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Mitter's second Gaisberg victory

Name: Mercedes 300 SL
Brand: Mercedes

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Created on September 13, 1962

Text:

M. Pfundner

Photos:

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Gaisberg 1962 - Hermann Müller auf Porsche RSK

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Gaisberg 1962 - Josef Greger auf Porsche RSK

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Gaisberg 1962 - Gerhard Mitter auf Lotus XX DKW

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Gaisberg 1962 - schnelle Fahrzeuge in engen Kurven

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Summary

Exciting duel between Mitter's Lotus-DKW and Greger's Porsche RS1700 -Class victories for the Swiss Herbert Müller (Porsche RSK1600), Vionnet (Abarth-Carrera) and Vögele (Lotus Elite) -Greger won the European Championship race ahead of Heini Walter. The AR article from 1962 reports on this event in detail.

Estimated reading time: 9min

Preview (beginning of the article)

We went to the VI Austrian Grand Prix with not very high expectations and were very pleasantly surprised: although the European Championship had already been decided and the new champion Scarfiotti was not present, we were compensated by a wonderful battle between Gerhard Mitter (Lotus XX with Mitter-DKW engine) and Sepp Greger (Porsche RS 1700). This duel was literally only decided in favour of the Leonberg two-stroke specialist in the last few meters, when Greger had a puncture in the uppermost part of the track and crossed the finish line late on a flat tire. Rain and fog dominated the first practice session in the early hours of Friday morning. Here it became frighteningly clear what a miserable job had been done in resurfacing the Gaisbergstrasse. Over the past three years, the bumps on the lower part of the route have been smoothed out and a new surface has been laid which, in terms of grip, can best be compared to the wet skid plate of a tire proving ground. There were also a number of crashes on the slippery road, some of which were due to rider error, but for which the new surface was probably not entirely blameless. Fortunately, there was only one minor injury, namely the young Arnold v. Bohlen-Halbach, nephew of the head of the Krupp family, who crashed his Alfa Veloce Spider and broke his nose. Arnold Bohlen only started racing seriously this year - after completing some driver training courses - and has already had a number of fine successes in Austria.The irregular conditions also produced some quite astonishing results: The best time of the day was set by the German Schüller in a Mercedes 300 SL in 5'44.8"; his car is a factory Mercedes converted to Gran Turismo from 1952, i.e. a Le Mans/Carrera Panamericana model. Second fastest was Gerhard Mitter, Gaisberg winner in 1959, in a Lotus-DKW ahead of Sepp Greger (Porsche Carrera) and Herbert Müller (Porsche RSK 1600). Only these four competitors remained under the six-minute limit.Ideal road and weather conditions during Saturday's training session then promptly produced a series of new best times. Gaisberg record holder Sepp Greger beat his previous year's best by three and a half seconds with a time of 4' 27.0", but Ger- hard Mitter proved to be a dangerous opponent with a time of 4' 30.2". Heini Walter, who had to use his private 1700 cc engine while Sepp Greger had a works engine at his disposal, achieved the third-best time of 4' 41.2" ahead of Herbert Müller, Kurt Ahrens Jr. (Cooper-Ford), Hermann Müller (Porsche RSK) and Charles Vögele (Lotus Monte Carlo 2000). The fastest Gran Turismo driver was Siggi Günther in his five-year-old Carrera Speedster, while Eberhard Mahle (Mercedes 220 SE) laid claim to category victory in the touring car category.

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