1951 German A1 Grand Prix

The 1951 German A1 Grand Prix was the seventh round of the 1951 season. Stirling Moss took his and England's maiden victory after the race was red flagged after 12 laps following Edgar Barth's fatal accident.

Race Highlights
Trintignant maintained his lead over Moss for the opening three laps until a gearbox failure forced him into the garage, putting him three laps down. Moss was left to run away to an easy victory. Mackenzie managed to finish second, by far South Africa's best result, he had been challenged by de Graffenried before the Swiss driver was held up by first Jaras then Illescas. Then he went off on lap 11, damaging his car and forcing an extra pitstop, dropping him to fifth. The race was called after 12 of the 14 scheduled laps when both Trintignant and Barth slid off on oil left on the track, both hitting the fence hard and being pitched into a series of barrel rolls. Trintignant escaped with only a fractured left ankle while Barth had to be extracted and airlifted to Cologne hospital, still unconscious with serious neck and head injuries.

Other incidents involved, Albizuri sliding off on the first lap and collecting Lopez with him, then later the same lap Illescas spun right in front of Lippmann who was unable to avoid him. Illescas managed to continue on but Lippmann was out once he had struggled back to the pits.

Lap 6 saw a large crash for Bira who backed his car into the fence and barrel rolled, though he escaped serious injury.

Death of Edgar Barth
On lap 13 of the race, both Edgar Barth of East Germany and Maurice Trintignant of France slid off on oil left on the track at the Wipperman corner. Both ended up being pitched into a series of barrel rolls after hitting the outside fence with Barth's car being launched nearly ten feet into the air, unfortunately landing on it's roof right where the driver was sitting in the cockpit. The roof had partly caved in just above the drivers seat from the impact leaving the unconscious Barth trapped in the car. After fifteen minutes, Barth was finally extracted from the car and into a helicopter bound for Cologne hospital with a suspected broken neck and depressed skull fracture. Doctors did all they could but to no avail. At 5:29pm, just over two and a half hours after the crash, Edgar Barth died from his injuries.

Maurice Trintignant managed to walk away from the crash but after a trip to the circuit medical center, he was diagnosed with a fractured left ankle and was taken to hospital for further treatment. He may have to miss the Belgian Grand Prix as a result.





Penalty Report
Drivers receive points on their race licence if they are deemed by the stewards to be driving in an 'unsporting manner'. Points are usually given for causing avoidable collisions, pitlane infractions or impeding fastest cars while being lapped. If a driver collects 12 points throughout the season then they are given a three month ban from racing in the series. Points are reset to zero after each season. Fines can also be given.