Varzi, Achille

[Vitesse]

Originally posted by TimD
To be honest, it was the morphine which did for one of Tazio's principal opponents in the 1930s.

Where is Achille Varzi's reputation now?

A good question that, Tim. He seems to have become the forgotten man of the thirties, when his reputation was as high as those of Nuvolari, Rosemeyer (both sometime team-mates), Caracciola, Lang and Chiron. His near-obliteration by drug addiction would have broken many lesser men, yet after the War he returned to racing with Alfa Romeo, displaying much of his old fire and hunger to win, only to die on the tragic weekend in Bern which also claimed Christian Kautz and the Italian biker Omobono Tenni.

A good book on Varzi is long overdue - I understand there is an Italian biography which has long been promised in an English translation, but I have also heard it's not all that good.

So, any more thoughts on Varzi anyone? A genius? Flawed or not?

[gfm]

Vitesse, do you have time to elaborate please? What's your take on Varsi, we'd be interested.

[KA]

I think Nigel Roebuck wrote quite a good piece on him some years ago, which included the morphine addiction and the way it affected his career -think its in his book 'Grand Prix Greats' published in the early/mid 80s

[dretceterini]

A good piece on Varzi is at: http://www.ddavid.com/formula1/varzi_bio.htm

[ensign14]

Varzi = Greek tragic hero. Even the name fits. There is a film just DYING to be made about him.

[Vitesse]

No less than one would expect from Dennis, Stu!

My take? A flawed genius, I'm afraid. The "wife of another driver" with whom he had a "torrid" affair was Ilse Pietsch and she was his downfall. After an accident he had been prescribed morphine as a painkiller - she reintroduced him to it as a "recreational drug" and he slipped quickly into a drug-fuelled hell from which he took several years to emerge. He was virtually invisible after 1936, racing just once in 1937 at the Italian GP where he came 6th. He then disappears from the record until 1947 when he was hired by Alfa Romeo, who displayed remarkable confidence in a man who hadn't raced for over ten years. Now happily married and recovered he returned to the fray with gusto, almost winning the 1947 Swiss and Belgian GPs, then triumphing at Bari before coming second once again in the Italian GP: four races, three second places, one win!

Varzi was one of the few men to conquer the Auto Union - I'm sure it's no coincidence that the four real masters of those rear-engined GP cars were all ex-motorcycle champions: Varzi, Rosemeyer, Nuvolari and Muller.

[DivineF1]

Originally posted by ensign14
Varzi = Greek tragic hero. Even the name fits. There is a film just DYING to be made about him.

Actually it's the "Achille" part you are talking about.

I'm amazed at how much I can hate Ilsle.