AIACR European Championship

demonstrating a Mercedes-Benz W125 at the Nürburgring in 1977. Lang drove a W125 to victory on its 1937 début. The 1931 and 1932 seasons were run to existing Formula Libre regulations, with a minimum car weight of 900 kg. The calendar consisted of the Italian Grand Prix, the French Grand Prix and the Belgian Grand Prix/German Grand Prix. In 1934, the AIACR introduced a maximum weight limit of 750 kg for Grand Prix cars. Already in 1933, new chancellor Adolf Hitler had announced that he would provide 450,000 reichsmarks to German companies to build Grand Prix cars. Eventually, the money was split between bidders, Mercedes-Benz and the newly formed Auto Union. The cars had to weigh between 400 kg and 850 kg; the exact minimum weight specified in the regulations was dependent on a car's engine capacity and followed a linear scale. Langlois took several months to propose a new system and there is no evidence to suggest that the previous scoring system was rescinded. Hermann Lang was declared European champion by Korpsführer Adolf Hühnlein of the NSKK, who was also president of Germany's highest racing organisation, Oberste Nationale Sportbehörde für die Deutsche Kraftfahrt. Hühnlein's declaration was published as a statement in the Völkischer Beobachter, the official Nazi Party newsletter. Hühnlein suggested that Lang had finished the season on 23 points, but this conflicts with the official scoring system, under which Hermann Paul Müller would have been the champion. ==Results==

Scoring system The AIACR European Championship treated the season like one race with several heats, putting emphasis on the championship challengers participating in all events and finishing the races. Thus, Championship race organisers should receive many entrants, and Championship race spectators should see many challengers racing till the end rather than staying absent or retiring early. The scoring system was rather simple: the fewer points, the better. A win earned 1 point, the other podium places 2 and 3 points, and other participants earned 4 to 7 points based on the percentage of the race distance they completed. The worst cases, non-participation in a Championship event or disqualification, earned a driver the maximum of 8 points. The points awarded on the completed percentage of the race distance were as follows. Not entering, or failing to start the race, earned the driver eight points. Drivers only scored points with the car they entered the race with. In 1931, co-drivers were eligible to score championship points, but only from the car they were assigned to at the start, and provided that they had completed a stint in the car during the race. From 1932 onwards, if a driver handed his car over to another driver mid-race, only the original driver would score points from the car's final position. Championship history ==Footnotes==