Later Career
Collins joined the Aston Martin sports car team in 1952, and scored a sensational victory at the 1952 Goodwood Nine Hours race, sharing an Aston with Pat Griffith. The following year, he took the Aston Martin DB3S he shared with Pat Griffith to victory in the Tourist Trophy at Dundrod.
Collins got his Formula One break in 1952, picking up a drive for the lowly HWM team, replacing Stirling Moss. Results did not come the team's way, and Collins left after the 1953 season. Following spells driving for Vanwall and Maserati, together with a brief outing in a BRM which ended with a crash in qualifying, Collins signed with Ferrari for the 1956 F1 season. Collins' 1956 season with Ferrari proved to be a turning point, with a solid second place finish behind Moss at Monaco, and wins at the Belgian and French Grands Prix. Indeed, Collins was on the verge of becoming Britain's first F1 World Champion when he handed his Lancia-Ferrari D50 over to team leader Juan Manuel Fangio after the latter suffered a steering-arm failure toward the end of the Italian Grand Prix at Monza. Collins eventually finished second, but the advantage handed to Moss, and the extra points gained by Fangio's finish, demoted Collins to third in the championship. Collins' selfless act gained him respect from Enzo Ferrari.
In 1956, Collins moved to Monaco in order to avoid compulsory military service in the British Army and thus continue his racing career.
In January 1957, Colllins married American actress Louise King, and the couple took up residence on a yacht in Monaco harbor. That same year, Collins was joined at Ferrari by Mike Hawthorn. The two became very close friends, even arranging to split their winnings between each other, and together engaged in a fierce rivalry with fellow Ferrari driver Luigi Musso. However, despite a third-place finish at the Nurburgring, team Ferrari were distinctly under-par for much of the season as the 801 model (an evolution of the 1954 Lancia D50) was by then becoming obsolete. 1958 saw the introduction of the new Ferrari Dino 246, a far improved car, and once again results began to go the way of Scuderia Ferrari. Collins scored his third and final career victory at the British Grand Prix, as well as taking a third place at Monaco. Hawthorn won the fateful 1958 French Grand Prix at Rheims, in which Luigi Musso was killed while holding second place (Stirling Moss eventually took second, with Collins taking fifth place).
During the 1958 German Grand Prix at the Nürburgring, Collins and Hawthorn were chasing Tony Brooks' Vanwall when disaster struck. Pushing hard to keep pace, Collins went into the Pflanzgarten section, entered a turn too fast and caused his Ferrari to run wide and strike a ditch on the left side of the road. Collins lost control and, in Hawthorn's direct sight, flipped in the air and landed upside down in a cloud of dust. Though Collins was thrown clear as the car somersaulted, he struck a tree, sustaining critical injuries to his head. Despite being airlifted to hospital, Collins died later that afternoon in an almost identical manner to that of Luigi Musso. Already ill from kidney troubles, Hawthorn was noticeably affected by Collins' death, and the former retired from racing immediately after winning the 1958 Driver's Championship. Hawthorn would himself die the following year in an automobile accident while driving on the A3 bypass near Guildford.
Read more about this topic: Peter Collins (racing Driver)
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