Hermann Lang, born in 1909

On 6 April 1909, Hermann Lang was born in Cannstatt near Stuttgart. He is usually remembered as one of Mercedes’ key Silver Arrows drivers from the late 1930s, but he also left a small, neat mark on the Formula 1 World Championship record books.

Lang’s rise was unusual. Mercedes hired him as a fitter in 1933, and within two years he was racing for the team. He won the AVUS race in 1937, then became the most successful driver of the 1939 season with victories at Pau, Tripoli, Belgium and Switzerland. The 1939 European Championship remains a disputed subject, but Lang’s standing as one of the major Mercedes drivers of that era does not.

What makes him especially interesting to Formula 1 readers is the late-career coda. After the war he returned to win the 1952 Le Mans 24 Hours for Mercedes with Fritz Riess, then made his two World Championship starts: fifth for Maserati in the 1953 Swiss Grand Prix, and one final appearance for Mercedes at the 1954 German Grand Prix, which ended in retirement after a spin. It is a tiny F1 record, but a revealing one. Lang belonged to the generation that shaped top-level Grand Prix racing before Formula 1 simply gave it a new label.