1933 Grand Prix season

Scuderia Ferrari, their regular customer team took up the role of racing Alfa Romeos and a number of ex-works drivers moved across to join their ranks.

Luigi Fagioli, lead-driver of the Maserati works-team, was furious that his great rival had been approached and in response took the vacant position at Ferrari, soon to be joined by Campari.

However, the economic downturn had had a severe impact on the family funds and in 1933 the organisation of the event was taken over by the Royal Italian Automobile Club from their regional office in Palermo.

[74] In Great Britain, at the end of the year, Raymond Mays, Peter Berthon and wealthy gentleman-driver Humphrey Cook founded English Racing Automobiles (ERA) to build a competitive British voiturette.

However, Nuvolari's dissatisfaction with the ongoing unreliability and uncompetitiveness of Ferrari's cars led to he and Borzacchini walking out halfway through the season to join their competitors, Maserati.

But it was his fellow-countryman from Algeria, Marcel Lehoux (who had drawn a starting position at the back of the grid) who drove through the field to lead by half-distance and go on for a well-deserved victory over Moll, with Philippe Étancelin in third.

Notable exceptions included the Alfa Romeos of Per-Victor Widengren, Norwegian Eugen Bjørnstad and German Paul Pietsch along with the big Mercedes SSKs of Finn Karl Ebb and local Börje Dahlin.

Widengren's younger brother Henken ran a Belgian Invicta, but the strangest entry was Allan Westerblom's home-built Reo special, fitted with a 15-litre ex-WW1 Mercedes aero engine.

But the Norseman was later disqualified after a protest from the team of an embarrassed local Carl-Gustaf Johansson who complained his big Ford had been blocked from passing the Alfa Romeo.

Held as two half-hour heats, Paul Pietsch, in his repaired Alfa Romeo, won with the best aggregate time from countryman Herbert Wimmer in a Bugatti and Eugen Bjørnstad third.

The Maseratis of Fagioli and Sommer had been halted by faulty magnetos and when Varzi retired with a broken drive shaft it left the way clear for a comfortable 1-2 victory for the Scuderia Ferrari.

The race had been enlivened around two-thirds distance by a sudden thunderstorm that made the smooth tarmac treacherous with the water mixing with the sand and strong gusts of winds.

There was also saw the first appearance for two other strong privateer pairings: Monegasque Louis Chiron and German Rudi Caracciola had combined to run their 2.3-litre Monzas, while Raymond Sommer had got a second Maserati 8CM for Zehender to race with him.

In looking to promote Italian Tripolitania as a tourist or immigration location and pay for the new track, the out-going provincial governor Emilio de Bono took up the idea of Giovanni Canestrini, editor at the La Gazzetta dello Sport – to hold a national lottery in conjunction with the race.

Englishman Tim Birkin brought his new Maserati 8C-3000 joining seven Italian Alfas, including Piero Taruffi, Pietro Ghersi and Renato Balestrero, and the specials of Biondetti and Premoli.

Possibly proof of the rumour that Varzi had won a coin-toss between the two as to who would take the win (or just desperate for the winner's purse), the two drivers battled hard, yelling and shaking their fists at each other!

Caracciola was to have raced an updated streamlined version, but with his injury team manager Alfred Neubauer called veteran Otto Merz out of retirement.

Thereafter Nuvolari comfortably drove away with the race, with von Brauchitsch second and Taruffi third, after Chiron had to stop several times to fix a leaking fuel tank.

[135][136] As expected, the blue ribbon French Grand Prix attracted a class field, but it did not include the drivers from the Bugatti works team for their home race.

Young Taruffi had quickly earned the ire of Enzo Ferrari, beating his best riders in bike events taking the considerable prizemoney as a privateer.

This now put Zanelli's Alfa into a strong lead, with the Bugatti of Lehoux making up time in second, chased by Wimille and Portuguese driver Vasco Someiro.

Stalling the car, his pit crew gave him a push-start that meant disqualification (Moll was furious after Campari had been allowed to get away with a similar crime at the French Grand Prix only three weeks' earlier).

[142] For Nuvolari, a third axle-failure was the last straw and he immediately negotiated with Ernesto Maserati to take the injured Campari's seat for the Belgian Grand Prix, held the next weekend.

Held on a large 30 km track in the far south of the country near Malmö, it attracted the attention of Louis Chiron and the Scuderia Ferrari, who sent Antonio Brivio.

Fagioli was joined by Louis Chiron both now driving the Tipo B. Maserati had Nuvolari, Zehender (8CMs) and Borzacchini (still on last year's 8C-3000) while Bugatti supplied the big 5-litre Type 54 to Dreyfus (who drove it direct from the factory at Molsheim).

[154] The Italian Grand Prix was usually held in July but this year was postponed to September (to run in conjunction with the Monza GP) to complete renovations to the pits and large new grandstand.

Coming to the South Curve on the first lap Campari overtook Borzacchini and, possibly to avoid the oil, pulled sharply to the left to go high onto the banking.

It all added to Monza's deadly reputation that in ten years already had claimed the lives of Ugo Sivocci, Louis Zborowski, Luigi Arcangeli and the terrible accident in 1928 that killed Emilio Materassi and 27 spectators.

Jean-Pierre Wimille ran his Monza for the Sommer team, along with other Alfa privateers “Phi-Phi” Étancelin and Juan Zanelli, while Marcel Lehoux had his successful Bugatti Type 51.

However, it was a far better story when he applied himself to sports-car racing and in a remarkable series of results, he won the Mille Miglia, Le Mans 24-hour & Tourist Trophy, a unique treble, all in the same year.