1933 French Championships (tennis), Finals, Women's Singles
Margaret Scriven (GBR) defeated  Simonne Mathieu (FRA)  6–2, 4–6, 6–4


1933 French Championships (tennis), Finals, Men's Doubles
Pat Hughes /  Fred Perry defeated  Adrian Quist /  Vivian McGrath  6–2, 6–4, 2–6, 7–5


1933 French Championships (tennis), Finals, Women's Doubles
Simonne Mathieu  /  Elizabeth Ryan defeated  Sylvie Jung Henrotin /  Colette Rosambert  6–1, 6–3


1933 French Championships (tennis), Finals, Mixed Doubles
Margaret Scriven /   Jack Crawford defeated  Betty Nuthall /  Fred Perry  6–2, 6–3


1933 French Championships – Men's Singles
Second-seeded Jack Crawford defeated first-seeded, and reigning champion, Henri Cochet 8–6, 6–1, 6–3 in the final to win the Men's Singles tennis title at the 1933 French Championships.


1933 French Championships – Men's Singles, Seeds
The seeded players are listed below. Jack Crawford is the champion; others show the round in which they were eliminated.


1933 French Championships – Women's Singles
Margaret Scriven defeated Simonne Mathieu 6–2, 4–6, 6–4 in the final to win the Women's Singles tennis title at the 1933 French Championships. It was the last time an unseeded player won the French Championships/French Open until Jeļena Ostapenko did so at the 2017 French Open.


1933 French Championships – Women's Singles, Seeds
The seeded players are listed below. Margaret Scriven is the champion; others show the round in which they were eliminated.


1933 French Grand Prix
The 1933 French Grand Prix was a Grand Prix motor race which was run on 11 June 1933, in Montlhéry, France. Organized by the French Automobile Club, it was XXVII running of the Grand Prix de l'Automobile Club de France. The race, which was held over 40 laps, was won by the Italian driver Giuseppe Campari in a privately entered Maserati. It was to be Campari's final victory, as he was killed just three months later at Monza. Philippe Étancelin and George Eyston, both in privateer Alfa Romeos, finished in second and third, respectively.


1933 French Grand Prix, Background
In an attempt to attract more entrants, the Automobile Club de France (ACF) changed the event's registration fees and prize money. Registration fees had previously been 2,000–3,000 francs (F), but were reduced to just 100 F for the 1933 race. Prizes of 100,000 F, 50,000 F and 20,000 F were offered to the first three finishers, while there were also bonus prizes for drivers who had completed 10, 20 or 30 laps. The magnitude of the bonuses were dependent on a driver's average speed (3,000 F for 125 km/h, 2,000 F for 115 km/h, 1,000 F for 105 km/h).


1933 French Grand Prix, Background
Problems with the grandstand at Montlhéry placed the event's staging in jeopardy. Repairs, estimated at 500,000–800,000 F, needed to be carried out before the race could take place.


1933 French Grand Prix, Background
The race was also affected by the absence of a number of notable drivers. Frédéric Toselli, Louis Trintignant (brother of the future Formula One driver Maurice), and Guy Bouriat, all of whom had entered the French Grand Prix, had all been killed at previous events in May. In addition, Rudolf Caracciola was still recovering his broken thigh, an injury which had been incurred at Monaco, while Tim Birkin was ill with blood poisoning after being burnt at Tripoli. On top of that, the works Bugatti team—including drivers Achille Varzi, Albert Divo, William Grover-Williams and René Dreyfus—were forced to pull out of the event because their cars were not ready.


1933 French Grand Prix, Report
Tazio Nuvolari's participation in the race was in doubt when his car was damaged during Saturday practice. It is thought that his Scuderia Ferrari teammate, Baconin Borzacchini, allowed Nuvolari to swap the cars that were assigned to them, meaning that Nuvolari took the #10 Alfa, while Borzacchini was now due to drive car #14 (which had a broken blower shaft). Just ten minutes before the start of the race, the team's mechanics pushed Borzacchini's car (#14) off the grid, putting Piero Taruffi's #38 Alfa in its place. As such, Taruffi was able to start three rows further forward than he otherwise would have.


1933 French Grand Prix, Report
Nuvolari, from fifth on the grid, took the lead early on, while Campari followed eight seconds behind, after having made up nine positions on lap one. Taruffi and Zehender from the third row of the grid, were in third and fourth, respectively, followed by Chiron and Étancelin, who had both made significant gains in the early stages. Chiron and Étancelin both overtook the Maserati of Zehender during lap two, and two laps later, the pair also passed Taruffi, who had been deliberately holding them up.


1933 French Grand Prix, Report
After four laps, Nuvolari and Campari were still in front, while Chiron was up to third, ahead of Philippe Étancelin, while Taruffi and Zehender were not far behind. Both Nuvolari and Chiron pitted after six laps, although neither lasted long after rejoining the race, leaving Campari in first place, with a lead of over half a minute over Taruffi and Étancelin after eight laps. Campari made a pitstop after thirteen laps, handing the lead briefly to Étancelin, before the Frenchman was overtaken by Taruffi.


1933 French Grand Prix, Report
After sixteen laps, Campari was approximately half a minute behind, but by the end of the nineteenth lap he had retaken the lead. At half distance, Campari led from Taruffi, with Sommer and Étancelin in third and fourth, respectively. Soon after, Taruffi pulled into the pits, and his car eventually rejoined the race, now driven by Nuvolari, who after twenty-four laps was in fourth place, behind Campari, Étancelin and Moll. Nuvolari was promoted into third when Moll made a lengthy pitstop, while Eyston was up to fourth.


1933 French Grand Prix, Report
On lap twenty-six, Nuvolari was once again forced to retire, leaving just six cars in the race. Another pitstop for Campari allowed Étancelin to take a half-minute lead, although, by lap thirty-six, the gap had been reduced to just three seconds. However, when rain began to fall, Campari took to the pits once again to change tyres, increasing his deficit to Étancelin to a full minute. With one lap remaining, the gap had been reduced to 23.2 seconds. With Étancelin unable to change gears, Campari was able to take the lead, and shortly after, the win, which was his final victory, and Maserati's first in a Grande Épreuve. Étancelin took second, ahead of Eyston in his Alfa Romeo. Sommer, Moll and Villars were final cars to finish.


1933 Fresno State Bulldogs football team
The 1933 Fresno State Bulldogs football team represented Fresno State Normal School during the 1933 college football season.


1933 Fresno State Bulldogs football team
Fresno State competed in the Far Western Conference (FWC). The 1933 team was led by first-year head coach Leo Harris and played home games at Fresno State College Stadium on the campus of Fresno City College in Fresno, California. They finished the season with a record of five wins and four losses (5–4, 1–2 FWC). The Bulldogs outscored their opponents 98–71 for the season.


1933 Fulham East by-election
The Fulham East by-election, in Fulham, on 25 October 1933 was held after Conservative Member of Parliament (MP) Kenyon Vaughan-Morgan died. The election was surprisingly won by John Charles Wilmot of Labour.


1933 Fulham East by-election
The seat itself is wrongly regarded as a 'safe' Conservative seat because it returned a Conservative at most previous elections. However, it was marginal in most of those occasions except the remarkable circumstances of 1931 and Labour's electoral destruction.


1933 Fulham East by-election
The election was seen as a test of the developing mood of pacifism in the country at the time, so much so that it became known as the 'Peace by-election'. The heavy defeat for the National Government candidate, a strong supporter of rearmament, helped, along with the Peace Ballot of 1935, to bring about a rethink in the government's agenda.


1933 Fulham East by-election, Aftermath
A correspondent in The Glasgow Herald described the result as "an unpleasant surprise", noting that while it was not expected that Waldron would obtain "a large majority, there was a confident hope that he at least would win through. Certainly a Labour majority of 4840 was not in the picture." The same author considered various factors as lying behind the result including apathy of Conservative and Liberal voters, and Germany's withdrawal from the League of Nations and the World Disarmament Conference causing a "War scare" which Wilmot's supporters exploited to win votes, particularly from female voters.


1933 Fulham East by-election, Aftermath
Ultimately Wilmot would fail to be re-elected for the seat at the next general election, with the Conservative William Astor gaining the seat with a majority of just over 1,000 votes.


1933 GP Ouest–France
The 1933 GP Ouest-France was the third edition of the GP Ouest-France cycle race and was held on 29 August 1933. The race started and finished in Plouay. The race was won by Philippe Bono.


1933 George Washington Colonials football team
The 1933 George Washington Colonials football team was an American football team that represented George Washington University as an independent during the 1933 college football season. In its fifth season under head coach Jim Pixlee, the team compiled a 5–3–1 record and outscored opponents by a total of 125 to 51. The team defeated Auburn, tied with Clemson, and lost to Tennessee, Tulsa, and Kansas.


1933 Georgetown Hoyas football team
The 1933 Georgetown Hoyas football team was an American football team that represented Georgetown University as an independent during the 1933 college football season. In their second season under head coach Jack Hagerty, the Hoyas compiled a 1–6–1 record and were outscored by a total of 130 to 56. The team played its home games at Griffith Stadium in Washington, D.C.


1933 Georgia Bulldogs football team
The 1933 Georgia Bulldogs football team represented the Georgia Bulldogs of the University of Georgia during the 1933 college football season. The Bulldogs completed the season with an 8–2 record. This was the first year of the Southeastern Conference (SEC).


1933 Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets football team
The 1933 Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets football team represented the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets of the Georgia Institute of Technology during the 1933 college football season.


1933 German Ice Hockey Championship
The 1933 German Ice Hockey Championship was the 17th season of the German Ice Hockey Championship, the national championship of Germany. Berliner Schlittschuhclub won the championship by defeating SC Riessersee in the final.


1933 German Ice Hockey Championship, Final
The tiebreaking goal came with controversy. The goal judge initially recognized it was a goal, but the referee did not see it. After a lengthy discussion, the goal was allowed. Berliner protested the result, and the championship was re-played 11 months later.


1933 German football championship
The 1933 German football championship, the 26th edition of the competition, ended with the first national title for Fortuna Düsseldorf. The title was won with a 3–0 win over Schalke 04. It was a replay of the Western German championship final, in which Schalke had defeated Fortuna 1–0 on 30 April 1933.


1933 German football championship
For both clubs it was their first appearance in the German final. While Fortuna only played one more after this, in 1936, for Schalke it was the first in its golden era, playing in every final until 1942, except the 1936 one. Fortuna became the first Champion from the industrial western part of Germany.


