1954 Mille Miglia

[2] Fresh from their loss in Florida at the 12 Hours of Sebring, Lancia entered in force with four newly revised D24 cars, these were piloted by Piero Taruffi, Alberto Ascari, Eugenio Castellotti and Gino Valenzano.

For 1954, the Mille Miglia was a round of the World Sports Car Championship; the home teams faced strong challengers.

[3][4] Also amongst the entry was the four-time winner, Clemente Biondetti, but by the time of the race, he was very sick man, fighting cancer, and only had a few months left to live.

[2][3] On the run back to Brescia, Ascari's Lancia suffered a throttle spring return failure, and this was temporarily replaced by a rubber band.

[3] For Ferrari, they had not lost a Mille Miglia since 1947, but this they were sounded thrashed by the team from Torino, with Ascari, winning in a time of 11hr 26:10mins., averaging a speed of 72.80 mph.

[3][5][6][7] With the British attack failing to make it back to Brescia, it was left to the Germans to provide some opposition to the Italian teams.

Encountering a lowered gate at a railway crossing, the Porsche driver, Hans Herrmann drove his low 550 Spyder under it, narrowly missing an express train.

Andre Pouschol and co-driver Gabriel Saisse were both killed and eight spectators injured when his Citroën 15 Six crashed into a signpost near Vicenza 75 miles into the race.

The second accident saw navigator Silvio Dal Cin lose his life when his driver Ferdinando Mancini crashed his Maserati A6GCS after crossing the finish line.

Shortly later, for unknown reasons Mancini lost control of the Maserati and crashed, passing in a long straight towards Ghedi, a neighbourhood of Brescia.