1,000 Greatest Drivers: Hermann Lang
One of the first drivers who was equally legendary as an engineer.
I get why this guy has been historically overlooked. For one thing, the era of Grand Prix racing that pre-dated the creation of Formula One has now been seemingly erased by history as if it never existed even if the pre-World War II Grand Prix races still had a number of legends and the AIACR European Championship was essentially F1 in the ‘30s albeit with a lot fewer races and a terrible points system. Furthermore, it’s pretty obvious that a lot of Grand Prix fans want to pretend the late-’30s era didn’t exist because it was entirely being dominated by German manufacturers Mercedes and Auto Union (now Audi) after Hitler took over Germany in 1933 and the Nazis were heavily invested in both operations. I’ve written about things like this before. In my previous book Nerds per Minute: A History of Competitive Typing, I discussed the Nazis’ involvement in the typewriter industry and how the business leaders of Underwood, the dominant typewriter manufacturer of the time, even went to a party in the US celebrating Hitler’s takeover of France. One of the world typing champions was a major Underwood executive at the time and almost all the champions competed for Underwood, so it can be hard to tell who has blood on their hands and who doesn’t. At the time Lang raced in the late ‘30s, Mercedes and Auto Union won basically all the major Grand Prix events so effectively all the top Grand Prix drivers were in effect racing for the Nazis. It’s easy to understand why F1 doesn’t want any of that getting out and why this entire period is habitually ignored. Although Lang’s boss insisted Lang was “no Nazi”, many would no doubt argue that anybody who was involved with the Mercedes and Auto Union teams in this period should be condemned, and I can’t say I’m informed enough to know what exactly Lang’s involvement was, as I didn’t know a great deal about him until I was doing my research for this column. From what I can tell, Lang wasn’t as much of a supporter of fascism as Dick Seaman (the British driver who literally gave a Nazi salute after the German Grand Prix) or even Tazio Nuvolari as Mussolini intervened on Nuvolari’s behalf for Ferrari to re-hire him. Obviously, this whole era is tainted and I’m not sure how much Lang himself is. Nonetheless, if I’m going to be an honest historian, I must acknowledge he was the best drivers of his time and belongs on this list.