1933 German football championship
The 1933 final was played after the rise of the Nazis to power in Germany. After this season, the German league system was overhauled and instead of the regional championships as qualifying competitions, the 16 Gauligas were introduced.


1933 German football championship
To qualify for the national championship, a team needed to win or finish runners-up in one of the seven regional championships. On top of those 14 clubs, the two strongest regions, West and South were allowed to send a third team each. In the West, this was the local cup winner while in the South, the third placed team of the championship received this place.


1933 German football championship, Competition, Final
The 1933 final saw Schalke as the favorite for the title, having already beaten Fortuna in the Western German championship in late April. In front of 60,000, 20,000 of those Fortuna supporters, the club, who had not conceded a goal in the previous three rounds and scored 16, scored the first goal in the tenth minute. Schalke never got into their rhythm and when Fortuna scored the third goal five minutes from the end, the game was decided.


1933 German football championship, Competition, Final
It was the third time that the final was held in Cologne, after 1912 and 1931 and had the second-best attendance until then, only surpassed by the 1923 final, held in Hamburg in front of 64,000.


1933 German referendum
A referendum on withdrawing from the League of Nations was held in Germany on 12 November 1933 alongside Reichstag elections. The measure was approved by 95.1% of voters with a turnout of 96.3%. It was the first of a series of referendums held by the German cabinet under Chancellor Adolf Hitler, after the cabinet conferred upon itself the ability to hold referendums on 14 July 1933.


1933 German referendum
The referendum question was on a separate ballot from the one used for the elections. The question was: "Do you approve, German man, and you, German woman, this policy of your national government, and are you willing to declare as the expression of your own opinion and your own will and solemnly profess it?" (Billigst Du, Deutscher Mann, und Du, Deutsche Frau, diese Politik Deiner Reichsregierung, und bist Du bereit, sie als den Ausdruck Deiner eigenen Auffassung und Deines eigenen Willens zu erklären und Dich feierlich zu ihr zu bekennen?)


1933 German referendum, Conduct
To whip up nationalist sentiment in the run up to the vote, the Nazis intentionally timed the referendum to take place as close as possible to the fifteenth anniversary of the Armistice of Compiègne, then a bitter memory in the minds of not only the Nazis but also most ordinary Germans. Since German elections always took place on Sundays, the vote was held one day after the anniversary.


1933 German referendum, Conduct
Of the democratic nature of the referendum, the political scientist Arnold Zurcher writes that "there undoubtedly was a great deal" of "intangible official pressure" but "[probably very little] downright coercion and intimidation at the polls". The historian Heinrich August Winkler notes that "the rejection of the Versailles system was extraordinarily popular" and that at this stage in the history of Nazi Germany, it was still possible to vote negatively, to invalidate one's ballot or not to vote at all "without great personal risk".


1933 German referendum, Conduct
In particular, the Nazis made no effort to prevent the casting of negative or invalid votes in districts that were known to have large populations of Jews, Poles and other ethnic minorities, who were then still allowed to vote. The expected unfavourable results in such areas would be useful in propaganda as proof of disloyalty to the Reich.


1933 German referendum, Results
In East Prussia, the stronghold of the Junkers, support for withdrawal reached 97.3%, while in Hamburg, formerly a communist stronghold, only 83.9% voted in favour. This regional variation was repeated in the referendum of 1934. In general rural parts of the country were more favourable and the cities least favourable to withdrawal, but overall support was higher than for granting Hitler presidential powers in 1934.


1933 German referendum, Results
Voter turnout was greatest in the Pfalz region, where 98.4% of registered voters cast ballots. It was lowest in the affluent Berlin suburb of Potsdam at 90%.


1933 Giro d'Italia
The 1933 Giro d'Italia was the 21st edition of the Giro d'Italia, a cycling race organized and sponsored by the newspaper La Gazzetta dello Sport. The race began on 6 May in Milan with a stage that stretched 169 km (105 mi) to Turin, finishing back in Milan on 28 May after a 284 km (176 mi) stage and a total distance covered of 3,343 km (2,077 mi). The race was won by the Alfredo Binda of the Legnano team. Second and third respectively were the Belgian Jef Demuysere and Italian Domenico Piemontesi.


1933 Giro d'Italia
This 20th edition covered 3,343 km at an average speed of 30.043 km/h, for a total of 17 stages.


1933 Giro d'Italia, Participants
Of the 97 riders that began the Giro d'Italia on 6 May, 51 of them made it to the finish in Milan on 28 May. Riders were allowed to ride on their own or as a member of a team; 51 riders competed as members of a team, while the remaining 46 were independent riders. There were nine teams that competed in the race: Bestetti-d'Alessandro, Bianchi-Pirelli, Dei-Pirelli, Ganna-Hutchinson, Girardengo-Clément, Gloria-Hutchinson, Legnano-Hutchinson, Maino-Clément, and Olympia-Spiga.


1933 Giro d'Italia, Participants
The peloton was primarily composed of Italians. The field featured five former Giro d'Italia champions in four-time winner Alfredo Binda, two-time champion Costante Girardengo, single race winners Luigi Marchisio and Francesco Camusso, and reigning winner Antonio Pesenti. Other notable Italian riders that started the race included Learco Guerra, Giuseppe Olmo, Remo Bertoni, Felice Gremo, and Domenico Piemontesi. Notable non-Italian entrants included: Previous year podium finisher Jef Demuysere, Spanish climber Vicente Trueba, and renowned French cyclist René Vietto. Of all the entrants, Guerra was seen as the favorite to win the race after his victory in the Milan–San Remo earlier in the season.


1933 Giro d'Italia, Classification leadership
The leader of the general classification – calculated by adding the stage finish times of each rider – wore a pink jersey. This classification is the most important of the race, and its winner is considered as the winner of the Giro. Race organizers chose to remove time bonuses for the sprint stage winners, the "winner for detachment," the first riders who cross a mountain. The winner of the individual time trial – where riders contest the course starting in three minute increments – awarded a time bonus of two minutes and one minute to the first and second-place finishers, respectively.


1933 Giro d'Italia, Classification leadership
The race organizers allowed isolated riders to compete in the race, which had a separate classification calculated the same way as the general classification. For the leader of this classification, a white jersey was awarded.


1933 Giro d'Italia, Classification leadership
In the mountains classification, the race organizers selected different mountains that the route crossed and awarded points to the riders who crossed them first. There were four mountains that were given points towards the mountains classification: the Passo del Tonale, the Osteria della Crocetta, the Castelnuovo della Daunia, and the Castelnuovo Val di Cecina. Alfredo Binda was the first rider to cross each of the four mountains.


1933 Giro d'Italia, Classification leadership
The winner of the team classification was determined by adding the finish times of the best three cyclists per team together and the team with the lowest total time was the winner. If a team had fewer than three riders finish, they were not eligible for the classification.


1933 Giro d'Italia, Classification leadership
Il Trofeo Magno (English: the Great Trophy) was a classification for independent Italian riders competing in the race. The riders were divided into teams based on the region of Italy they were from. The calculation of the standings was the same for the team classification. At the end of the race, a trophy was awarded to the winning team and it was then stored at the Federal Secretary of the P.N.P. in their respective province.


1933 Giro d'Italia, Classification leadership
The rows in the following table correspond to the jerseys awarded after that stage was run.


1933 Giro di Lombardia
The 1933 Giro di Lombardia was the 29th edition of the Giro di Lombardia cycle race and was held on 15 October 1933, over a course of 230 km (140 mi). The race started and finished in Milan. The race was won by Italian Domenico Piemontesi, who reached the finish line at an average speed of 32.673 km/h (20.302 mph), preceding his compatriots Luigi Barral and Pietro Remoldi.


1933 Giro di Lombardia
106 cyclists departed from Milan and 61 of them completed the race.


1933 Giro di Lombardia, Development
Canazza and Brambilla escaped in the first kilometres, but were caught and overcome by Piemontesi and Casini. They could not stay with the rhythm of Piemontesi and lost his wheel. Behind, a group of persecution was created, formed by Barral, Rimoldi and Sella who caught Piemontesi before the ascent to Brinzio. The test is decided in this climb, as Rimoldi and Sella are off the hook while Barral and Piemontesi gamble in the final sprint in the arena of Milan, where Piemontesi won.


1933 Glasgow Corporation election
The 1933 Glasgow Corporation elections were held on 7 November 1933. The results were devastating for the Moderates, who lost control of the Corporation to Labour for the first time, despite socialist candidates making gains in Glasgow at successive general elections. Labour’s victory came as a surprise, even to the party itself, which had already begun blaming its anticipated defeat on vote-splitting caused by the presence of the ILP & the Communists. Labour's dominance of the Corporation would continue, nearly unbroken, to the present day.


1933 Glasgow Corporation election
Despite winning a combined share of  52.5% of the vote, compared to the Labour/ILP share of 42.8%, the FPTP nature of the ward voting system meant that the split in the Moderate vote allowed Labour to make strong gains at the Moderates expense. Radcliffe acknowledged and welcomed the role he had played in causing the downfall of the Moderate led Corporation, claiming that "if the Socialists have a majority in Glasgow Town Council, they have the Scottish Protestant League to thank for it."


1933 Glasgow Corporation election
A split between Labour and the Independent Labour Party had ensued a year prior, although Patrick Dollan; a Glaswegian socialist of Irish descent, was able to keep the bulk of the Glasgweian-based ILP on-side. Despite strong support for Labour amongst Glaswegians of Catholic-Irish origin, only 6 out of Glasgow's 116 Councillors following the election were Catholic.


1933 Glasgow Corporation election
The Moderates were not to bounce back in the following years election either however, and the combined Moderates/SPL share of the vote fell to 46.4%, whilst the Labour/ILP share rose to 51%. Even after several years, when the SPL had faded from the political picture, the Moderate vote did not rebound to its pre-split height, with many SPL voters in turn moving to Labour.


1933 Glasgow Corporation election
The election was not only a disappointment for Glasgow's right wing parties, but also for its far-left. The Communist party had fielded 15 candidates; who in fact performed moderately well in several working class wards, notably Cowlairs, Springburn, and Gorbals. Despite this however the party failed to gain a single seat, and ultimately won only 10,484 votes; or 3.4% of the total 311,000 votes cast.


