In his very first race for Mercedes, one their cars dominated, a furious Fagioli abandoned his vehicle after having been given orders by team manager Alfred Neubauer to stay in second place and allow fellow Mercedes driver Manfred von Brauchitsch to win.
For 1939, he put his Talbot third at Pau, following Hermann Lang and Manfred von Brauchitsch home.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe | Otto von Bismarck | Alexander von Humboldt | Wernher von Braun | Carl Maria von Weber | Herbert von Karajan | Gebhard Leberecht von Blücher | John von Neumann | Lars von Trier | Ferdinand von Mueller | Paul von Hindenburg | Alexander von Humboldt Foundation | Heinrich von Kleist | Anne Sofie von Otter | Erich von Stroheim | Max von Sydow | Justus von Liebig | Manfred Mann's Earth Band | Hermann von Helmholtz | Franz von Papen | Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg | Carl von Clausewitz | Von Ryan's Express | Richard von Weizsäcker | Manfred Mann | Theodore von Kármán | Manfred von Richthofen | Erich von Däniken | Dita Von Teese | Albrecht von Haller |
In its most successful phase, the Mercedes-Benz team’s regular drivers were Rudolf Caracciola, Hermann Lang, Manfred von Brauchitsch and Richard Seaman.
The race, held on September 3, 1939, was sponsored by King Peter II of Yugoslavia, generating major interest among the Belgraders as more than 100,000 (quarter of the city's entire population at the time) came out to see the world famous racers such as Tazio Nuvolari and Manfred von Brauchitsch.