Mike Hawthorn

For other people of a similar name, see Mike Hawthorne.

Mike Hawthorn

Born	10 April 1929(1929-04-10)
Died	22 January 1959(1959-01-22) (aged 29)
Formula One World Championship career
Nationality	British
Active years	1952 - 1958
Teams	LD Hawthorn, AHM Bryde, Ferrari, Vanwall, BRM
Races	47 (45 starts)
Championships	1 (1958)
Wins	3
Podiums	18
Career points	112.64 (127.64)[1]
Pole positions	4
Fastest laps	6
First race	1952 Belgian Grand Prix
First win	1953 French Grand Prix
Last win	1958 French Grand Prix
Last race	1958 Moroccan Grand Prix

24 Hours of Le Mans career
Participating years	1953, 1955 – 1958
Teams	Jaguar Cars Scuderia Ferrari
Best finish	1st (1955)
Class wins	1 (1955)

John Michael Hawthorn (10 April 1929 - 22 January 1959) was a racing driver, born in Mexborough, Yorkshire, England, and educated at Ardingly College, West Sussex.

Racing career

Mike Hawthorn made his competition debut driving his 1934 Riley Ulster Imp, KV 9475, winning the 1,100 c.c. sports car class at the Brighton Speed Trials on September 2, 1950.^[2] In 1951 he won the Motor Sport Brooklands Memorial Trophy, a season-long contest run at Goodwood, driving his 1½-litre T.T. Riley, by one point.^[3] He also won the Ulster Trophy Handicap at Dundrod and the Leinster Trophy at Wicklow that year.^[4]

Hawthorn made his Formula One debut at the 1952 Belgian Grand Prix, finishing an impressive 4th place. He would later win his first Grand Prix, at only the 9th attempt, when he won the 1953 French Grand Prix at Reims.

In 1955, Hawthorn was the winner of the 24 hours of Le Mans race, despite being involved in the terrible crash that killed 84 spectators and fellow racer Pierre Levegh. In 1957, Hawthorn joined the Ferrari factory team, and soon became fast friends with Peter Collins, a fellow Englishman and Ferrari team driver. During the 1958 racing season, the two Englishmen became engaged in a rivalry with Luigi Musso, another Ferrari driver, that spurred all three in a fierce competition for prize money. Hawthorn was the winner of the fateful 1958 French Grand Prix at Rheims, in which Musso was killed while holding second place. Stirling Moss, driving for Vanwall, eventually took second place in the race, with Peter Collins coming in fifth.

Hawthorn drove his Ferrari at the 1958 Argentine Grand Prix.

Hawthorn was the winner of the 1958 Formula One Championship. With only one win that year against four wins of Stirling Moss, he benefited greatly from the gentlemanliness of Moss as shown at the Portuguese Grand Prix of Porto. Hawthorn was disqualified for pushing his car, against the rules, on the way to a second place finish. Moss interceded on Hawthorn's behalf and the decision was ultimately reversed. Those second place points at Porto contributed to Hawthorn winning the championship with a season total just one point more than that of Moss.

After winning the title, Hawthorn immediately announced his retirement from Formula One, having been badly affected by the death of his close friend and Ferrari team mate Peter Collins in that year's German Grand Prix.

Rivalry with Luigi Musso

Many years after the death of Mike Hawthorn, Fiamma Breschi, Luigi Musso's girlfriend at the time of his death, revealed the nature of Musso's rivalry with fellow Ferrari drivers Mike Hawthorn and Collins in a television documentary, The Secret Life of Enzo Ferrari. Breschi recalled that the antagonism between Musso and the two English drivers, encouraged all three to take more risks:

"The Englishmen (Hawthorn and Collins) had an agreement," she says. "Whichever of them won, they would share the winnings equally. It was the two of them against Luigi, who was not part of the agreement. Strength comes in numbers, and they were united against him. This antagonism was actually favourable rather than damaging to Ferrari. The faster the drivers went, the more likely it was that a Ferrari would win." Breschi related that Musso was in debt at the time of his death, and the money for winning the 1958 French Grand Prix (traditionally the largest monetary prize of the season), was all-important to him.

After visiting the mortally-wounded Musso in hospital, Breschi returned to her hotel, where she and the rest of the Ferrari team were informed by the team manager that afternoon that Musso had died. By the end of that year Collins and Hawthorn were also dead, and Breschi could not suppress a feeling of release. "I had hated them both," she said, "first because I was aware of certain facts that were not right, and also because when I came out of the hospital and went back to the hotel, I found them in the square outside the hotel, laughing and playing a game of football with an empty beer can. So when they died, too, it was liberating for me. Otherwise I would have had unpleasant feelings towards them forever. This way I could find a sense of peace."^[5]

Death

Hawthorn had previously lost a kidney to infection and began suffering problems with his remaining kidney in 1955. He was expected at the time to live only a few more years.^[6]

A matter of only months into his retirement, on 22 January 1959, Hawthorn died in a road accident on the A3 bypass near Guildford driving his British Racing Green highly tuned Jaguar 3.4-litre sedan (now known as the 3.4 Mk 1). What happened that day is still unknown, suggested causes being driver error, mechanical failure, or blackout. The crash has been ascribed to a combination of high speed, bad weather, competitiveness and impulsiveness. Rob Walker's 300 SL Mercedes was ahead of him. Perhaps Hawthorn pushed his car to pass Walker's. Hawthorn's Jaguar, nicknamed "the Merceater", was heavily modified for high power and speed. "No Kraut car could overtake or outaccelerate" Hawthorn's Jaguar (these are the words in his biography Challenge Me The Race) - a close relation had been killed in the war, hence his dislike of Germans.

There is now evidence that Hawthorn had recently become subject to blackouts, perhaps because of kidney failure, that might well have caused the accident.^[7]

In Farnham, the town where he lived up to the time of his death, there is a street named Mike Hawthorn Drive (off Dogflud Way). It was also in this town that Hawthorn ran The Tourist Trophy Garage. Jaguars, Rileys, Fiats, and Ferraris were serviced and sold from there.

There is a corner named after him at the Croft racing circuit, at Croft on Tees in North Yorkshire.

Complete World Championship results

(key) (Races in bold indicate pole position; races in italics indicate fastest lap)

Year	Entrant	Chassis	Engine	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	WDC	Pts.[1]
1952	LD Hawthorn	Cooper T20	Bristol I6	SUI	500	BEL 4		GBR 3	GER	NED 4	ITA Ret				5th	10
	AHM Bryde	Cooper T20	Bristol I6				FRA Ret
1953	Scuderia Ferrari	Ferrari 500	Ferrari I4	ARG 4	500	NED 4	BEL 6	FRA 1	GBR 5	GER 3	SUI 3	ITA 4			4th	19 (27)
1954	Scuderia Ferrari	Ferrari 625	Ferrari I4	ARG DSQ	500	BEL 4*		GBR 2	GER 2*	SUI Ret	ITA 2				3rd	24.64
		Ferrari 553	Ferrari I4				FRA Ret					ESP 1
1955	Vandervell Products Ltd.	Vanwall	Vanwall I4	ARG	MON Ret	500	BEL Ret								NC	0
	Scuderia Ferrari	Ferrari 555	Ferrari I4					NED 7		ITA 10
		Ferrari 625	Ferrari I4						GBR 6*
1956	Owen Racing Organisation	Maserati 250F	Maserati I6	ARG 3			BEL DNS								12th	4
		BRM P25	BRM I4		MON DNS	500			GBR Ret	GER	ITA
	Vandervell Products Ltd.	Vanwall	Vanwall I4					FRA 10*
1957	Scuderia Ferrari	Lancia-Ferrari D50A	Lancia V8	ARG Ret	MON Ret	500									4th	13
		Ferrari 801	Lancia V8				FRA 4	GBR 3	GER 2	PES	ITA 6
1958	Scuderia Ferrari	Ferrari Dino 246	Ferrari V6	ARG 3	MON Ret	NED 5	500	BEL 2	FRA 1	GBR 2	GER Ret	POR 2	ITA 2	MOR 2	1st	42 (49)