1933 Gonzaga Bulldogs football team
The 1933 Gonzaga Bulldogs football team was an American football team that represented Gonzaga University as an independent during the 1933 college football season. In their third year under head coach Mike Pecarovich, the Bulldogs compiled a 2–6–1 record and were outscored by a total of 96 to 40.


1933 Grand National
The 1933 Grand National was the 92nd renewal of the world-famous Grand National horse race that took place at Aintree Racecourse near Liverpool, England, on 24 March 1933.


1933 Grand National
The steeplechase was won by Kellsboro' Jack, a 25/1 shot ridden by jockey Dudley Williams. The seven-year-old horse was trained by Ivor Anthony for American owner F. Ambrose Clark. Anthony later trained another National winner, Royal Mail, in 1937.


1933 Grand National
In second place was Really True, Slater finished third, and Delaneige fourth. Thirty-four horses ran and all returned safely to the stables.


1933 Grand Prix season
The 1933 Grand Prix season was an intermediate year, as it would be the last season for the current AIACR regulations before a new weight-formula was introduced in 1934. As such, the European Championship was not held and the manufacturers held back on further developments of their existing models. Alfa Romeo, following an Italian government financial bailout and like Mercedes-Benz the previous year, had shut down its Alfa Corse works team. 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. They were not allowed, however, to buy the impressive Tipo B that had been so dominant in the previous season.


1933 Grand Prix season
The season had some exceptional races and fell into two distinct halves. Initially it was Tazio Nuvolari, driving for the Scuderia Ferrari, that dominated. However, after winning the Tunisian Grand Prix he was plagued by mechanical problems and retiring out of race-winning positions. A thrilling race-long battle with Achille Varzi at the Monaco Grand Prix was decided on the second-to-last lap when the engine on Nuvolari's Alfa broke. He was untouchable at a wet Nürburgring but retired in the French Grand Prix - a race won by the veteran Giuseppe Campari in the new Maserati model.


1933 Grand Prix season
In the middle of these was one of the most controversial pre-war races yet held – the Tripoli Grand Prix. It was held in conjunction with a multi-million national lottery to win tickets for each of the drivers. In the race, it again became a Varzi-Nuvolari duel, decided at the last corner when Varzi outbraked Nuvolari to win by a fifth of a second.


1933 Grand Prix season
The frustration came to a head after a third axle-failure and Nuvolari, with close friend Borzacchini, walked out of Ferrari straight across to Maserati. 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. Nuvolari won successive races with the Maserati at Spa, Montenero and Nice. Alfa Romeo, now concerned that they were losing their pre-eminence, released their Tipo B cars to Ferrari. Fagioli won on the car's return, at the Coppa Acerbo after Nuvolari had a mechanical retirement.


1933 Grand Prix season
In the Italian Grand Prix, Fagioli benefited from Nuvolari's misfortune after he got a puncture while leading with two laps remaining. The Monza GP was run in the afternoon, held as three heats to qualify for the final. In the second heat, Campari and Borzacchini both crashed on the oval banking and were killed. Then, in the final, Stanisław Czaykowski was also killed at almost the same place. Subsequently, known as the "Black Day of Monza", it was a further tragic weekend in a deadly year of motorsport.


1933 Grand Prix season
The last major race of the year was the Spanish Grand Prix that finally saw the debut of Bugatti's new Type 59, the model for the new formula. A mid-race downpour saw Nuvolari aquaplane off the track and crash, thereby giving Chiron his third victory of the season and Ferrari its third 1-2 finish.


1933 Grand Prix season, Grand Épreuves
This year the AIACR elevated the Monaco Grand Prix to the exclusive rank of Grand Épreuve, hitherto only held by the other six national races of their member bodies, alongside the Indianapolis 500 for the US and the Tourist Trophy for Great Britain. These held special scheduling privileges that the CSI would set the racing calendar around, and other international events could not be held on the same day opposite those races. They also attempted, unsuccessfully, to tighten up on the usage of “Grand Prix” to limit it to the premier event of each of the affiliated associations.


1933 Grand Prix season, Grand Épreuves
A pink background indicates the race was run for Sports Cars or Touring Cars this year, while a grey background indicates the race was not held this year. Sources:


1933 Grand Prix season, Major Races
Multiple classes are mentioned when they were divided and run to different race lengths.


1933 Grand Prix season, Regulations and Technical
The 1933 season was to be the final one run to Formula Libre (open formula) regulations. The CSI regulatory body of the AIACR had announced a new 750kg, weight-based formula coming into effect from 1934. For unknown reasons, the European Championship was discontinued after only two years, despite five of the national races being planned to be held. The Italian and Swiss associations held their own national championships anyway.


1933 Grand Prix season, Regulations and Technical
The only significant change to the regulations was to change the minimum race distance from 5 hours to 500km.


1933 Grand Prix season, Regulations and Technical
The Monaco Grand Prix was elevated to the esteemed Grandes Épreuves status, held by the six European national races (of France, Italy, Spain, Belgium and Germany), the Indianapolis 500 and the British Tourist Trophy (run as a sports car race). This year, it also started a new process where the times recorded in the practice sessions before the race would decide the grid order, with the fastest cars in practice at the front. Up till now, the grid order had been decided by random ballot or just by the order the entries were received in. This idea was picked up by several other events and is now the standard practice across motor-racing.


1933 Grand Prix season, Regulations and Technical
To allow for the new German cars for the next season to compete, the German Grand Prix was initially postponed from July to October and moving from the Nürburgring to AVUS. However, when insufficient entries were confirmed by August the race was instead cancelled.


1933 Grand Prix season, Regulations and Technical
Since the Targa Florio's inception in 1906, Vincenzo Florio had bankrolled the race out of his personal fortune. 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. Throughout this time in Great Britain, motor-racing had been restricted to the Brooklands circuit, and the Isle of Man and Ireland, that had their own traffic rules. In 1931, former motorcycle racer Fred Craner had approached the Donington Hall estate near Derby to build a new circuit on the estate roads. By 1933, Craner had got the 3.5 km circuit sealed and widened, and the inaugural car race at Donington Park was held in March.


1933 Grand Prix season, Regulations and Technical, Technical Innovation
As it was the last year of the current regulations, manufacturers were loath to spend too much time or their limited money on current models, instead choosing to focus on design and development of their models for the new regulations of 1934.


1933 Grand Prix season, Regulations and Technical, Technical Innovation
Financial troubles at Alfa Romeo had necessitated a bailout by the Italian government. Taken over by a new agency, the Istituto per la Ricostruzione Industriale (IRI) the company was effectively nationalised. Ugo Gobbato was appointed the new managing director. With the withdrawal of Alfa Romeo from motor-racing, and the denial of the Tipo B, Scuderia Ferrari was forced to improvise with their six 8C Monza cars, boring them out from 2.3 to 2.6-litres. Sadly, in July, the former Alfa Corse team manager, Aldo Giovannini, died after battling illness for several months.


1933 Grand Prix season, Regulations and Technical, Technical Innovation
Maserati continued with the two 8C-3000 cars it had from 1932. But the company was the first to produce a car for the new formula. The 8CM was a development of the 8C-3000, and taking the lead from the Tipo B, was a monoposto (single-seater) design, hence its designation. It was the fastest car of the season, but very twitchy even for a top driver like Nuvolari. Piero Taruffi said


1933 Grand Prix season, Regulations and Technical, Technical Innovation
It was very fast and powerful but by no means stable at speed. The frame was insufficiently rigid and the rather large amount of unsprung weight used to set up such torsional vibrations, that the entire running gear used to judder."


1933 Grand Prix season, Regulations and Technical, Technical Innovation
Ettore Bugatti's Type 51 was starting to show its age by now. Despite its superb balance and handling it was being outclassed by the more powerful Italian cars. However, the surprising withdrawal of the P3 allowed the Type 51 to remain competitive against the remaining opposition. Bugatti's prospective design for the new formula was the Type 59 and was supposed to be ready for the mid-year French Grand Prix. Predominantly the work of his son Jean, it is regarded as one of the world's most elegant racing cars.


1933 Grand Prix season, Regulations and Technical, Technical Innovation
A sleek design with a very low driveshaft, it had a low centre of gravity. But the 2-seater with its 2.8-litre, 8-cylinder twin-overhead cam engine was disappointingly off the pace with poor brakes and unsatisfactory road-holding. After several false starts, it finally made its debut at Lasarte at the last major race of the season.


1933 Grand Prix season, Regulations and Technical, Technical Innovation
In Germany, both Mercedes-Benz and the new Auto Union company were working toward the upcoming racing formula. Dr Ferdinand Porsche had found a taker for his new design at Wanderer, that had now become a part of Auto Union. The mid-engined race-car took inspiration from the Benz Tropfenwagen of the mid-20s that had been driven by his business partner, former racer Adolf Rosenberger. The designer of the Tropfenwagen, Dr Hans Nibel, had replaced Porsche as Technical Director at Mercedes-Benz. The new government of Adolf Hitler provided a fund of RM450,000 (about £45,000) to divide among the German companies. Mercedes-Benz works team manager Alfred Neubauer estimated the subsidy covered about 10% of the team's costs.


1933 Grand Prix season, Regulations and Technical, Technical Innovation
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. Cook personally invested £75,000 into the project.


1933 Grand Prix season, Teams and drivers
Financial struggles had forced Alfa Romeo to appeal to the Italian government for a bailout and that meant shutting down its works team. The Scuderia Ferrari customer team defaulted to becoming the representative of the company, however Alfa Romeo would not release, or sell, their dominant Tipo B works cars to Enzo Ferrari, much to his chagrin. The works drivers were released from their contracts and were quickly snapped up by other teams. Nuvolari and Borzacchini went to Ferrari, while the veteran Campari joined Maserati. Ferrari also had Mille Miglia winner Eugenio Siena and wealthy noblemen Conte Carlo Felice Trossi (Ferrari president) and Marchese Antonio Brivio. 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.


1933 Grand Prix season, Teams and drivers
After the death of Alfieri Maserati, the previous year, younger brother Ernesto took up the racing team's management, and as a some-time spare driver. Rather than keep a set squad of drivers, he chose to have a revolving door of contract drivers, with Luigi Fagioli as his senior driver and team captain. Nuvolari's mid-season arrival from Ferrari in its turn infuriated Faglioli, who kept a tense rivalry with Nuvolari and he, in response, left with Campari to join Ferrari.


