While Adolff was slipping backward, Seidel was showing great poise and wisdom despite his young age and continued to move forward. Using the conditions to his advantage, he would manage to keep Fred Wacker and Prince Bira behind him. And had he started a little better he may have even challenged Stirling Moss before the race was over.
In spite of de Graffenried’s great start and control of the field early on, the race was far from over coming down to the last couple of corners of the last lap. Frere was all over him and was pushing hard to cause de Graffenried to make a mistake in order to let Frere to get by.
The pressure from Frere had been strong throughout but after de Graffenried turned the fastest lap of the race it was obvious he still had the pace with his Maserati to handle the HWM-Alta of Frere. Coming to the line, de Graffenried would go on to take the victory. He would enjoy a lead of nearly two seconds over Frere at the finish. Peter Collins would end up another fifteen seconds behind in 3rd place.
Seidel had been impressive every time he took part in a race on the Nurburgring, the 1953 Eifelrennen would be no different. Seidel would drive beyond his years and would finish in 8th place a little more than six minutes behind de Graffenried.
While driving the Veritas RS he was used to driving in sports car races, it was still an impressive result for the young German in his first grand prix race. Seidel had outperformed many older, more-experienced racers. This would be a great experience for the young man as he prepared to take part in his first World Championship race later on in the season.
Seidel’s racing calendar in 1953 would be rather light. It was expensive to go racing, especially for privateer entries. Therefore, Seidel had to be rather picky as to the races he was going to participate.
Seidel’s next race would come more than a month after the Eifelrennen. On the 12th of July, he would be busy preparing his Veritas RS for the 9th Internationales Avusrennen, a 25 lap race of the historic 5.14 mile Avus circuit in the western part of Berlin.
The original 12 mile long Avus circuit actually opened before Seidel would be born. In the year of his birth, the circuit would host the first German Grand Prix. In 1953, Seidel would make his way to Avus to take part in the Avusrennen. The race would take place on a revised Avus circuit. The original layout hosted its last race in 1937. The following year, the German driving ace Bernd Rosemeyer would be killed at the Autobahn between Frankfurt and Darmstadt on 28 January 1938 a speed record. This shocking loss would close the circuit down.
Over the next few years, Avus would change more as a public highway between Charlottenburg and Nikolassee than it would as a motor racing venue. The circuit would sit idle pretty much all throughout the Second World War.
After the war, motor racing became a popular sport once again. To make the track safer it would be virtually cut in half. Its length would be reduced to just over 5 miles and the banked southern curve would be abandoned in favor of a tight hairpin turn. Although the southern end, with its banked curve wouldn’t be used any longer it would still have the feared ‘Wall of Death’ at the north end. Virtually the same as the old southern curve, the Nordkurve boasted of a steeply-banked, brick paved curve. Speeds through this curve were incredibly high, and with the bumpy brick paving, it was incredibly dangerous.
As with the Eifelrennen, the field for the Avusrennen would include a number of foreign entries with faster cars. Not only was Kurt Adolff back with Ecurie Espadon’s Ferrari 500, but also, Jacques Swaters was present with his team’s Ferrari 500 as well. In addition, a couple of Cooper-Bristols, a Connaught and a Maserati A6GCM would also make up the starting field.
In practice for the 25 lap race, the foreign presence would come to dominate the front row of the grid. Swaters would take the pole for the race. He would be joined on the front row by all foreign entries. Alan Brown would start 2nd in a Cooper-Bristol while Rodney Nuckey would start in 3rd. While a number of German competitors showed some good speed there was really very little that could be done to overcome the might of foreign marks. Therefore, Seidel, like other German racers, would start further down in the order.
While the layout and design of the Avus circuit was incredibly simple and straight-forward, there was nothing straight-forward about racing on the circuit. Seemingly nothing more than two long straights with a tear-drop banked turn at the north end and a tight hairpin turn at the south, there were so many ways things could go wrong at the circuit. The Nordkurve was incredibly dangerous, the high-speed sections and even the hairpin turn would put incredible strain on a car throughout. While seemingly simple, to be fast required being on the edge at all times and many racers would find out just how dangerous the ‘edge’ really was at Avus.
The 1953 Avusrennen would be a perfect example. Twenty-six cars would take the start of the race. Problems would start right at the very beginning of the race. One of the pre-race favorites, Kurt Adolff, had been struggling slightly during practice, and in the race, it would all come apart. After just one lap, Adolff would lose control of his Ferrari and would crash out of the race. Alan Brown would also crash out after just five laps. A number of other entries would be out of the race due to accidents or mechanical failures. The East German favorite, Edgar Barth would drop out with clutch failure. A number of others would also suffer mechanical ailments that would drop them out. In total, there would only be nine cars still running at the end of the 25 lap race.
