Rudolf “Rudi” Fischer (19 April 1912 – 30 December 1976) was a racing driver from Switzerland.
Fischer participated in eight World Championship Grands Prix, debuting on 27 May 1951. He achieved two podium finishes, and scored a total of 10 championship points. He also participated in numerous non-Championship Formula One and Formula Two races. Info from Wiki
Fischer finished third in a race which marked the reopening of the AVUS, a German motor racing circuit. It had been closed for a 14-year period and was damaged during World War II. A crowd of 350,000 watched Paul Greifzu of Suhl, Thuringia, win in a car he built himself. Fischer drove a Ferrari to third place over a distance of 207.5 kilometres. His time was 1 hour, 10 minutes, 27.5 seconds. In the 1952 Swiss Grand Prix, in Bern, Fischer finished second to Piero Taruffi; both drivers were in Ferraris.
Écurie Espadon/Scuderia Espadon[edit]
Fischer was the leader of the “Écurie Espadon”, the entrant name for most of his racing career.
Écurie Espadon was composed of a group of Swiss amateur gentleman racers. The word “Écurie” was used at the beginning as most of the team’s cars were French, generally Gordinis. Later the team’s equipment changed to Ferraris and other Italian vehicles, thus the name of the team changed to use the equivalent Italian word “Scuderia”. Info from Wiki
PREIS VON OSTSCHWEIZ
In the immediate postwar years there was a Grand Prix race in the city of Erlen in Switzerland, in English perhaps the Prize of East Switzerland [No doubt a reader will suggest a better translation!]. Erlen is located about 70 km. northeast of Zurich near Lake Constance, the Bodensee in German. The circuit was of the temporary street variety and just over 1.7 miles in length. It was triangular with the start/finish on the main straight followed by a hairpin to the right and a straight with a sweeping right to a 90º right corner after which there was an “S” bend with a straight section to another right hand hairpin onto the main straight. Works teams did not attend, so the field was made up of private entrants. Here is the start of the Formula 2 race on August 12, 1951 with the Ferrari 212F2 of the popular Swiss driver Rudolf “Rudi” Fischer in the lead.
Here Fischer is to the left entering one of the hairpin corners. Fischer’s car was probably a 1949 or 1950 Formula 1 chassis but redone with updated bodywork and a two liter single cam per bank F2 motor. He raced this privately-owned Ferrari numerous times. To the left at the start, having taken pole position, is an HWM-Alta driven by a young Stirling Moss who will not finish due to suspension failure. Car n. 14 to the right is a Veritas Meteor driven by Toni Ulman which will be another non-finisher.
Two other F2 Ferraris were in the race. One was an older F1 car, re-engined with an F2 motor and handled by the British driver Peter Whitehead who was sixth on the grid. Another more recent F2 Ferrari was entrusted to ex-Scuderia Ferrari driver Franco Cortese. Whitehead would have a race-long duel with Fischer and took the win by 15 seconds with Robert Manzon’s Gordini T11 third another 7 seconds back. Cortese finished seventh, three laps down.
Info and photos from the JJF Archive ©The Klemantaski Collection – http://www.klemcoll.com