1933 Grand Prix season, Teams and drivers
Over at the French Bugatti team, Achille Varzi stayed on as the lead driver. Former occasional works-drivers René Dreyfus and William Grover-Williams now became full-time team-members. Pierre Veyron ran one of the new 1.5-litre Type 51A cars in the voiturette races, while Albert Divo shared the team management with ”Meo” Costantini. Erstwhile Bugatti team-mates Louis Chiron and Rudolf Caracciola joined forces as a new team, the Scuderia C/C. They bought three new Alfa Romeo Monza grand prix and sports cars alongside Chiron's own Bugatti Type 51s. Caracciola's wife, Charly, was appointed team manager. The plan was to compete at all the major European races as well as hill-climbs and entering the Le Mans and Spa endurance races. But Caracciola's bad accident at Monaco put him out for the season and the team was subsequently dissolved, with Chiron eventually joining the Scuderia Ferrari.


1933 Grand Prix season, Teams and drivers
There was also the more regular appearance of several other 2-man teams, forming up to combine resources. Swiss drivers Karl von Waldthausen and Julio Villars ran a pair of Alfa Romeo Monzas together at races in France and northern Italy until von Waldthausen's untimely death at the Marseille Grand Prix. Racing friends Paul Pietsch and “Charly” Jellen both ran Alfa Romeos and joined up to alternate with doing road races and the hill-climbs across Germany. New French sensation Raymond Sommer had already made a big impression in the previous season.


1933 Grand Prix season, Teams and drivers
For this year he had a pair of the brand new Maserati 8CM which he raced with Goffredo Zehender. But they suffered from poor steering and the Italian instead left and joined the works team. Sommer sold his car to Nuvolari, and offered to share resources with another impressive young Frenchman, Jean-Pierre Wimille, and his Alfa Romeo. Scuderia Centro-Sud (also known as Écurie Friderich) was based in Nice and run by Ernest Friderich, a successful racer from the previous decade. Equipped with a new 1.5-litre Bugatti Type 37A and a bigger Type 35, they raced in France and Spain. Pietro Ghersi had several Bugattis that he raced around Italy. He also teamed up with the Scuderia Capredoni and used their Alfa Monza.


1933 Grand Prix season, Teams and drivers
In February, barely a fortnight after coming into government, Adolf Hitler opened the international motor-fair in Berlin announcing government support for motorsport and the automotive industry. With that ringing endorsement, the Daimler-Benz racing team returned to making an official presence, starting with races in Germany. The age of state-sponsored motor-racing had arrived.


1933 Grand Prix season, Teams and drivers
These tables only intend to cover entries in the major races, using the key above. It includes all starters in the Grandes Épreuves. Sources:


1933 Grand Prix season, Teams and drivers, Privateer Drivers
‘’Note: ‘’ * indicates only raced in the event as a relief driver,“♠“ Works driver raced as a privateer in that race,“v” indicates the driver ran in the Voiturette class,“†” driver killed during this racing season,Those in brackets show that, although entered, the driver did not race


1933 Grand Prix season, Season review, Snow and sand
The first event of the year was held through the streets of Pau, in the shadows of the Pyrenees Mountains. Attracting many of the best French drivers, there was a risk running an event in late-winter. Sure enough after a fine and sunny practice, an overnight snowfall left raceday blanketing the city white. Officials discussed the options with the drivers and decided to press on with the race after clearing as much snow from the track as possible and salting the roads.


1933 Grand Prix season, Season review, Snow and sand
In front of a large, enthusiastic crowd, it was Guy Moll who initially led through the slush and returning snowfall. 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.


1933 Grand Prix season, Season review, Snow and sand
The third Swedish Winter Grand Prix was held again through the tight, winding forest roads beside Lake Rämen. It attracted a huge field of almost 40 cars, mostly of big American sedans. 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.


1933 Grand Prix season, Season review, Snow and sand
Six cars crashed in practice, including Pietsch who, unused to studded tyres, had gone off at high speed on the main straight ending upside down. Another huge crowd of 100,000 people arrived on a crisp but sunny race-day. From the start, the Widengren brothers were in front. Attrition was high with just as many accidents as engine issues. P-V Widengren however was trouble-free and won the race by four minutes from Bjørnstad with just a dozen finishers.


1933 Grand Prix season, Season review, Snow and sand
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. A week later the Swedish Ice Race was held on Lake Hjälmaren. 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.


1933 Grand Prix season, Season review, Snow and sand
The end of March saw the first major race of the year, held around the ruins of ancient Carthage just outside the city of Tunis. In Alfa Romeo's absence, the Scuderia Ferrari represented the marque with two cars for their ex-works drivers, Nuvolari and Borzacchini. In order to keep them competitive the engineers had bored out the engine of Nuvolari's car up to 2.6-litres. Maserati had a single car for Fagioli, also enlarged to 3.0-litres, while Bugatti also had a single entry, for Varzi and his Type 51.


1933 Grand Prix season, Season review, Snow and sand
There was a solid field of privateers. Philippe Étancelin and Juan Zanelli had their Alfas, as did the new Swiss Écurie Villars-Waldthausen. Raymond Sommer had a brand-new Maserati 8CM along with Goffredo Zehender with his 8C 2800. They were up against a squadron of Type 51s led by Franco-African Marcel Lehoux. His protégé Guy Moll had an older 35C and Count Stanisław Czaykowski ran a 2-litre 51C. Borzacchini led after the first lap from Czaykowski and Moll.


1933 Grand Prix season, Season review, Snow and sand
Nuvolari and Varzi who had started from virtually the back of the grid had overtaken a dozen cars and were second and third by the next lap. By the fifth lap, Nuvolari had taken the lead. To great disappointment in the crowd, local hero Lehoux retired on lap six with engine problems while running fourth. Nuvolari put in the fastest lap of the race in on lap 10, now over 30 seconds ahead of Borzacchini who was being hounded by Varzi. They were now two minutes ahead of Étancelin and the rest of the field.


1933 Grand Prix season, Season review, Snow and sand
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. Von Waldthausen lost crucial time when he came to a stop after his team forgot to re-prime the fuel-pump during his fuel-stop. It cost him third place, finishing just seconds behind Zehender's Maserati, two laps adrift of the Alfas.


1933 Grand Prix season, Season review, Monaco classic
Once again, an invitational list of 20 of Europe's top drivers came to Monte Carlo for the Grand Prix. Ferrari had four entries, with a second bored-out Alfa now, for Borzacchini with Nuvolari, as well as 2.3-litre standard models for Eugenio Siena and Conte Carlo Felice Trossi. The Bugatti team had three cars – Type 51s for Varzi, Dreyfus and “Williams”.


1933 Grand Prix season, Season review, Monaco classic
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. Beside the teams, the field was filled with some of the best European drivers. In lieu of a Maserati works entry, Luigi Fagioli was entered as a privateer with an 8C 3000. Frenchmen Étancelin and Wimille had their Alfa Romeos, and Lehoux and Benoît Falchetto ran Bugattis.


1933 Grand Prix season, Season review, Monaco classic
From England came Tim Birkin in the Alfa of fellow-Bentley Boy Bernard Rubin, and Earl Howe in his Bugatti. Hungarian László Hartmann had a Type 51 he had bought from the disbanded German Bugatti Team, while Swiss driver Hans Stuber and his Bugatti were denied a start as his entry-application had arrived too late.


1933 Grand Prix season, Season review, Monaco classic
Like the previous year, practice was set to be run on Thursday, Friday and Saturday mornings from 6-7am. However, given the narrow nature of the circuit, race organiser and journalist Charles Faroux took the idea used at Indianapolis to set the cars up on the starting grid according to who put in the fastest practice time, rather than by random ballot as races in Europe had traditionally done. It was a process that would soon be adopted across France, then Europe and remains standard to this day. Only eleven cars took Thursday practice.


1933 Grand Prix season, Season review, Monaco classic
Near the end, Caracciola, having set equal fastest time, crashed heavily at the left-hand Tabac corner on the waterfront when his brakes locked up. He was taken to hospital with multiple fractures in his right leg. The injury kept him out of racing for over a year and the resultant surgery made that leg two inches shorter and left him with a permanent limp. Nuvolari also wrecked his car at Tabac but was uninjured and took over Siena's car. No-one matched the 2m03 times of Chiron and Caracciola until Saturday when Varzi did a 2m02 to take the first pole position.


1933 Grand Prix season, Season review, Monaco classic
From the flagfall, Varzi bounded into the lead and within a few laps, a group of five comprising Varzi, Nuvolari, Borzacchini, Lehoux and Étancelin had opened a gap to the field. Chiron had a slow start off the front row and fell back. After 20 of the 100 laps, this group of five was still only five seconds apart, jockeying for position, with Varzi and Nuvolari swapping the lead. This became four when Lehoux had a recurrence of his water-pump issues from practice and retired. Gradually the duel between Varzi and Nuvolari dropped the others off.


1933 Grand Prix season, Season review, Monaco classic
Étancelin spun at the waterfront chicane and rejoined after 40 seconds in fourth. Nuvolari also slid off the road, but quickly made up the time and by the halfway point the two were barely a second apart again, with Borzacchini and Étancelin less than a minute further back. Dreyfus, back in fifth, was the last car on the lead lap. Étancelin then put in some record-breaking laps to take back third place and after 60 laps the four were all nose-to-tail once again.


1933 Grand Prix season, Season review, Monaco classic
However, the hard driving had cost the Frenchman, and a broken driveshaft forced his retirement on lap 69. Nuvolari and Varzi kept swapping the lead and with two laps to go, the pair was still inseparable. The lead changed twice on lap 98, and on the next lap Varzi set a new lap record. On the final lap, Varzi burst past on the climb up to the Casino, but although two cars went into the tunnel, only one came out. Varzi's blue Bugatti took the flag, with Borzacchini finishing two minutes behind and Dreyfus a lap back in third.


1933 Grand Prix season, Season review, Monaco classic
As for Nuvolari? He coasted out of the tunnel with black smoke coming from a fire from a broken oil pipe and a dead engine, and then proceeded to push it to the pits. When a pit crewmember and eager spectators jumped out to help him with his labour, he was disqualified for outside assistance. Right throughout a thrilling race, Varzi and Nuvolari had duelled continually. Both drove very fairly giving each other room to challenge and overtake, only to charge back and retake the position. Nuvolari was absolutely furious with the Ferrari team for letting him down.


