Mike Hawthorn

This is a photo my brother took in the paddock at the Gold Cup meeting at Oulton Park in September 1955.

It's Mike Hawthorn who drove one of Ferrari's recently acquired Lancia D50s in the Gold Cup race, finishing in second place to Stirling Moss in his Maserati 250F. Mike Hawthorn had won the Le Mans 24 Hour race earlier that year following the dreadful accident when Pierre Levegh and 83 spectators were killed when his Mercedes Benz 300SLR crashed into the crowd in the grandstand opposite the pits after colliding with Lance Macklin's Austin Healey 100S. In 1958 Mike Hawthorn won the World Drivers' Championship despite only winning one race out of the 10 contested but finished in second place in 5 races, whilst Stirling Moss won 4 races but only finished in second place in the Championship - the only other points he won were for a solitary second place. At this Gold Cup meeting Mike Hawthorn's team mate Eugenio Castellotti finished in seventh place and my brother took a photo of his car returning to the paddock after the race with the nose of Mike Hawthorn's car showing just behind it.