Race report – 1934 IX Gran Premio de España

DARING DEEDS AND DESPERATE DRIVES UNDER THE BASQUE SUN — THE 1934 IX GRAN PREMIO DE ESPAÑA!

Lasarte, San Sebastian, 23 September 1934 — The seventeenth round of the Golden Era Championship descended upon the magnificent and undulating public road circuit of Lasarte today, where the scent of salt air from the Bay of Biscay mingled with the heady aroma of burnt castor oil and high-octane spirit. Nineteen brave souls brought their shimmering steeds to the starting line for a thirty-lap test of mechanical fortitude that would prove to be one of the most punishing endurance trials in recent memory. Under a sky that shifted from brilliant clarity to an ominous, overcast grey, the drivers prepared for two and a half hours of sheer, unadulterated peril upon a circuit known for its narrow passages and unforgiving Basque timber.

The contest commenced with a traditional standing start that saw the front row occupied by the formidable TissiTuning Racing duo, Markus Peltonen and Eetu Nurmi, both piloting the dominant Alfa Romeo P3s. As the flag dropped, the pair roared away into the first sweeping corners, but the serenity of the lead was short-lived for the TissiTuning camp. In the opening lap, a truly spectacular and somewhat baffling sequence of events unfolded behind the leaders when Evadne Cleo, handling her Talbot 700, became embroiled in a scenic tour of the local vegetation that would have made a botanist proud. Cleo’s machine found itself trapped behind a particularly persistent and lengthy fence, and her struggle to return to the tarmac unfortunately placed her directly in the path of the oncoming Nurmi. The resulting collision left Nurmi with a triple puncture and a shattered supercharger, a mechanical heart attack that forced the pre-race favourite into nearly premature retirement, though he heroically returned much later to complete a the race and get the symphaties of the spectators.

While Nurmi dealt with his misfortune, the race at the front transformed into a blistering duel between Peltonen and Bugatti ace Anssi Hyytiainen, the latter of whom displayed such terrifying velocity in his Bugatti T59 that he soon seized the lead and set the fastest lap of the day at five minutes and 05.386 seconds. Hyytiainen’s mastery of the Lasarte roads was a sight to behold until the cruel hand of fate—and a stationary Max Kamiński—intervened. Kamiński, whose Delage 15S8 had spent much of the morning in “mustache mode” with its front wheels pointing in entirely different directions, had become a mobile chicane of the most dangerous variety. Hyytiainen’s collision with the beached Delage handed the lead back to Peltonen and began a downward spiral for the Bugatti pilot that eventually saw him depart the contest after fifteen laps after continuos struggle with the slippery and oil tarnished road. After the race he complained that he didn’t see the warning flags nor the oil slicks due to his new goggles he was testing. He had recently started to invest in a new company founded by his friend Ray Ban, that said he had invented new goggles that made it easier to see in direct sunlight. We don’t forecast a bright future for his endeavours in the market… Even the investing part might be in danger as the couple was seen wrestling in the nearby field in not-so-fiendly manner after the race.

As the field thinned, a magnificent struggle for the podium positions developed between Drik Crozet—frequently and humorously mispronounced as “Crosette” by the local announcers—and Daniel Withoeft. Crozet’s blue Bugatti hounded Withoeft’s Alfa Romeo for lap after lap, providing the crowd with a masterclass in slipstreaming before Crozet finally lunged through on the inside with a maneuver of exceptional daring. Alas, the “Black Gold” of Lasarte soon made its appearance when Kent LeFredge’s Bugatti suffered a catastrophic failure, generously sharing its internal lubricants with the racing line. Crozet was the most notable victim of this oil slick, suffering a terrifying spin that damaged his suspension and eventually relegated him to a seventh-place finish after a desperate final pit stop.

The mid-field was a theatre of dogged persistence and tragicomical mechanical tragedy. Federico Juan Quintero Megías, piloting the “Pacific Storm” Delage, found himself in a most unenviable position when one of his wheels appeared to become permanently buried in the local cement. Ruy Lázaro operated his Maserati 8CM as a mobile smoke screen for several laps, likely causing more respiratory distress to his rivals than tactical disadvantage, before his wheels assumed the same wayward angles as Kamiński’s. Henrik Pekkanen and Ville Korkiakoski both battled through various environmental impacts to keep their machines circulating, while Trevor Fall provided the day’s soundtrack in a “very angry” ERA Type A that roared with a ferocity that seemed entirely disproportionate to its size. Vesa Tolonen also endured a difficult afternoon, spending several laps changing new rubber on several ocacsions while simultaneously wrestling his Alfa Romeo out of the Spanish shrubbery.

In the closing stages, the battle for victory narrowed to Peltonen and Kari Uotila. Uotila, who had driven with the consistency of a clockwork toy in his Bugatti T59, found himself leading late in the race after Peltonen made a tactical pit stop for fresh rubber. However, the fresh tires on Peltonen’s Alfa Romeo proved too much for the sliding Bugatti of Uotila; on the twenty-eighth lap, Peltonen capitalised on a slight over-rotation by Uotila to reclaim the lead for the final time. Alex Henry and Heru Lah both demonstrated exceptional grit to navigate their battered machines through the final laps, with Henry securing a commendable fourth place despite the high attrition. Alex Campbell also struggled valiantly with environmental collisions in his Bugatti T51a, eventually joining the growing list of those defeated by the Lasarte roads.

As the final flag fell, Peltonen crossed the line to secure a hard-fought victory, followed twelve seconds later by Uotila, with a jubilant Kai Syvertsen claiming the final podium spot after an afternoon of remarkably clean driving. Only eight of the twenty starters were deemed to have truly survived the ordeal, a testament to the fact that at Lasarte, the ultimate prize is often awarded to the driver whose machine simply refuses to fall apart until after the finish line.

Official Results

Race broadcast