1933 Grand Prix season, Season review, Monaco classic
There was no chance of a rematch a week later at the Alessandria event when Varzi's entry was refused, as the national body in Rome had not received it in time. This left little competition to the Ferrari team as the top privateers did not want to risk their cars before the lucrative Tunis race a week later. In a processional race, Nuvolari led home teammates Trossi and Brivio in a Ferrari 1-2-3.


1933 Grand Prix season, Season review, A Libyan fiasco?
The seventh Tripoli Grand Prix proved to be one of the most controversial races in the pre-war era. It has since become shrouded in myth, not least due to Alfred Neubauer's recollections, future team manager at Mercedes-Benz. 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.


1933 Grand Prix season, Season review, A Libyan fiasco?
Last held in 1930, that race had been a financial disaster with a small field, on a circuit not spectator-friendly, and had the death of the popular Gastone Brilli-Peri. The organisers now had a purpose-built 13 km circuit at Mellaha. Well over a million tickets were sold at 12 lire each. Eight days prior to the race, 30 tickets were drawn to be randomly assigned to the 30 drivers.


1933 Grand Prix season, Season review, A Libyan fiasco?
The holder of the winning ticket would receive 3 million lire, with second place getting 2 million and third 1 million, while there was 550 000 lire prizemoney for the top three drivers. Many of the best Italian drivers were entered: Ferrari ran 2.3-litre Monzas for Nuvolari, Borzacchini and Mario Tadini. Maserati had two cars, for Fagioli and Campari. Varzi, meanwhile, ran his 2.3-litre Bugatti as a privateer, alongside Carlo Gazzabini and Hungarian László Hartmann.


1933 Grand Prix season, Season review, A Libyan fiasco?
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. A third of the field was made up of 1.5- and 1.1-litre voiturettes. Luigi Castelbarco, Francesco Matrullo and Ferdinando Barbieri had the new Maserati 4CM while others ran the older Tipo 26 against a pair of old Talbot 700s.


1933 Grand Prix season, Season review, A Libyan fiasco?
It soon became public knowledge that Nuvolari, Borzacchini, Varzi and their respective three ticketholders had arranged a meeting in front of Canestrini. The six agreed to pool, then split, any winnings they would have from the race (with the ticket holders taking a majority share, as the drivers would still have their prize-money as well). Although questionable, it was not illegal, and there was no talk about rigging the race. Of course, upon learning this, many of the drivers, especially Fagioli, Campari, Gazzabini and Birkin, were indignant and furious. The grid was chosen by lot and Birkin and Nuvolari started on the front row with Varzi and Fagioli right behind them. One ticket-holder was already disappointed – Guglielmo Gramonelli had crashed his Monza in practice and would not take the start.


1933 Grand Prix season, Season review, A Libyan fiasco?
Cazzaniga vaulted from the third row to lead at the start, but at the end of the first lap Birkin led Nuvolari, Campari and Zehender. By lap two Campari had taken the lead and was pulling away. Fagioli pitted to change plugs. At the halfway point Campari pitted with a loose oil pump that soon proved terminal. Birkin also pitted from second for a regular stop although he accidentally burnt his arm on the exhaust when picking up a cigarette lighter. Nuvolari, having inherited the lead, stopped for just twenty seconds and was gone again.


1933 Grand Prix season, Season review, A Libyan fiasco?
Varzi meanwhile had an extra fuel-tank fitted on his Bugatti and did not need to stop. As the race came to its climax, Nuvolari was closing in rapidly and when Varzi had to fiddle switching over to his reserve tank, the Alfa Romeo took the lead. 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!


1933 Grand Prix season, Season review, A Libyan fiasco?
Side-by-side on the last lap, Varzi's Bugatti was able to outbreak the Alfa at the last corner and held on to win by a fifth of a second. This was certainly no show just put on for the crowd. Birkin was third, and when Zehender had retired on the last lap, Attilio Battilana came in fourth in his Maserati voiturette, three laps back, beating the bigger Alfa Monzas of Taruffi, Balestrero and Ghersi.


1933 Grand Prix season, Season review, A Libyan fiasco?
In a sad postscript, Tim Birkin was to die less than two months later on the eve of Le Mans, the race he had won twice. He had neglected to attend to the burn he received during the race, and it had turned septic. When he then suffered a relapse of the malaria he had first got during the war, his weakened immunity could not fight off the multiple infections.


1933 Grand Prix season, Season review, Racing in Germany
The next major race in Europe was the Avusrennen, held on the Berlin motorway-circuit. Also held on the same weekend was the Picardy Grand Prix that drew away the top French drivers. To defend German pride and prepare for the new season, the Mercedes-Benz works team was reformed. Still running the SSKL sports-saloon, they had the young Manfred von Brauchitsch back in his streamlined model he had won the previous year's race. Caracciola was to have raced an updated streamlined version, but with his injury team manager Alfred Neubauer called veteran Otto Merz out of retirement.


1933 Grand Prix season, Season review, Racing in Germany
Merz had raced through the '20s and had been the second chauffeur in Sarajevo at the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand in 1914. For the high-speed circuit, Bugatti entered the 5-litre Type 54 for Varzi and Williams. Count Czaykowski also ran his own Type 54 and had recently set a new 1-hour distance record on the AVUS track. Scuderia Ferrari had Nuvolari, Borzacchini and Siena all running their 2.6-litre Alfas, while Chiron and Hartmann had their 2.3-litre versions.


1933 Grand Prix season, Season review, Racing in Germany
The event started badly on the first day of practice. After a rain-shower at lunchtime, the Mercedes drivers went onto the track to test their rain-setup. For reasons unknown, as he accelerated Merz's car suddenly slewed off the track, got airborne and smashed into a kilometre marker. Merz was thrown clear and never recovered consciousness. The accident cast a pall over the rest of the weekend.


1933 Grand Prix season, Season review, Racing in Germany
On a clear Sunday 170,000 spectators arrived for the race, and in the warm-up voiturette race Pierre Veyron had narrowly won an exciting race from Ernst Burggaller, both running the new Bugatti Type 51A. The main race had eleven starters. At the end of the first lap, it was the Bugattis of Czaykowski and Varzi leading Nuvolari and von Brauchitsch. Chiron retired immediately with a broken engine. Von Brauchitsch would not repeat his victory, bedevilled by tire issues with five pit-stops though the race. At the halfway point, Czaykowski had built an 8-second lead over Varzi.


1933 Grand Prix season, Season review, Racing in Germany
The Bugattis were in their own class, with Nuvolari leading the rest of the field well back. Despite setting a track record on lap 12 and lapping the field, Czaykowski was being caught by Varzi who overtook him on the second to last lap. The Italian held on to win by a fraction of a second. Winning at an average speed of 206.9 km/h, it was the fastest race ever run in Europe. The Ferrari teammates were inseparable and Nuvolari and Borzacchini were credited with an identical time and third equal.


1933 Grand Prix season, Season review, Racing in Germany
In France, the weekend had continued its tragic theme at the Picardy GP. Earlier, Anne-Cécile Rose-Itier had won the voiturette race in her new Type 51A. Halfway through the main race, Guy Bouriat was duelling for the lead with Philippe Étancelin. While lapping the Alfa Romeo of Julio Villars, Bouriat's Bugatti clipped it and veered off the road. It ploughed into a tree at 150 km/h and burst into flames. Bouriat was killed instantly.


1933 Grand Prix season, Season review, Racing in Germany
It followed another fatal accident in practice when Louis-Aimé Trintignant (older brother of future F1 driver Maurice Trintignant) was killed when he had crashed trying to avoid a gendarme who had stepped onto the track. Along with two deaths at qualification for the Indianapolis 500, it had been a bad weekend in motor-racing.


1933 Grand Prix season, Season review, Racing in Germany
A week later, the teams met again at the Nürburgring for the Eifelrennen. Once again, Maserati did not appear and Bugatti chose not to enter their big Type 50s for the winding track. Ferrari had Nuvolari, Siena and now Taruffi coming in for Borzacchini. Their main competition would be from Louis Chiron's Alfa Romeo, while Mercedes-Benz entered von Brauchitsch in a standard-bodied SSKL. The Écurie Villars-Waldthausen had their two Alfas, as did the two drivers of Team Pietsch-Jellen, with the field rounded out with privateer Bugattis.


1933 Grand Prix season, Season review, Racing in Germany
Heavy showers during the practice days and race-day morning did nothing to dampen the spirits of 100,000 spectators. By race-start the rain had stopped and the track was drying. The thirteen starters were joined by nine 1.5-litre cars, also doing 15 laps (Howe, Burggaller and Veyron renewing their rivalry), and nine cars in the 800cc class (doing only 12 laps). Chiron led the first lap, until overtaken by Nuvolari on lap two, with von Brauchitsch in third.


1933 Grand Prix season, Season review, Racing in Germany
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. Howe won the 1.5-litre class by just a second from Burggaller. Missed by the officials, the two of them completed an extra lap, when the German passed the English Delage, only to be told the disappointing news when he finished.


1933 Grand Prix season, Season review, French Grand Prix drama
This year the Targa Florio was bedevilled by conflicting dates. Originally, too close to the lucrative Tripoli race to allow time for shipping back across the Mediterranean, it was then rescheduled to the same weekend as the Eifelrennen. Likewise too tight a time for drivers from the races a week earlier, it made for the one of the weakest fields in a decade. There were only 14 starters, and Scuderia Ferrari was the only team represented with Borzacchini, Brivio and Guglielmo Carraroli given the 2.3-litre Alfas. The rest of the field were various Alfa Romeo models, aside from three Bugattis.


1933 Grand Prix season, Season review, French Grand Prix drama
Borzacchini led for three laps, but lost time with a puncture and he then hit a stone wall trying to make up time. Teammate Antonio Brivio then led, racing against Pietro Ghersi until the latter had engine issues. Brivio won by twenty minutes from Renato Balestrero, with Carraroli third. Only six cars finished, although Lettorio Cucinotta's Bugatti was over time and not classified. It would prove to be the last Bugatti to complete a Targa Florio, after the marque (the most successful to date) had won the race five years in a row.


1933 Grand Prix season, Season review, French Grand Prix drama
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. The new Type 59 was not ready yet, and the team also chose not to run their go-to Type 51. In their absence, the Scuderia Ferrari were favourites, with 2.6-litre Monzas for Nuvolari, Borzacchini and Taruffi. Maserati had had a disagreement with Fagioli and neither showed at the event.


