Mogelijk kan onderstaand artikel, terug te vinden op
www.8wforix.com, voor enige opheldering zorgen. In hetzelfde artikel is trouwens een foto te zien van deze HWM met Paul Frère tijdens de GP van België 1952 te Spa, maar dan langs de linkerkant van de wagen.
Quote:
....Suddenly Frère's was a hot name, and the Belgian RAC offered him a place in the '52 Grand Prix. He wrote to HWM's John Heath; the answer was no, but Heath did need someone for the GP des Frontières at Chimay . The HWM cars for that race had been allotted to Heath himself and three Belgian drivers, Charles de Tornaco, Roger Laurent and Paul Frère.
We swear we didn't mean this kind of coincidence, but in this 1952 GP des Frontières two points are worth mentioning: it was the first single-seater race for both Paul Frère and Olivier Gendebien and, against all odds, Roger Laurent, who as we have just mentioned was entered to drive an HWM and practiced with it - and who was suddenly allocated a brand new car that had arrived late Saturday night in the Ecurie Francorchamps lorry: a brand new, yellow painted, Ferrari 500!
The start had been in dry weather but at mid-race, when Ken Downing (Connaught A3) was 40 seconds in the lead, it started to rain. Almost immediately Frère started to make up ground, helped when Downing briefly spun on lap 14. Going into the last lap the gap was still 13 seconds but, by now, Frère was going splendidly and smashed the lap record, catching and passing the unaware Downing on the very last bend, less than a mile from the finish.
John Heath immediately offered Paul a drive in the forthcoming Belgian GP and he delighted his entrant by bringing the car home in fifth place, claiming the last championship points of the race (our picture).
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Deze, volgens mij, zeer betrouwbare bron van info heeft het dus zowel over de GP des Frontières in Chimay als over de GP van België te Spa Francorchamps, twee verschillende GP's dus.
jan