3/19/2003

Auto Racing in Switzerland

The 1955 Le Mans race may be the most remembered motor race in history. A rear axle from a flaming, tumbling Mercedes flew off the car and into the crowd killing eighty-four spectators.

The race was also the scene of a titanic struggle between Britain and Germany, Jaguar and Mercedes-Benz. Stirling Moss and Juan-Manuel Fangio in a Mercedes 300SLR equipped with a flap air-brake held off the challenge of the disc-braked D-Type Jaguar of Mike Hawthorn and Ivor Bueb. Mercedes withdrew their team after the accident - and from racing for more than thirty years - and the Jaguars went on to score a 1-2-3 clean sweep.

After that deadly race, Switzerland outlawed automobile racing. Now it seems they may allow auto racing again.
According to reports in the Motorsport Aktuell, a member of the Nationalrat, the Swiss national parliament, has initiated a bill to lift the ban on motor racing in Switzerland in the hope that the Formula One circus may return there in the future.
A Swiss Grand Prix race makes a lot more sense than this.