1933 Grand Prix season, Season review, French Grand Prix drama
Therefore, the competition would be from the privateers: Chiron, Wimille, Sommer, Étancelin and Moll had their 2.3-litre Alfas, with Campari and Zehender had 3-litre Maseratis. Without the works team, Bugatti was represented by a handful of Type 51 drivers, including Earl Howe as well Czaykowski with his big Type 54. The ACF had cut the entry fee to just 100 francs, while offering the winner 100,000 francs in prizemoney. Race-day was grey and overcast, but it did not dissuade a huge crowd.


1933 Grand Prix season, Season review, French Grand Prix drama
In practice, Nuvolari's car had blown its supercharger, and with repairs unable to be completed, he took over Borzacchini's car. He in turn was to drive Taruffi's, but refused. At the end of the first lap, Nuvolari led from Campari who had passed nine cars, with Taruffi third. Chiron and Étancelin were gesticulating wildly to the officials about Taruffi deliberately blocking them from passing, which eventually took them two laps to get by.


1933 Grand Prix season, Season review, French Grand Prix drama
On lap six (75 km) both Nuvolari and Chiron stopped for tyres, but no sooner had they resumed than the two favourites were out of the race: Nuvolari with a broken differential and Chiron with broken rear axle. Campari now had a 35-second lead over Taruffi and Étancelin, with the rest of the field strung out behind: Zehender, Moll, Czaykowski, Sommer. Campari stopped to change his rear tyres on lap 13 then set a new lap record in his pursuit of the leaders. He finally caught Taruffi and overtook him just before half-distance, on lap 19.


1933 Grand Prix season, Season review, French Grand Prix drama
Gradually the other cars made their pit-stops. When Taruffi came in, it was team-leader Nuvolari who took the car back out. Campari kept up his strong pace and had a 2-minute lead over Étancelin followed by Moll and Nuvolari. When Moll was delayed with a long tyre-stop, Nuvolari moved to third but was then put out a second time, with a broken rear axle. Only sex cars remained, but it would not be a dull finish: Campari pitted again for tyres, letting the Étancelin into the lead.


1933 Grand Prix season, Season review, French Grand Prix drama
The Italian was closing in quickly until it began to rain with just 4 laps (50 km) to go. Campari pitted yet again for fresh tyres and the French spectators saw the chance of a home victory. Étancelin had a 23-second lead going into the last lap but his clutch was destroyed and he could no longer change gear. Campari caught him and took the win by 52 seconds. George Eyston's reliable run netted him third place. After the race, a protest was lodged that Campari had clearly been push-started after his first stop. However, rather than being disqualified, as regulations demanded, he was only hit with a token 1000 franc fine, 1% of his latest winnings. The sporting press were very derisive of the officials' decision.


1933 Grand Prix season, Season review, French Grand Prix drama
By now, tensions were high at Scuderia Ferrari. Nuvolari was fed up with the Alfa Romeo unreliability – the transmission unable to cope with the extra power of the bored out 2.6-litre engine. Young Taruffi had quickly earned the ire of Enzo Ferrari, beating his best riders in bike events taking the considerable prizemoney as a privateer.


1933 Grand Prix season, Season review, Races in June and July
Two weeks later, the Penya Rhin Grand Prix was held on the new Montjuïc circuit in Barcelona. It was a street course going around the Montjuïc hill with the World Exhibition buildings and the proposed Olympic Stadium. Last run ten years earlier, this new iteration attracted a class field. Lehoux led initially but had to stop for new tyres. Nuvolari, still with Ferrari, then dominated the race until the halfway mark when he was waylaid by carburettor problems.


1933 Grand Prix season, Season review, Races in June and July
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. Nuvolari had lost eleven minutes and five laps in the pits and thrilled the crowd with his incomparable flair, retrieving two of those laps back. Although he only finished on seven cylinders, the Chilean Zanelli took a good victory, almost a lap ahead of Someiro after Lehoux was delayed again with gearbox problems.


1933 Grand Prix season, Season review, Races in June and July
The Marne GP at Rheims attracted most of the participants from the recent French Grand Prix. Campari drove for Maserati and Nuvolari for Ferrari. The Villars-Waldthausen and Pietsch-Jellen team-pairs were also present along with the top privateers: Lehoux, Wimille, Zehender, Moll, Sommer and Étancelin. Anglo-American Whitney Straight made his first Grand Prix start, with an old Maserati Tipo 26. For the second time in Europe, after Monaco, the grid would be decided by the fastest practice times, except that local tradition put the previous year's winner on pole.


1933 Grand Prix season, Season review, Races in June and July
This put Lehoux on pole, but to prove a point, he also set the fastest time ahead of the Maseratis of Campari and Zehender. Nuvolari had arrived late and could not set a time, and so started from the back. Lehoux led the first lap and in a stunning opening lap, Nuvolari was up to second and took the lead on the next lap. He set about building a lead and by lap 13 (quarter-distance) had a 40-second gap to Lehoux and Étancelin.


1933 Grand Prix season, Season review, Races in June and July
Campari (who had got up to second) and Zehender had both retired after being injured by flying stones. But an abysmal Ferrari pit-stop for Nuvolari to take on fuel and tyres cost him almost three minutes, down to fourth nearly a lap down on Étancelin. Wimille and Moll were fighting over second place, while Lehoux had fallen back with a failing gearbox. Once again, Nuvolari put in a huge effort, and on lap 31 finally overtook Moll for second still 1m 46s behind. Wimille had stopped to refuel but was two laps ahead of Sommer back in fifth.


1933 Grand Prix season, Season review, Races in June and July
But once again, Nuvolari was betrayed by the Alfa Romeo rear axle drive, coasting to a halt at Geux corner. Then when Étancelin took two minutes to pit for fuel and tyres with ten laps to go, it gave the lead to Moll. Étancelin set about chasing down the young Algerian and with three laps to go it was Étancelinthat passed the line first, just four seconds ahead of Wimille while Moll had to pit for a splash of fuel.


1933 Grand Prix season, Season review, Races in June and July
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). Étancelin held on to head Wimille off by barely a car's length. Sommer inherited third, while Straight was the only other finisher, six laps back.


1933 Grand Prix season, Season review, Races in June and July
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. A small elite field was assembled for that event. Nuvolari was joined by Zehender, in the Maserati monoposto. The other big news was the unveiling of the sleek new Bugatti Type 59, to be raced by Varzi. Team-mates Williams and Dreyfus would run Type 51s. Ferrari had Borzacchini and Siena in the 2.6-litre Alfa.


1933 Grand Prix season, Season review, Races in June and July
Privateer support for them came from Chiron, Sommer and Moll while Lehoux had his Type 51 and the Swiss driver Edgard Markiewicz filled out the field in an older Type 35B. Having just won the Spa 24 Hours endurance race held the weekend before, Chiron set the early pace in practice. Nuvolari put the Maserati through its paces then headed over to the nearby Imperia workshops to strengthen the chassis. Varzi did several sighting-laps in the Type 59 but never got it up to speed. The brakes were poor and the road-holding not up to scratch.


1933 Grand Prix season, Season review, Races in June and July
He therefore decided to abandon the new model and drive a Type 51 in the race instead. Once again, Nuvolari started at the back of the field, and once again he quickly moved up to take the lead, this time by the end of the first lap. After 100 km (7 laps) he had a 17-second lead over the battling Alfas of Borzacchini and Chiron, followed 45-seconds back by Varzi, Lehoux, Zehender and Dreyfus. Williams and Sommer were being plagued by engine issues, needing many stops.


1933 Grand Prix season, Season review, Races in June and July
At the halfway point, Chiron led from Borzacchini, while Nuvolari had stopped for fuel and tyres and was now third. But within a few laps both the Alfas had retired with mechanical problems, giving the lead back to Nuvolari. He kept up his pace and this time was not thwarted by unreliability to take the win. Varzi had stopped on the last lap, changing a tyre in a remarkable fourteen seconds, and hung on to finish just three seconds ahead of teammate Dreyfus.


1933 Grand Prix season, Season review, Tumult at Ferrari
After successful ice races, in August Sweden hosted its first international summer race. 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. However, the race had a tragic start on the first lap. The Mercedes SSK of Börje Dahlin, starting on the front row, was vying with Sven-Olof Bennström's Ford. Approaching an off-camber corner, neither was giving way. The SSK slid wide, jumped a ditch and ploughed through a hedge.


1933 Grand Prix season, Season review, Tumult at Ferrari
Meanwhile, Dahlin's mechanic, Erik Lafrenz, had chosen to leap out rather than be crushed under the car. Bennström spun his Ford, running over the unfortunate Lafrenz and then rolled. The car burst into flames and the driver was thrown out, getting a serious head concussion. The rest of the field arrived unsighted and veered left and right to avoid the fatally wounded mechanic in the middle of the road. A total of seven cars were wrecked (including Chiron's) and a house burned down. Three drivers were taken to hospital while Lafrenz died at the scene. It was almost incidental that Brivio won the race.


1933 Grand Prix season, Season review, Tumult at Ferrari
Nuvolari's situation had erupted very publicly at the end of July. He and Enzo Ferrari were flinging accusations about mutual breach of contract in the team. Ferrari wrote an open letter to the Italian sports-newspaper La Gazzetta dello Sport. A tribunal was convened by the Italian racing federation to investigate. The net effect was that Nuvolari, and his good friend Borzacchini, left Ferrari. Nuvolari, now having bought Raymond Sommer's Maserati, had followed up his success at Spa with consecutive wins at Montenero and Nice.


1933 Grand Prix season, Season review, Tumult at Ferrari
The latter had been the third event of the year with starting positions decided by practice times. Luigi Fagioli, already disgruntled by his treatment at Maserati was furious when his great rival, Nuvolari, was courted by the factory. He showed his dissatisfaction by walking out and going straight to Ferrari as their new team leader. Campari had been given the new 2-litre Maserati 4CM-2000 in those recent races. Unable to compete for the outright win in the smaller car, he followed Fagioli soon after. In turn, Alfa Romeo, alarmed at the loss of pre-eminence of their cars, finally heeded Ferrari's calls and released their mothballed Tipo B cars to the team. The impact was immediately seen at the next race, the Coppa Acerbo on the fast Pescara Circuit.


