Welcome to Saturday\"s Sporting Icon!
Every Saturday, this page will showcase some of history\"s most unappreciated sports superstars. From the winding streets of Monaco to the NBA hardcourt, I think it\"s time to shed some light on the greatness of some of the world\"s least treasured icons.
February 21st - Richard Seaman
In the pre-war era of the late 1930s, motorsport was seen in two contrasting lights. In Britain, motor racing was a hobby for the rich and a pleasant past time that looked more like a weekend at the Royal Ascot. On the other hand, Nazi Germany had turned motorsport into a tool for national propaganda, taking the opportunity to display Germany\"s might and technological dominance around Europe. However, there was only one man that ever got to experience both sides of this political battle and at the time, was Britain\"s most successful racing driver; Richard Seaman.
Seaman was born in 1913 into a British family of wealth and made clear from a very young age that he wanted to become a racing driver. This was a career that was never fully supported by his parents throughout his highly successful career, but due to his family\"s immense wealth, he was able to make racing a priority. From age 18-24, Seaman\"s mother spent over £30,000 on his racing career; equivalent to over half a million pounds today. This financial backing pushed Seaman to become the most dominant amateur racer in all of Britain, a reputation that was soon recognised by Mercedes and Adolf Hitler.
During the 1930s, Mercedes were in a similar position to the one they find themselves in today. They were unbeatable. Due to advanced funding from the German government, Mercedes mechanics were able to push the boundaries of engineering and create a car that was decades ahead of all others. Blueprints were kept highly secretive and no one outside of Mercedes personnel was allowed anywhere near the cars during a race weekend. Seaman was invited to a test drive Mercedes shortly before the 1937 season and was inducted into the Mercedes team by the Fuhrer himself.
As a man driven by perfection, Seaman was a perfect fit for Mercedes and did not care about the rising political battles between Germany and Britain. He drove to win and despite having world-class team-mates, Seaman was able to win on several occasions, his most famous being at the 1938 German Grand Prix.
On his return to the Nurburgring, Seaman wasn\"t expected to win. This was a German race and therefore, in order to facilitate Nazi propaganda, was to be won by a German driver. However, a combination of pit-stop errors and a rouge refuelling fire saw Seaman take the lead and go on to win the race by over 2 minutes. Now, for two countries on the brink of war, the German\"s were oddly receptive to Seaman\"s victory and saw it as another dominating display of Nazi supremacy. In an extremely controversial move, Seaman was photographed performing the Nazi salute atop of the German podium; a move that didn\"t exactly go down well with his British counterparts.
Seaman\"s marriage to a young German woman in 1939 saw him sink further into Nazi Germany and drawn further away from his widowed mother. As the war drew closer, Hitler grew increasingly worried about having a successful British driver in his Mercedes car and had Seaman forced down to a reserve driver for the 1939 season.
His one and only race that year would be Seaman\"s last. In extremely wet conditions at the Spa-Francorchamps circuit, the leading Seaman spun into a nearby tree line where the car instantly caught fire, trapping him inside. He soon succumbed to his injuries and in almost an instant, one of Europe\"s best ever young talents had been lost. He had beaten some of the best drivers that any era had ever produced but was written out of motorsport history due to his political affiliations in a time of universal madness.
Excellent Cambridge !
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