Alfred Neubauer
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Alfred Neubauer (born March 29, 1891 in Maehrisch-Ostrau; died August 22, 1980 in Stuttgart) was the legendary racing manager of the Mercedes Grand Prix team from 1926 to 1955.
Neubauer was involved in the repair of motor vehicles while an officer in the Imperial Austrian army. After the First World War, he joined the Austrian car manufacturer Austro-Daimler, where Ferdinand Porsche appointed him chief tester. From 1922 onwards, Neubauer also drove in races, but without any great success. In 1923, when Ferdinand Porsche moved to the Daimler Works at Stuttgart (Daimler-Benz was not founded until 1926), he took Neubauer with him. In 1926, recognizing that he himself was not a great racing driver, Neubauer had an inspiration. He invented the position of racing team manager (Rennleiter).
Racing drivers in those days being isolated from the outside, they often did not know their position in a race. Occasionally a driver would be surprised to learn after a race that he had won. To overcome this situation, Alfred Neubauer devised a well thought-out system, with flags and boards, to give his drivers tactical information. When he tried out the system for the first time at the Solitude races on September 12, 1926, the chief steward demanded angrily that he leave the track, since his ‘antics’ were irritating the drivers. To Neubauer’s explanation that he was the Rennleiter, the organizer responded: ‘Are you mad? I’m the Rennleiter’.
The Mercedes team was soon winning races with SS and SSK racing cars, frequently in the hands of Rudolf Caracciola, the best driver of those days. Neubauer’s contribution lay not just in his tactical skill, but also in the perfectionist, almost military drill of the pit crew, which constantly gave the team a time advantage over its rivals.
Neubauer’s organization at the Mille Miglia in 1931 was a master stroke. To reach each staging post before Caracciola arrived, he repeatedly criss-crossed Italy with his team.
The period of greatest success was the Silver Arrow era, which almost began with a flop. The rules prescribed a weight limit of 750 kg. One day before the new cars’ first race, they weighed in at 751 kg. Neubauer and Manfred von Brauchitsch eventually came up with the idea of removing the white paint. The silver-coloured aluminium bodywork was exposed, and the Silver Arrows were born.
The Silver Arrow years were dominated by German racing cars and the rivalry between Mercedes-Benz and Auto Union. In its most successful phase, the Mercedes team’s regular drivers were Rudolf Caracciola, Hermann Lang, Manfred von Brauchitsch and Richard Seaman.
After the Second World War, Mercedes-Benz was anxious to return to racing as soon as possible, but a new formula was announced for 1954, and there was insufficient time to produce a new model. As a compromise solution, the design of the Mercedes 300 was adapted. The result was a new racing car, the Mercedes 300SL.
With this car, Neubauer achieved victories at the Carrera Panamericana and the Le Mans 24-hour race. When Mercedes cars returned to Grand Prix racing in 1954, the new silver Arrows proved to be superior as they had been before the war. Juan Manuel Fangio was World Champion in 1954 and 1955.
Probably Neubauer’s blackest day as racing manager was at Le Mans in 1955, when a Mercedes 300SLR, through no fault of car or driver, was catapulted into the crowd, killing 80 people. After consultation with Stuttgart, Neubauer withdrew the remaining cars from the event.
After the shock of Le Mans, Mercedes withdrew from racing altogether, and Alfred Neubauer retired. As he and Juan Manuel Fangio spread dustcloths over the racing cars, now destined to be museum exhibits, there were tears in his eyes.
