The Ferrari Dino was always my favorite racing car, but that was as much to do with the two seasons I was a member of Scuderia Ferrari as the car itself. First, I had been approached by two suspicious looking Italian gentlemen at the British Motor Show in London in October 1958. These two took me to one side and told me that Enzo Ferrari wanted to talk to me. I had had a successful 500-cc F3 career and was getting on with the Lotus 12 and 16 in Grand Prix races, but it just wasn’t reliable because Colin (Chapman) would build them so light.
I went to Modena right away and met Mr. Ferrari and was driving cars at the Modena circuit immediately. I was very pleased to think I could race a Ferrari in a Grand Prix because it was likely that the parts wouldn’t fall off! The agreement was that I would drive sports cars and have a regular F1 drive. It turned out that Mike Hawthorn had made the recommendation that Mr. Ferrari consider Phil Hill and myself for the team. The 1958 season had been a disaster for Ferrari with the deaths of Collins and Musso, and then Mike was killed at the beginning of 1959.
I had my first race at the Monaco Grand Prix…almost…in the F2 version of the Dino, the 156. The chassis was very similar but it had the smaller engine. However, it didn’t matter much at Monaco because von Trips went off in the Porsche and Bruce Halford and I hit him…but the car was nice to drive, and was very strong. I then raced the 246 at Zandvoort and had the same chassis for most of the season. In Holland, the tires were swapped around in practice and I never set a qualifying time and started at the back but finished 9th. It wasn’t a great race but it gave me the chance to get used to the car and begin to understand how the understeer of that car could be used to your advantage.
But it was at the German Grand Prix at Avus that I discovered just how fast the 246 Dino could be, especially if you weren’t afraid of it. The race was to be run in two heats and it looked like the speed of the Ferraris would make it an easy race for the Scuderia. If you look at the grid sheet, you will see Tony Brooks on pole from Moss’s Cooper and Gurney in the other Dino, with Phil Hill on the second row. But I was fastest. In the first session, I was having a bit of trouble keeping up. The other Ferraris were flat through the corner onto the fastest straight but then lifted on the straight when they reached top revs. I thought it was odd because I was getting fewer revs on the straight and had been lifting on the corner. So I went through the North Turn flat and came rocketing out of the corner on the top of the banking with the rear of the car trying to get past me. When I came in, they were all shouting because I was quickest, but had to start at the back because I was a reserve car! It didn’t matter because the clutch broke, but that’s when I found out what it was like to drive the fastest Grand Prix car of the time on the fastest track. I never forgot that. (As told to Ed McDonough shortly before Allison’s death.)
