Rudolf Caracciola

Otto Wilhelm Rudolf Caracciola was a German racing driver, born on 30 January 1901 and died on 28 September 1959. He won the European Drivers' Championship, the pre-1950 equivalent of the modern Formula One World Championship, an unsurpassed three times, in 1935, 1937 and 1938, and he also won the European Hillclimbing Championship three times. He raced for Mercedes-Benz during the original Silver Arrows period, set speed records for the firm, and was known to the German public as Caratsch and as Regenmeister, the Rainmaster, for his skill in wet conditions. He began racing as an apprentice at the Fafnir factory in Aachen in the early 1920s, first on motorcycles and then in cars. A practice crash at the 1933 Monaco Grand Prix left him with multiple fractures and out of racing for more than a year. His record of six German Grand Prix wins remains unbeaten, and he is remembered as one of the greatest pre-1939 Grand Prix drivers.