the race, and while Niedermayr was down in 22nd place, Heeks qualified his car a magnificent 9th. He qualified ahead of several works cars, including Jean Behra's Gordini. Come the race, Heeks took advantage of both Paul Pietsch's Veritas and Ernst Klodwig's BMW running into trouble on the opening lap, and moved up to 7th, where he remained for 5 laps. However, on lap 6, he began to suffer with the BMW engine in his car, and by the end of the 8th lap, he was out. Meanwhile, Niedermayr had been making fantastic progress from his lowly grid slot. Heeks' retirement moved his compatriot up into 9th place. By capitalising on other's mistakes. Niedermayr had moved up through the field, and when Robert Manzon's Gordini lost a wheel on the 9th lap, he inherited the Frenchman's 8th place. He was passed by Toni Ulmen, driving a Veritas, late in the race, but still brought the car home in 9th, the first ever finish for an AFM in a championship race. AFMs were back in action in Germany the following year. Stuck entered once again, privately this time. He was using yet another different engine, the Bristol straight six. He was joined by Günther Bechem in his privately entered machine, and Theo Fitzau, driving a car for Niedermayr, who had performed so well in it himself the previous year. Niedermayr himself had retired from racing after killing at least 13 spectators during a crash at the Grenzlandring in 1952. Both Bechem and Fitzau were using BMW engines. Fitzau was the highest qualifier, in 21st place, over 80 seconds behind Alberto Ascari on pole for Ferrari. