Belgian GP 1952

Belgian GP, 1952

The second round of the World Championship came a month after the Swiss Grand Prix, during which time Ferrari had picked up wins in a variety of races across the Continent. As the teams gathered for the race there came the sad news that Luigi Fagioli had died in hospital as a result of his crash on May 31 in the sportscar Grand Prix at Monaco.

The Maserati team was still not ready with its new cars and its lead driver Juan-Manuel Fangio was out of action after suffering serious back injuries in the non-championship Monza GP. This left Ferrari was once against up against Gordini, HWM and a colorful mixture of others in Cooper-Bristols, an ERA (with Stirling Moss driving), an Aston-Butterworth, a Frazer-Nash and a Veritas-Meteor.

Practice ended with Piero Taruffi fastest in his Ferrari followed by his teammates Giuseppe Farina and Alberto Ascari. Jean Behra and Robert Manzon shared the second row in their Gordinis while Paul Frere (HWM), Ken Wharton (Frazer-Nash) and Mike Hawthorn (Cooper-Bristol) lined up on the third row.

It was raining when the race began and Taruffi made a bad start to drop down the field while Behra used all his skill to get ahead of Ascari and Farina on the first lap. Moss also drove a tremendous half a lap before his ERA broke down. Ascari and Farina soon overtook Behra while Taruffi battled through the field and eventually took third from Behra on lap 13. Taruffi then spun at Malmedy and Behra hit him. On the same lap Manzon overtook Hawthorn to run third. Hawthorn's car later started leaking fuel but managed to hold on to fourth place. Fifth went to Frere and sixth to Alan Brown's Cooper-Bristol.

POSNODRIVERENTRANTLAPSTIME/RETIREMENTQUAL POS
Alberto Ascari Ferrari 500 36 3h03m46.300s  
Giuseppe Farina Ferrari 500 36 3h05m41.500s  
14 Robert Manzon Gordini T16 36 3h08m14.700s  
Mike Hawthorn Cooper-Bristol T20 35  
28 Paul Frere HWM-Alta (52) 34  
10 Alan Brown Cooper-Bristol T20 34  
34 Charles de Tornaco Ferrari 500 33  13 
18 Johnny Claes Gordini T16S 33  19 
12 Eric Brandon Cooper-Bristol T20 33  12 
10 20 Prince Bira Simca Gordini-Gordini T15 32  18 
11 24 Lance Macklin HWM-Alta (52) 32  14 
12 30 Roger Laurent HWM-Alta (52) 32  20 
13 38 Arthur Legat Veritas METEOR 31  21 
14 44 Robert O‘‚  Brien Simca Gordini-Gordini T15 30  22 
15 42 Tony Gaze HWM-Alta (51) 30  16 
40 Robert Montgomerie-Charrington Aston-Butterworth NB 17 Misfire 15 
16 Jean Behra Gordini T16 13 Accident 
Piero Taruffi Ferrari 500 13 Accident 
36 Ken Wharton Frazer Nash-Bristol FN48 10 Accident 
22 Louis Rosier Ferrari 500 Transmission 17 
26 Peter Collins HWM-Alta (52) Drive Shaft 11 
32 Stirling Moss ERA-BristolAccident 10