Peter John Collins (6
November 1931 – 3 August 1958) was a Formula
One driver from England
. He
participated in 35 World Championship Grands Prix, debuting on 18
May 1952. He won 3 races, achieved 9 podiums, and scored a total of
47 championship points.
In common with many British drivers of the immediate post-war
period, Collins cut his racing teeth in the frenetic 500cc category
(adopted as
Formula 3 at the end of 1950),
when his parents bought him a Cooper 500 from the fledgling
Cooper Car Company. These small
machines, powered by motorcycle engines, were also the proving
ground of many of Collins' F1 contemporaries, notably including
Stirling Moss.
He got his F1 break in 1952, picking up a drive for the lowly
HWM team, replacing Moss.
Results did not come the team's way, and Collins left after the
1953 season.
Following spells driving for Vanwall and Maserati
, and one
brief outing in a BRM which
ended with a crash in qualifying, Collins was signed to the
Ferrari team for the 1956 F1
season.
Finally things looked to be going Collins' way. The 1956 season
proved to be a turning point, with a second place - behind Moss -
at Monaco, and wins at the Belgian and French Grands Prix. Indeed,
Collins was on the verge of becoming Britain's first F1 World
Champion when he handed his
Lancia-Ferrari D50 over to team leader
Juan Manuel Fangio after the
latter suffered a steering-arm failure toward the end of the
Italian Grand Prix at Monza.
Collins eventually finished second, but the advantage handed to
Moss, and the extra points gained by Fangio's finish, demoted
Collins to third in the championship. This selfless,
team-orientated action gained Collins immense respect among the
Italian racing
tifosi, and the gratitude and
admiration of
Enzo Ferrari himself, a
man notoriously hard to please. In his double-biography of Collins
and
Mike Hawthorn, "Mon Ami Mate",
Chris Nixon describes the ensuing
relationship between the English driver and his Italian boss as
being almost like father and son from this point on.
In 1957, Collins was joined at Ferrari by
Mike Hawthorn. The two became very close
friends, often getting into much off-track trouble together, and
took to calling each other "mon ami mate" after a newspaper cartoon
strip. 1957 also saw Collins marry American Louise King. However,
despite a third-placed finish at the
Nurburgring, Ferrari were distinctly
under-par for much of the season as the
801 model (an evolution of the 1954 Lancia D50)
was by then becoming obsolete. 1958 saw the introduction of the new
Ferrari Dino 246, a far improved car, and once again results began
to go the way of Scuderia Ferrari. Collins scored his third and
final career victory at the
British Grand Prix, as well as
taking a third place at
Monaco. Hawthorn also won in
France, but the two were chasing
Tony Brooks' Vanwall at the German Grand
Prix when disaster struck. Pushing hard to keep pace, Collins lost
control of his car and, in Hawthorn's direct sight, spun off the
track, disappearing over a bank. During the ensuing accident
Collins was thrown clear of the Ferrari, hit a tree and sustained
critical injuries to his head. Despite being airlifted to hospital,
Collins died later that afternoon.
Complete World Championship Formula One results
(
key; * shared
drive)
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