User:4u1e/Achille Varzi

Achille Varzi (8 August 1904 – 1 July 1948) was an Italian motorcycle road racer and racing driver. Considered one of the best drivers of the inter-war period, Varzi remains famous for his safe driving style as well as his rivalry with Tazio Nuvolari.

Born in Galliate in the Kingdom of Italy to a well-off family, Varzi discovered motorcycle racing in 1921 at the age of 17. The following year, he won his first race before becoming Italian 350cc motorcycling champion in 1923. He became friends with Tazio Nuvolari, another young Italian motorcycle racer, and the pair rapidly established themselves as the stars of the discipline, with Varzi winning the Italian 500cc title in 1926. Both also started racing cars and in 1928, Varzi joined Nuvolari in his new team, Scuderia Nuvolari. Regularly beaten in cars by his compatriot as the year went on, Varzi left and bought a share in an Alfa Romeo P2, with which he won the 1929 Italian Driver's Championship. The next year, he won the Targa Florio for the works Alfa team, a major victory and the first by an Italian car in this race for five years. Victorious in another three races driving a Maserati, he retained his Italian title and maintained his advantage over Nuvolari.

The 1931 season saw the creation of the European Drivers' Championship. Varzi, now a works Bugatti driver, won that year's French Grand Prix sharing a drive with Louis Chiron and finished sixth in the championship. He stayed with Bugatti until 1934, when he joined Scuderia Ferrari and, although there was no European championship that year, won six races and his third Italian title. When the European Drivers' Championship was revived at the start of the 1935 season, he was recruited by the German Auto Union team. In the aftermath of the 1936 Tripoli Grand Prix, fixed in his favour by the Axis powers, he was introduced to morphine by his mistress Ilse Pietsch, the wife of his team mate Paul Pietsch. Becoming addicted to the drug, he distanced himself from the circuits and only competed in four races between 1937 and 1938.

During the Second World War he conquered his morphine addiction, separated from Ilse Pietsch and married a former girlfriend. When motor racing restarted in Europe in 1946, Varzi returned to the tracks. During the European off-season, he regularly travelled to Argentina, where he won several races. Varzi considered retiring to start a racing drivers' school, but was killed in an accident in the rain during the 1948 Swiss Grand Prix at Bremgarten bei bern. Category:Articles containing Spanish-language text

Varzi's influence was such that the Argentine Automobile Club founded the Scuderia Achille Varzi

Biography

Early life

Achillle Varzi was born on the 8th August 1904 in Galliate in the Kingdom of Italy, to wealthy parents, Giuseppina Colli Lanzi and Menotti Varzi. His father worked in the family cotton manufacturing business, Rossari e Varzi

Achille Varzi raced a Sunbeam motorcycle contemporary with the one pictured in his early years of competition.

By the age of seventeen, Varzi was racing officially with his father's agreement. In 1922, he won his first race, the Circuito del Tigullio

Varzi's career, until then confined to Italy, took on an international air which led him to devote himself entirely to riding 500 cc motorcycles. In June 1924, he took part in the Tourist Trophy on the Isle of Man, one of the most important motorcycle races. During the race, he chose to hit a wall in order to avoid running over a local rider who had fallen just in front of him. He was slightly hurt and had to abandon the race but won the Nisbet Shield for fair play, further boosting his popularity.

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The same year, despite five victories (Catalonia, Varese, Pontassieve, Parma and Naples), Varzi was dominated by Tazio Nuvolari in the Italian championship. The two men met face to face during the Circuito di Parma

Varzi continued his career on two wheels, riding a 500 cc Sunbeam. The 1925 season was a difficult one: he retired from eight of the 13 races he entered, winning just one of them, the Circuito di Novara

Achille Varzi took part in his first Grand Prix in 1926 in Milan, driving a Bugatti Type 37 as illustrated here. Although he did not finish the race, the experience gave him a taste for motor racing.

The results improved the following year. Although he retired from the first race of the season at Ostia, Varzi then finished three consecutive races towards the front of the field, including a second place at the motorcycling Targo Florio. At Turin he won his first victory of the season and repeated the feat in the next race at Stradella. He finished seventh in the senior category in the Tourist Trophy at the Isle of Man, again winning the Visitors' Cup. After this British interlude, he returned to Italy, scoring more good finishes before taking four consecutive victories at Rimini, Monza (for the Italian Motorcycle Grand Prix), Lodi and Mantua, allowing him to become Italian motorcycle racing champion in the 500 cc category. Category:Articles containing Italian-language text Category:Articles containing explicitly cited English-language text

At the end of the season, Varzi tried his hand at driving a racing car during a test session organised by the Club dei Cento all'Ora

In 1927, Varzi became an official rider for Moto Guzzi, then for the Bianchi team for whom Nuvolari was also riding, but could not match his results of the previous season. After an encouraging start and a win at the Circuito del Savio

The arms race

1928: first steps in cars and the beginning of his rivalry with Nuvolari

Tazio Nuvolari, like Emilio Materassi the year before, had just created his own motor racing team, Scuderia Nuvolari, and suggested that Varzi join him. Varzi joined forces with Amedeo Bignami, a mechanic who had started his career with Alfa Corse and would stay faithful to Varzi to the end of his career and, with the help of Cesare Pastore, acquired a Bugatti Type 35 for the start of the 1928 season at the Tripoli Grand Prix. Nuvolari won the race with a significant lead over Varzi, who was third

In parallel, he carried on in motorcycle competition where his performances were better: in four races he took two victories, at the Circuito del Lario

Trois semaines plus tard se tient le Grand Prix de Tripoli ; Joachim von Ribbentrop, le nouvel ambassadeur du Troisième Reich auprès du Royaume-Uni, préconise, pour favoriser la bonne entente avec l'Italie, qu'un Italien remporte l'épreuve[./Achille_Varzi#cite_note-unique-1 [1]]Coppa Acerbo

Notes et références

Citations originales

[[:Category:Knights of the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic]] [[:Category:20th-century Italian people]] [[:Category:Italian racing drivers]] [[:Category:Grand Prix drivers]] [[:Category:Italian motorcycle racers]] [[:Category:24 Hours of Le Mans drivers]] [[:Category:Racing drivers killed while racing]]