On 26 August 1934, while Whitney was racing to third place in the Comminges Grand Prix, teammate Hugh ‘Hammy’ Hamilton was in Bern, participating in the inaugural Swiss Grand Prix, held at a 4.5-mile circuit in the forest of Bremgarten, to the north of the city.
After more than three-and-a-half hours of racing and just a single, scheduled pit stop, Hammy lay seventh, five laps down on the man who had led all the way in his Auto Union, Hans Stuck. Tragically, as Stuck was completing his final lap to claim victory, Hammy, just a mile from the finish line himself, left the circuit, hit one tree and then slammed into another. He was killed instantly.
Another of Whitney’s teammates, former Cambridge chum Dick Seaman, sent Whitney an eye-witness account of the accident: ‘Chiron tells me that he was fairly close behind Hammy when it happened. It was a left-hand bend through a wood, which was rather bumpy and could be taken at about 110mph. Apparently Hammy got a wheel into the loose stuff on the right-hand side of the road, the car skidded and hit the trees on the other side of the road. Chiron says he nearly did the same thing several times on that bend.’
Autocar’s obituary concluded, ‘‘British and international motor racing has lost a fearless driver – and a man of the best type.’
Photo: Adam Ferrington