingly managed to survive into modern times (with its extremely powerful and all pervasive online profit-motive)
by sheer hobbyist passion alone! Just for the LOVE of it! Bravo all you fabtastico game modders!
💖 💖 💖
At 6:21 the hairpin and area around that is still visible at the modern day circuit and used for rallying.
Just before 6:21*
I love these classic race cars, when drivers actually had to drive the car, no traction control or abs on these beasts. GPLaps, you should put where to get these mods, thanks and keep doing these videos
I race these cars regularly in rFactor1 and they are a blast. I missed the Alfa Romeo's though. I guess they aren't converted (yet)?
No alfas in donington in 1937 sadly!
I gotta try this. Looks amazing!
Highly recommended. You will be entertained.
Scared shitless - but entertained.
Great stuff. Imagine driving one of those things round the old Nurburgring... Care to give it a go? ;)
FYI the house was probably there before it was a circuit; due to it having been an airfield before that; the circuit came later. And those cars from what footage I've ever seen didn't take modern racing lines; even in the later races post war they seem to slide more like rally cars just not quite so pronounced.
4:23.
You didn't wanna say "Dick Seaman", did you?
He did go by Richard..... poor boy
There's a video on RUclips with these cars in the rain where the commentator says "Dick Seaman blinds everyone with his spray." I couldn't help but lmao 😂
I swear I am such a doof. I watched Dick Trickle race NASCAR for years and thought nothing of his name.
Dick Trickle and Dick Seaman both unfortunate names in motorsport :p
@@Skreezilla Jack Goff is carrying on the tradition.
I used to race this track with the RedBull X2010. That was an... an exoteric experience, to say the least lol
Oh nice! You managed to replace the driver models in the Auto Union and W125!
Thank you, thank you, thank you for taking me back to the thirty's...
Wonderful cars and also scarey cars.
You may take me too more of the same race's every time...🤗🍀
I absolutely LOVE this track, added it to my classic F1 custom championship on AC
what an exhilarating vid guy
Outstanding video!
Really cool. nice video!
Would have loved to have seen Rosemeyer race. Apparently he was the Gilles of his day. I read that he was the only driver to come close to getting the most out of the Auto Union. A thousand BHP going through skinny tyres, very poor braking and a heavy, awful handling car must have been unimaginably frightening. There's an excellent 1984 documentary called Supercharged made by our state broadcaster, the BBC as part of their Horizon series, about this period. ruclips.net/video/NCP_GJ8JBOE/видео.html
Great video, thank you !
Bro the car in front of you wheelspins like there's no tomorrow 😂
@4.20... GPL mentions Richard Seamen, a very successful British racing driver. Everybody called him Dick Seamen. No, really, they did.
please keep going.
I went to see rock bands at Donnington!
Wonder if anyone will ever make/ has made a Circuito Montenero mod, would love to see that track. Not the longest ever Italian track, Pescara was longer but the layout wasn't as interesting. Montenero is what i consider the Italian Nordschleife with the layout used from 1922-35. Looking at the road map of the layout it looks like it'd be a blast to drive.
Simply stunning looking, the sound is amazing, just beautiful to watch 👍😊😍
Man these cars had insane wheelspin.
Where can I find the video you talk about in the beginning where someone gives the history of the race?
I always think before a video like this: Way too long and probably will get bored after a minute
What it always turns out to be like: Already finished? daaamn
try Silver Arrows mod 1937 for rFactor, i’m sure despite the age the physics there is better than in arcade Assetto Corsa.
Strictly-speaking, this was the third of four Donington GPs.
For those interested in this era of racing but unaware of the history there is fiim made by Shell: The History of Motor Racing Volume 4 'The Titans' (www.dailymotion.com/video/xj3rj7) which shows these cars racing in period.
Put a set of 80s Slicks in the Auto Union !!! And the brakes ...