1933 Grand Prix season, Season review, Tumult at Ferrari
After the upheaval of the past fortnight, it was a completely new driver line-up that appeared on the grid. With strong factory support, Nuvolari, Zehender and Borzacchini all entered as Maserati privateers. In the shadow of the recent fracas, Piero Taruffi was also becoming disillusioned at Ferrari and had bought a Maserati 8CM. To make a point, Ferrari entered an impressive eight cars, although in the end only two arrived. However, new team-drivers Fagioli and Campari now sported the all-conquering Tipo B as their mounts. Bugatti were almost an afterthought, with Varzi and Dreyfus leading a squadron of private entries.


1933 Grand Prix season, Season review, Tumult at Ferrari
Ferrari stirred the pot even more in practice when he offered Varzi some test laps in the Tipo B to possibly set up a future team transfer. Promising to be the most exciting race of the year, enormous crowds lined the vast 25 km circuit. Started by the Duke of Aosta, Campari took the lead from pole position, chased by the Bugattis of Varzi, Howe and Dreyfus. By the end of the first lap, Nuvolari had charged through the field and had a narrow lead over Campari, followed by Taruffi, Fagioli and Varzi.


1933 Grand Prix season, Season review, Tumult at Ferrari
The leading pair continued to trade places for the next hour pulling away from the rest of the field, until by the fifth lap Nuvolari was finally able to build a small gap. Then on the ninth lap, Campari made an uncharacteristic error and crashed at the Spoltore corner. He was thrown out when his car rolled, but fortunately only received light injuries. A lap later, René Dreyfus had to retire after being hit in the head by a bird. Badly stunned, and travelling at full speed, he managed to safely stop his car.


1933 Grand Prix season, Season review, Tumult at Ferrari
With his nearest rival out, Nuvolari could ease off but coming onto the twelfth and final lap, he suddenly lost all speed. The universal joint had seized and by the time it had been loosened in the pits, Fagioli was past and gone. It was a lucky victory for Fagioli, with Nuvolari slipping two minutes back and just a few seconds ahead of Taruffi. Varzi was a distant fourth over four minutes back, showing up the growing obsolescence of Bugatti.


1933 Grand Prix season, Season review, Tumult at Ferrari
Fagioli won again, at the next race, the minor Comminges Grand Prix. Many of the same entrants came to the very fast Miramas oval for the second Marseilles Grand Prix. 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). The pair of Raymond Sommer and Jean-Pierre Wimille had their Alfa Romeo Monzas, as did the Swiss Villars-Waldthausen team, Étancelin and Moll.


1933 Grand Prix season, Season review, Tumult at Ferrari
Once again, as was happening in French races, the grid was decided by practice time. Nuvolari set the fastest time by three seconds, with Borzacchini, Moll and Wimille joining him on the front row. Moll was fastest off the line, but Nuvolari overtook him on lap five. On the tight oval a breakaway group formed of Nuvolari, Chiron, Dreyfus, Fagioli and Zehender and the lead changed back and forth in the slipstreaming battle. While this group battled for the lead, on lap 34 Baron Horst von Waldthausen crashed and rolled his Alfa Romeo after a puncture.


1933 Grand Prix season, Season review, Tumult at Ferrari
With severe internal injuries and a broken leg, the 26-year old died later in hospital. Around the halfway mark most drivers started stopping for fuel and tyres. On lap 56, a wheel came off the Bugatti of Dreyfus 200 km/h, and it was only by his skill and luck that he avoided a serious accident. Nuvolari had a narrow lead over Fagioli until the Alfa pitted, with Chiron a minute back in third. However, yet again, Nuvolari was denied victory because of a broken rear axle, retiring on lap 80. Although Chiron had to stop for a rear tyre change, he took the win after Fagioli needed a fuel top-up with five laps to go. Moll finished third, four laps behind the two Ferrari cars.


1933 Grand Prix season, Season review, Tragedy at Monza
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. An excellent field was on prospect for the international event. These did not include the Bugatti team who still had not got the Type 59 ready to race. However, there was Nuvolari and Zehender for Maserati, supported by Taruffi. Scuderia Ferrari had the Tipo B for Fagioli and Chiron and the 2.6-litre Monza for Siena and Brivio.


1933 Grand Prix season, Season review, Tragedy at Monza
There were a number of privateer Alfas as well, including Lehoux, Moll, Ghersi and Balestrero. Earl Howe and Gaupillat had their Bugattis, while Campari and Czaykowski chose not to start to concentrate instead on the Monza Grand Prix that followed later in the afternoon. An early shower on Sunday morning dampened the track for the 80,000 spectators and 19 starters. Nuvolari led the first lap but Fagioli caught and passed him on the front straight next time around.


1933 Grand Prix season, Season review, Tragedy at Monza
This set the tone for the race, with the lead group of these two chased by Taruffi, Chiron and Zehender; Ferrari versus Maserati. Nuvolari got a puncture on lap 17, but in a lightning-fast pitstop was able to get back out in fourth. Chiron suffered the same five laps later. Taruffi skidded three times on the curved banking, and on the last he hit the inside wall smashing his front suspension. At the half-way point, Chiron led Fagioli by just three seconds, with Nuvolari a further 20 seconds back. Siena, Lehoux, Ghersi and Zehender were already a lap behind.


1933 Grand Prix season, Season review, Tragedy at Monza
When the two Alfa monoposti pitted for fuel and tyres Nuvolari was back in the lead, until he too had to pit. However, Chiron's day ended on lap 40 with a broken valve as he coasted to a stop. So with ten laps to go it was Nuvolari with a 30-second lead on Fagioli. Victory again looked assured until, with two laps to go, Nuvolari came into the pit with a puncture. Fagioli raced past to take a fortuitous victory from Nuvolari with Zehender finishing third two laps behind.


1933 Grand Prix season, Season review, Tragedy at Monza
The international Grand Prix was run in the morning with the local Monza Grand Prix scheduled for the afternoon. As before, it was run as a succession of heats leading up to a 22-lap final. Unlike the race in the morning, this event was held only on the oval banking. A number of the drivers from the morning race were once again on the entry list, although Nuvolari, Zehender, Siena and Gaupillat all chose to withdraw. An unusual entry was Conde Carlo Felice Trossi who had an American Duesenberg run by the Scuderia Ferrari.


1933 Grand Prix season, Season review, Tragedy at Monza
A slight shower skimmed across the track just before the 2pm start of the first heat. Lined up eight abreast on the front straight, it was Luigi Premoli who led the opening lap in his BMP special. However, it soon became a contest between Czaykowski's 5-litre Bugatti and Trossi's Duesenberg. That ended on lap 8 when the Duesenberg lost a piston, spilling oil on the approach to the banked South Curve. Guy Moll hit the oil at 180 km/h and spinning wildly, did three revolutions, amazingly without hitting the walls. He got going again and finished second behind Czaykowski.


1933 Grand Prix season, Season review, Tragedy at Monza
After the race, Moll highlighted the danger at the South Curve with a large pool of oil near the top of the banking. As the cars were wheeled out for the second heat, the marshals dropped sand on the patch and tried to sweep it away. The two favourites were Campari (Alfa Romeo Borzacchini (Maserati). The 41-year old Campari had got a rousing welcome by the spectators as he had announced in the morning he would be retiring after this race to continue in a career as an opera baritone.


1933 Grand Prix season, Season review, Tragedy at Monza
After the drivers had been alerted to the oil on the track, the heat was started. 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. Losing control, he slammed into the upper railing and rolled down the banking. Borzacchini, right behind him, had nowhere to go and flew over the wall, as did Carlo Castelbarco. Ferdinando Barbieri had just enough time to dive low for the infield, dodging the carnage as did the three other cars.


1933 Grand Prix season, Season review, Tragedy at Monza
Campari was crushed under his car and died immediately, while Borzacchini was critically injured and died an hour later in hospital. Castelbarco, amazingly, escaped with only mild injuries. It was incidental that Renato Balestrero won the heat. Although blame was initially put on the inadequate oil clean-up, the accident did not happen on the oil. More likely was that there had been a three-hour race run on the same day and that neither Campari nor Borzacchini had competed in that so they would have been unused to the accumulated greasiness of the conditions and perhaps did not show due caution.


1933 Grand Prix season, Season review, Tragedy at Monza
Tied in with this was the standard practice of fitting smooth tyres and removing the front brakes for racing on high-speed ovals. Extensive discussions were held before the third heat as the officials clearly re-stated the risk and the track conditions. Many drivers were unhappy but the organisers made them sign legal wavers accepting their personal risk. After two hours' delay, the third heat was held. Lehoux in his Bugatti won from the Alfa of Pietro Ghersi. The latter had been leading but lost time after skidding on the greasy oil-patch.


1933 Grand Prix season, Season review, Tragedy at Monza
From the start of the final, Whitney Straight took the lead in his older Maserati Tipo 26M. Czaykowski's big Bugatti picked off the others one at a time and he took the lead on lap 4, closely followed by Lehoux. Then on lap 8, there was further tragedy. A pillar of smoke marked where Czaykowski had crashed. Losing control about 50 metres further than the previous accident he had also gone over the banking wall. Unluckily hitting a rock with his head he was killed instantly as the car rolled and burst into flames. This time the race was soon stopped, running only 14 of the 22 scheduled laps. Lehoux won a hollow victory just ahead of Guy Moll.


1933 Grand Prix season, Season review, Tragedy at Monza
Thereafter, September 10 was named the "Black Day of Monza". It spelt the end of the Monza Grand Prix as a major event and also the banked oval as a complete part of the racetrack. 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. Nuvolari was devastated at the death of his close friends and kept a vigil with their widows overnight.


1933 Grand Prix season, Season review, End of the season
A week later, the fourth Masaryk Circuit had promised a top field, but the entry list was fragmented after the recent events. Scuderia Ferrari had Chiron and Fagioli in the Tipo B again, while Brivio had a Monza. For the twisty circuit, Bugatti sent Dreyfus with a Type 51 (replacing Varzi who had an eye injury), while Mercedes-Benz had an SSKL for von Brauchitsch. The privateers were led by Lehoux and Hartmann in Bugattis, and Moll, Pietsch, Wimille and Balestrero driving the Alfa Romeo Monza. Local hopes were carried by Czech drivers Jan Kubiček and Zdenĕk Pohl.


1933 Grand Prix season, Season review, End of the season
In conjunction with the main class, there was also a voiturette category that brought together Burggaller and Veyron for another contest. They would be challenged by Hugh Hamilton in his little 750cc MG. Sensibly, the organisers declared that once a class winner completed the race, the remaining cars would then be flagged off, rather than having to keep circulating to cover the full distance as was typical for European races.


