Nicknamed "Taffy",[b] von Trips was posthumously runner-up in the Formula One World Drivers' Championship in 1961 with Ferrari, and won two Grands Prix across six seasons.

Von Trips made further appearances for Ferrari in 1957 at the Argentine, Monaco and Italian Grands Prix, scoring his maiden podium at the latter.

After a collision with Jim Clark, von Trips lost control of his Ferrari 156, fatally wounding himself and 15 spectators as his car went airborne.

Ferrari withdrew from the remaining United States Grand Prix—having already won the World Constructors' Championship—with teammate Phil Hill taking the title by one point to von Trips.

The son of a noble Rhineland family,[2] von Trips was born in Cologne, in the Rhine Province, which at the time was part of the Free State of Prussia during the years of the Weimar Republic.

The inheritance of his parents, the castle, and the agricultural and fruit-growing possessions weighted heavily on the young von Trips, who one day had to take sole responsibility for all these lands.

[10] Von Trips sustained a concussion when he spun off track at the Nürburgring during trial runs for a sports car race held in May 1957.

[11] Von Trips was forced out of a Royal Automobile Club Grand Prix at Silverstone, in July 1958, when his Ferrari came into the pits on the 60th lap with no oil.

[3] In the words of a 2007 German documentary film about von Trips, "If he had won then, he would have become as famous as Michael Schumacher later was – it would have been a kind of second miracle in Bern!

"[4] The 1961 Italian Grand Prix on 10 September saw von Trips tightly locked in the battle for the Formula One World Drivers' Championship that year with his American teammate Phil Hill.

[25] At the time, Clark described the accident by saying: "Von Trips and I were racing along the straightaway and were nearing one of the banked curves, the one on the southern end.