Wolfgang Graf Berghe von Trips: What a fine man …

10 September 1961: Exactly 45 years ago today, Wolfgang Graf Berghe von Trips lost his life at the Italian Grand Prix in Monza – he was thrown from his Ferrari, broke his neck on impact and died instantly. Until then, he had been well on his way to becoming Formula 1 World Champion.

Deep mourning gripped the international, but particularly the German, motor racing community, as it had lost one of the most likeable, talented and dazzling racing heroes of his time.

As a 13-year-old lad, I went to the Nürburgring for the first time: the 1,000 km race in 1958. I knew them all from photographs – my idols. Moss, Bonnier, von Trips, Herrmann and all the others. I’d memorised their faces a dozen times over.

After a while, standing at a spot at the exit of the Südkehre, I started to get a bit bored and wandered along the back straight towards the Nordkehre. There was a restaurant there; if I remember correctly, it was called the Mercedes-Haus. People were standing around in small groups – nothing particularly exciting.

I was just about to turn back. That’s when I saw him – talking to two or three other men: Wolfgang Graf Berghe von Trips, in the flesh. At first, I couldn’t believe my eyes. But the longer I looked, the clearer it became to me: it’s him!

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He was taking a break; Olivier Gendebien was driving the Ferrari 250 TR, and the pair of them eventually finished third overall. Partly because I was too shy, and partly because I didn’t want to interrupt the conversation, I didn’t speak to him at first. But then I plucked up the courage.

‘Excuse me, could I have an autograph?’ I asked politely. The Count clearly liked that. I got his autograph, and then he wanted to know how I was getting on or something like that. I chattered away, telling him I was a huge fan and that my greatest wish was simply to get into the paddock just once.

What had been an impossible dream just minutes earlier – Trips made it come true. “Come with me.” When the incorruptible guard at the paddock entrance asked for my entry pass, the star simply said: ‘Never mind, this young man’s with me.’ That settled the matter. And from then on, von Trips was the greatest in my eyes. What a fine man!

Someone who knew this better than anyone else – having experienced him at first hand, so to speak, as a contemporary, a friend and a rival – was his racing colleague Hans Herrmann.

In an interview I conducted with him many years ago, Herrmann described him as follows: “Everyone treated him with great respect and affection, simply because he was such a nice chap. You could always tell, from the moment you first met him right up until his death, that he’d had a first-class upbringing. Wolfgang was simply a charming, fine chap.’