Team story
Origins
Rudolf Krause and the Reif name belong to the rebuilding of racing in post-war East Germany. The car combined pre-war BMW components: the historical account identifies a 315/1 as the starting point for the chassis and a 328 as the engine’s source. Erich Reif, Georg Hufnagel and Erich Koch are the engineers associated with its creation.
The Formula 1 journey
Krause won on the car’s debut at Halle-Saale in 1951. In 1952 he took it to the German Grand Prix at the Nürburgring, qualifying 23rd and retiring after three laps with an engine problem. Reif’s sole World Championship appearance was therefore an actual start, not a race completed without points.
Historical timeline
Three chapters in the story of Reif
Three episodes to revisit the people, cars and races that shaped this journey.
First appearance · German Grand Prix
Rudolf Krause · German Grand Prix 1952. The recorded outcome is DNF. This is the first recorded race start, or the first entry if the team never started a race.
Sporting landmark · Reif
No classified race result is documented for this part of Reif’s record. The entries and cars listed elsewhere on the page provide the available reference points; they should not be read as completed races.
Latest recorded appearance · German Grand Prix
Rudolf Krause · German Grand Prix 1952. The recorded outcome is DNF. This is the last race start attributed to this constructor in the archive, not necessarily the end of the organisation behind it.
A distinctive way of racing
The 1952 championship was contested with Formula 2 cars, a circumstance that opened the German Grand Prix to numerous small local projects. Reif-BMW was one of them, not a BMW works team. The Eigenbau and BMW Special descriptions used in historical accounts reflect that environment of individually built racing cars.
What remains
Krause continued to race the car beyond its championship appearance. His return to the German Grand Prix in 1953 came under a different attribution, Greifzu, and does not extend Reif’s World Championship career. The distinction preserves the driver’s personal connection without turning it into an unproven continuity of the car’s identity.