Scuderia Achille Varzi
By: Jeremy McMullen
By: Jeremy McMullen
| If success lay in a name then Scuderia Achille Varzi had more than enough opportunity to become one of the powerhouse teams in Formula One, at least in the series' early years. If success truly lay in a name then Scuderia Achille Varzi would also have no excuse for failure. However, Scuderia Achille Varzi offers proof that success does not lay in a name but in the talent and hard work of talented individuals within a team.
Achille Varzi started out racing motorcycles when he was rather young and became quite successful. At the age of 19 Varzi won the 350 Italian Championship. In 1926, Achille made his four-wheel debut racing a Bugatti. In that race the Bugatti would fail Varzi and forced him to retire. This provided Varzi with just a taste of what would eventually become an illustrious four-wheel racing career despite the non-illustrious beginning.
From 1927 through 1930 Varzi would continue to race motorcycles. He would continue to win races throughout this period. However, in 1928 Achille joined the Bianchi race team, which featured Nuvolari as one of its drivers. Soon Nuvolari started his own team. Varzi went and joined Nuvolari's team. Nuvolari and Varzi started out by racing Bugattis. Interestingly, Varzi hired Guido Bignami as his mechanic. Bignami would later become even more famous when he would go on to be Juan Manuel Fangio's mechanic. Wanting to gain an edge, Varzi would buy and race Alfa Romeos. He also started his own race team. But he wouldn't stop there. Varzi would end up buying a Maserati too and would race both the Alfa and the Maserati. With these machines, Achille was able to win the Italian Championship in 1930.
Varzi's first major victory would come just a little while later in 1930 in the Targa Florio. Starting well back, Varzi was able to make up the difference and take the lead. Varzi would end up holding onto the lead despite fighting a fire throughout the last couple of laps.
One of Achille's other high points was a victory at the 1933 Monaco Grand Prix in a Type 51 Bugatti after a hard fought battle with Nuvolari that lasted almost the entire race distance. That same year, Varzi would also win the Tripoli Grand Prix amidst allegations the race had been fixed.
In 1934 Achille switched back to Alfa Romeo and would end up winning 9 races in the P3. This all helped him to be able to win the Italian Championship for the second time. From 1935 to 1937 Varzi raced for the Auto Union team. However, victories were much harder to come by. Although Achille would end up winning the Tripoli Grand Prix for the third time he was rather overshadowed by his teammate Bernd Rosemeyer. After these couple of dismal seasons Varzi seemed to drop out of sight, and then, World War II broke out.
Despite his struggles just prior to the outbreak of the war, Achille returned to grand form afterward. For two seasons, driving an Alfa Romeo 158, Varzi experienced some impressive results.Achille would travel to South America to race and became very popular in Argentina. Varzi planned to retire there. While in Argentina, Varzi formed Scuderia Achille Varzi. Juan Manuel Fangio ended up starting out his grand prix career with the team.
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