The lost winners of the Gordon Bennett Cup
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by user Alex Holowczak
The auto racing Gordon Bennett Cup was the revolutionary factor behind Motor Sport in the early 20th century.
It was nation against nation, and the winner had the right to host the following years event.
The race stopped in 1906 though, when having won the Cup for the 4th time, the French organised the first "Grand Prix".
However, I've decided to go through and see who would win it if it continued today.
I take the winning country of the year, and the for the following year, I see the national Grand Prix, or the biggest race in that country of the year, to see who wins. If that country doesn't hold a race, I look to the biggest race of the year in terms of strength of field and prize money on offer. The make of car they were driving was ignored because drivers would not necessarily drive cars from their own country. If an American driver wins, the race I look to for the winner the year after will be the Indianapolis 500 if there was no United States Grand Prix that year.
The 1900 to 1905 winners are actual winners, it gets fictitious thereafter. All the flags adopt their modern state.
Timeline
1900 to 1905 were the real thing. Held on public streets from city to city, the races were won 4 years out of 6 by France. They organised the French Grand Prix in 1906, when they won again. Italy then won the title for the first time with Felice Nozzaro winning at Dieppe in 1907.
The Coppa and then Targa Florio were the highest profile races until the war. Italian drivers only tended to enter this event, so the Italians were able to keep their hold on the cup. Nazzaro would go on to win the cup on three occasions.
1919 would be the last Targa to host the Cup race, as Andre Boillot won it back for France. They then had the Coupe de Vouiturettes, and in 1921 the French Grand Prix at Le Mans. Jimmy Murphy, an American making an unusual visit to European racing, won to take trophy back to the United States.
The biggest race in the States was obviously the Indianapolis 500. The winners of that would win the Cup until 1936 - Murphy defended his title in 1922. Louis Meyer tied Nazzaro's three wins with his three victories at Indy. With the Indy 500 being the race that counted the entire European strongholds were missed. Drivers like Louis Chiron, Jean-Pierre Wimille, Rudolf Caracciola, Hermann Lang, Jules Goux and many more would never win the Cup and bring it back into Europe.
Things changed in 1937, with the reintroduction of the Vanderbilt Cup. This race was more international than the race at Indy, so it counted as the Gordon Bennett Race for that year. The Americans that dominated Indy were behind their European cousins at the time. The result was Bernd Rosemeyer winning it back for Germany for the first time since 1903.
The race in 1938 at Nurburgring saw Dick Seaman become the first Brit to win a Grand Prix - it just so happened he became the first Brit in 35 years to win the Gordon Bennett race too. After the war, the Jersey Road Race was the Gordon Bennett Cup race, probably the least glamorous to host the race. Britain defended their title with Reg Parnell.
The British Grand Prix was reintroduced in 1948, and from then on the race went on a tour around Formula One, which began in 1950. Alberto Ascari and Juan Manuel Fangio each won the race on three occasions, to tie with Meyer and Nazzaro's record.
The race again "got lost" though, after Jack Brabham won the 1959 British Grand Prix to end a spell of dominance for Britain and win the Cup for Australia. The Aussies defended their title on home patch when few Europeans raced there. Bruce McLaren won it for New Zealand in 1962. The following year, John Surtees was victorious for Britain, to reintroduce the Cup into Formula One Grands Prix. Brabham won again in 1966 though, but this time it was Jackie Stewart that took the race from Australian hands back to Britain.
Jo Siffert won the race for Switzerland in 1968, but Switzerland banned motor racing in 1955 (and is still banned to this day). As a result, I decided the only option was to host the race in the venue that won it the year before. I.e. Britain. Britain defended on home soil in 1969 therefore.
Jochen Rindt then won the race to give Austria its first victory. Jo Siffert then won for a second time to keep the race in Austria. In 1972, Emerson Fittipaldi won to give Brazil its first win. Fittipaldi won two straight Brazilan Grands Prix to become the fifth driver to record three wins. Carlos Pace made it four in a row for Brazil the year after.
Niki Lauda won it back for Austria in 1976, and the following season the race got lost again. Alan Jones won it for Australia. The Australian Grand Prix was then won by two New Zealanders. Since there were no major races there at the time (or since), I decided to keep the race in Australia. Gratefully Roberto Moreno eventually won it back for Brazil, and we were back in Formula One territory again.
Alain Prost then won the race in Brazil to win it back for France for the first time since 1920 - a 62 year gap. Prost defended on home soil in 1983. Lauda won in 1984 to win it for Austria, but Prost became the sixth driver to record three wins in 1985 when he won the Austrian Grand Prix.
Nigel Mansell won the race for Britain beating Prost by 5 seconds in 1986. The following year at home at Silvertsone, Mansell came from 20 seconds behind with 15 laps left to beat Nelson Piquet who was destined to take the trophy back to Brazil.
Ayrton Senna then won it back to Brazil - his only win. Mansell tied the other drivers on three wins the following season. Now well and truely in the Prost-Mansell era, after Prost broke the record to win it for the fourth time, Mansell then won it twice to make it 5 wins. Prost then won in his retirement year in 1993 to tie the record of 5 wins.
Over forthcoming years, Michael Schumacher had won the title 5 times to. In between, Britain won it twice through Eddie Irvine and David Coulthard.
Mika Hakkinen and Juan Pablo Montoya have not won the right to host it for their country as they do not host a motor race of open wheel nature.
Fernando Alonso beat Schumacher for the title in 2005, and defended in Spain for their first two wins. Felipe Massa's victory in Spain this year gave him the Gordon Bennett Cup to Brazil in 2008.
List of Winners
| Team | Wins |
|---|---|
 Great Britain
| 18 |
 United States
| 16 |
 Italy
| 13 |
 France
| 11 |
 Brazil
| 7 |
 Germany
| 7 |
 Australia
| 5 |
 Argentina
| 3 |
 Austria
| 3 |
 New Zealand
| 3 |
 Switzerland
| 2 |
 Canada
| 1 |
 Colombia
| 1 |
 Finland
| 1 |
Most Wins:
Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell and Michael Schumacher (5)
Conclusions
This list varies hugely with the World Champions. Here is a list of World Champions not on the Roll of Honour:
-
Graham Hill
-
Mario Andretti
-
Nelson Piquet
- James Hunt
-
Denny Hulme
Other glaring ommissions:
-
Gilles Villeneuve
-
Louis Chiron
-
Rudolf Caracciola
- Hermann Lang
-
Tazio Nuvolari
Random drivers that won:
- Johnnie Walker
- Graham McRae
-
Jo Siffert
- Reg Parnell
- The Indy winners in the 20s and 30s
Other surprises:
- Ayrton Senna only won once.
- Nigel Mansell winning five times.
- Michael Schumacher winning "only" five times.
This doesn't take into account things like car they are driving for, or anything else like the fact that if they had national pride they'd have turned up in the 1920s and 30s at Indy if this was advertised. But I still think it provides a great insight into a possible chain of events, that in boxing may have happened. It's so contrastable to the real thing too - it's quite interesting.