1933 Grand Prix season, Season review, End of the season
Gentle overnight rain continued through the morning of race-day but over 100,000 spectators arrived. The two classes were raced together, starting five minutes apart. Chiron leapt from pole position to build a steady lead, while Lehoux held up the rest of the field on the narrow roads. Dreyfus and Fagioli stopped every other lap with engine issues and by lap 5 Chiron had a big margin over Pietsch, Moll and Hartmann. The rain stopped about mid-race and although the track dried in most places it was still very damp and slippery going through the forest sections.


1933 Grand Prix season, Season review, End of the season
On lap 9, Pietsch pushed too hard and lost control. The car rolled and ended in a ditch throwing the driver out. Covered with mud but uninjured, Pietsch calmly lit a cigarette to watch the rest of the race. Moll, now up to second, crashed out on lap 11, hitting a road marker and also ended up in a ditch. Also tossed out he suffered just a bruised knee. Fagioli was back on the charge again, setting the fastest lap, but could not catch Chiron who won the race for the third time.


1933 Grand Prix season, Season review, End of the season
In the voiturette class, Burggaller won a battle of attrition as Veyron, Landi and Hamilton all crashed out from the leading group. Hamilton's car somersaulted three times and left the driver unconscious. Papers even published his obituary, although he was not otherwise seriously injured and made a full recovery. Significantly it would be the last time the Bugatti works team entered its 2.3-litre Type 51 workhorse, and likely the last appearance of the Mercedes SSKL, as both were to be replaced by newer models.


1933 Grand Prix season, Season review, End of the season
The last major event of the year was the Spanish Grand Prix. It had last been held in 1927, but with the recent political upheaval in the country, the San Sebastián race had assumed the position as the country's premium race. However, this year the race attracted a top-class field including the long-awaited race debut of the new Bugatti Type 59. Two cars were present, for Varzi, Dreyfus and Williams, with Divo on hand as a reserve driver.


1933 Grand Prix season, Season review, End of the season
Nuvolari, Zehender and Taruffi had the Maserati 8CM monoposto and Ferrari had Fagioli and Chiron in the Tipo B (with Antonio Brivio as their reserve driver) and Siena in a Monza. 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. It was a wet week for practice.


1933 Grand Prix season, Season review, End of the season
The Bugatti works drivers were instructed not to run over a 100 km/h lap average to not give away any pre-race secrets (when Nuvolari was recording a 142 km/h average as the fastest practice lap). However, Williams spun in the rain and ended up hitting a tree sideways so he would not take the start. Raceday was overcast but dry and the fourteen starters took a rolling start of the 30-lap race.


1933 Grand Prix season, Season review, End of the season
Drawn by random ballot, Nuvolari and Chiron were both on the back row of the grid, yet by the second lap they had carved their way through the field to be first and second respectively. Once again, Nuvolari was setting the pace and regularly breaking the old lap-record. By lap 10 he led Chiron by over a minute, himself several minutes ahead of Fagioli, Taruffi and Varzi. Taruffi then lost time with ignition problems. The leading two pitted for tyres and fuel on lap 17 but two laps later the heavens opened to a torrential downpour.


1933 Grand Prix season, Season review, End of the season
Taruffi went off the road, hitting a tree but was uninjured. Then further sensation when Nuvolari aquaplaned off the track. His car ploughed into the roadside embankment, rolled twice and hit a rock. The Italian was hurled from the car onto the road, badly spraining his wrist and receiving a bad cut to his leg. He commented later that it was the hardest impact he had taken in racing. This left Chiron with a comfortable lead and he eased back for the conditions and to save the car.


1933 Grand Prix season, Season review, End of the season
His lap times dropped from 7 minutes to about 9 minutes and he coasted to another unexpected, but welcome, Alfa Romeo victory. Team-mate Fagioli was second, while Lehoux overtook Varzi to finish third, over twenty minutes back. The performance of the new Type 59 was underwhelming, down on power, that would give team manager “Meo” Costantini a lot of work to do in the close-season.


1933 Grand Prix season, Season review, End of the season
The driver of the season was again Tazio Nuvolari. Despite his speed and ability, the results show him often thwarted by car unreliability, leading to mid-season team frustration and intrigue. 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. It had been a particularly grim year with a large number of accidents causing serious injury and death, from Caracciola's season-ending injuries at Monaco to the triple-fatality at Monza.


1933 Grand Prix season, Season review, End of the season
Nine notable European drivers were killed and a similar number badly injured through the season. In the United States, at the Indianapolis 500, five drivers or mechanics had been killed in three crashes. This was the final year of the unregulated Formula Libre, and the time of extremely long races. Aside from superchargers, there had been very little technical or chassis development. Bugatti had essentially used the same body-design through the period. However, with the exciting races of this season, the motor-racing fraternity eagerly awaited what would be produced by manufacturers for the new 750kg formula.


1933 Grand Prix season, Race Results, Drivers' Race Results
Bold font indicates starting on pole position, while italics show the driver of the race's fastest lap. Only those drivers with a best finish of 6th or better, or a fastest lap, are shown. Sources:


1933 Greek legislative election
Parliamentary elections were held in Greece on 5 March 1933. The pro-monarchist People's Party emerged as the largest party, winning 118 of the 248 seats in Parliament, ending the predominance of Eleftherios Venizelos' Liberal Party. The results triggered an attempted coup by Venizelist officers. A military emergency government under Alexandros Othonaios was instituted which suppressed the revolt, and was succeeded by a People's Party cabinet under Panagis Tsaldaris on 10 March.


1933 Green Bay Packers season
The 1933 Green Bay Packers season was their 15th season overall and their 13th season in the National Football League (NFL). This was the first year of divisional play and Green Bay competed in the Western Division. The team finished with a 5–7–1 record under coach Curly Lambeau, the first losing season in team history. Beginning this season, the Packers began playing some home game in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, at Borchert Field to draw additional revenue, starting October 1, 1933, against the New York Giants.


1933 Green Bay Packers season
The Packers' 7–14 loss on September 23, 1933 to the Chicago Bears would give the Bears the edge in the all time series between the two teams, and edge that the Bears would hold for over 84 years. The Packers would once again reclaim the all time series lead against the Bears after a 35-14 victory in Lambeau Field on September 28, 2017.


1933 Green Bay Packers season, Standings
Note: Tie games were not officially counted in the standings until 1972.


1933 Griffith Park fire
The 1933 Griffith Park Fire was a brush fire that occurred October 3, 1933 in Griffith Park in Los Angeles, resulting in the deaths of at least 29 civilians who were trying to fight the fire.


1933 Griffith Park fire, Background
During the dry summer and fall of 1933, thousands of workers financed by the Reconstruction Finance Corporation were hired to clear dry brush and to build trails and roads in Griffith Park. On October 3, 1933, an estimated 3,780 men were working in the park, for a pay of 40 cents an hour. More than 100 squads of 50 to 80 men were at work in the park, each supervised by a foreman or "straw boss".


1933 Griffith Park fire, Fire
A little after 2 p.m. local time, a small fire started in a pile of debris in Mineral Wells Canyon. Many of the workers volunteered or were ordered to fight the fire, but it spread up the canyon. Because there was no piped water in the area, the men tried to beat out the fire with shovels. Foremen with no knowledge of firefighting initially directed the effort, setting inappropriate back fires and sending hundreds of workers into a steep canyon.


1933 Griffith Park fire, Fire
The fire department arrived at 2:26 p.m. but found it hard to fight the fire because of the presence of thousands of untrained people. When the wind changed direction at about 3 p.m., the fire rushed up Dam Canyon, jumped a hastily constructed firebreak, and advanced on the workers, killing dozens and injuring more than 100. By nightfall the fire was under control, after burning about 47 acres (19 ha) of the park's 4,200 acres.


1933 Griffith Park fire, Aftermath
Because of the disorganized nature of the deployment and the often inaccurate recordkeeping of the work project, it took weeks to establish the exact death toll and identify the bodies. A month after the fire, the District Attorney's office put the official death toll at 29, with 27 dead at the scene and two dead in hospitals afterwards. The Griffith Park fire remained the single-deadliest wildfire in California history for 85 years until being surpassed by the Camp Fire in 2018, which killed at least 83 people.


1933 Griffith Park fire, Aftermath
To commemorate the fallen workers, a deodar tree was planted at the entrance to the park along with a memorial plaque. The plaque can no longer be found. The courts ruled that victims were not eligible for civil compensation  due to their unofficial employment by a 'straw boss' (Ca. Public Resources Code)


1933 Guamanian legislative election, Results
Due to the lack of public interest in a Congress whose decisions could be ignored by the Governor, too few candidates ran for election, resulting in twelve seats being unfilled. These seats were filled by candidates nominated by the Governor.


1933 Hamilton, Ontario municipal election
The 1933 Hamilton municipal election was held on December 4, 1933 to select one Mayor, four Controllers, and sixteen members of the Hamilton, Ontario City Council, two from each of the city's eight wards. Voters also cast ballots for trustees for the public school board.


1933 Hamilton, Ontario municipal election, Campaign
The civic election of 1933 saw a decline in support for sitting mayor John Peebles, who faced increasing attacks from both the right and left. In the months leading up to the vote, local communists sought municipal support for their campaign against discrimination. Peebles vocally opposed the campaign and objected to the 'tone' of the groups' communication. Having been heckled by protesters angry about hunger in the city during his nomination meeting, Peebles' popularity began to slip with the electorate. Despite this, the mayor received support from the Hamilton Spectator, highlighting his record on the economy and poverty in the city.


1933 Hamilton, Ontario municipal election, Campaign
Stemming from their success in the previous election, the Policy for 1933 group changed their name to the Economy Slate, running fifteen candidates, twelve of whom were sitting controllers and aldermen. Advocating a smaller city budget and a low tax rate, the Economy Slate continued to press for classical liberal economic policies that were in line with the early policies of the Bennet government in Ottawa. Right-leaning alderman Nora-Frances Henderson, though not asked to join the Economy Slate, campaigned as an independent member of the slate, advertising that she would uphold their principles on council.


1933 Hamilton, Ontario municipal election, Campaign
The local branch of the Independent Labour Party opted to join forces with the newly founded Cooperative Commonwealth Federation and run candidates on a unified ticket. Distancing themselves from radical unionists and right-leaning aldermen, the slate ran advertisements that attacked both candidates from the Communist Party and the newly constituted Economy Slate.