* Indicates Shared Drive

Hawthorn Memorial Trophy

The Hawthorn Memorial Trophy has been awarded to the most successful British or Commonwealth F1 driver every year since 1959.^[8]

  Winners

(Formula One World Drivers' Champions of the year in bold)

Year	Winner
1959	Jack Brabham
1960	Jack Brabham (2)
1961	Stirling Moss
1962	Graham Hill
1963	Jim Clark
1964	John Surtees
1965	Jim Clark (2)
1966	Jack Brabham (3)
1967	Denny Hulme
1968	Graham Hill (2)
1969	Jackie Stewart
1970	Denny Hulme (2)
1971	Jackie Stewart (2)
1972	Jackie Stewart (3)
1973	Jackie Stewart (4)
1974	Denny Hulme (3)
1975	James Hunt
1976	James Hunt (2)
1977	James Hunt (3)
1978	John Watson
1979	Alan Jones*
1980	Alan Jones (2)
1981	Alan Jones (3)
1982	John Watson (2)
1983	John Watson (3)
1984	Derek Warwick
1985	Nigel Mansell
1986	Nigel Mansell (2)
1987	Nigel Mansell (3)
1988	Derek Warwick (2)
1989	Nigel Mansell (4)
1990	Nigel Mansell (5)
1991	Nigel Mansell (6)
1992	Nigel Mansell (7)
1993	Damon Hill
1994	Damon Hill (2)
1995	Damon Hill (3)
1996	Damon Hill (4)
1997	Jacques Villeneuve
1998	David Coulthard
1999	Eddie Irvine
2000	David Coulthard (2)
2001	David Coulthard (3)
2002	David Coulthard (4)
2003	David Coulthard (5)
2004	Jenson Button
2005	Jenson Button (2)
2006	Jenson Button (3)
2007	Lewis Hamilton
2008	Lewis Hamilton (2)
2009	Jenson Button (4)
2010	Mark Webber

*In 1979, the trophy was not given to Gilles Villeneuve, a Canadian driver, who finished the season as runner-up but ahead of Alan Jones who finished third.

References

1. ^ ^{a b} Up until 1990, not all points scored by a driver contributed to their final World Championship tally (see list of points scoring systems for more information). Numbers without parentheses are Championship points; numbers in parentheses are total points scored.
2. ^ Motor Sport, October 1950, Page 493; Motor Sport, August 1951, Page 379.
3. ^ Motor Sport, September 1951, Page 432.
4. ^ Motor Sport, January 1952, Page 11.
5. ^ Williams, Richard, Richard Williams Talks to Fiamma Breschi, the Woman Behind Enzo Ferrari, The Guardian, 22 January 2004
6. ^ Deadliest Crash:the Le Mans 1955 Disaster BBC Four documentary, broadcast 16-May-2010
7. ^ http://www.mike-hawthorn.org.uk
8. ^ "Button receives Hawthorn Trophy". racecar.com. 2007-07-08. http://www.racecar.com/story.asp?NewsID=17848. Retrieved 2007-07-16. 

External links

Biography portal

• The Mike Hawthorn Tribute Site
• Mike Hawthorn at Find a Grave

Sporting positions
Preceded by Lance Macklin	BRDC International Trophy winner 1953	Succeeded by José Froilán González
Preceded by José Froilán González Maurice Trintignant	Winner of the 24 Hours of Le Mans 1955 with: Ivor Bueb	Succeeded by Ron Flockhart Ninian Sanderson
Preceded by Juan Manuel Fangio	Formula One World Champion 1958	Succeeded by Jack Brabham
Records
Preceded by Alberto Ascari 34 years, 16 days (1952 season)	Youngest Formula One World Drivers' Champion 29 years, 192 days (1958 season)	Succeeded by Jim Clark 27 years, 188 days (1963 season)

Persondata
Name	Hawthorn, Mike
Alternative names	Hawthorn, John Michael
Short description	English racing driver
Date of birth	April 10, 1929
Place of birth	Mexborough, Yorkshire, England
Date of death	January 22, 1959
Place of death	A3 Guildford bypass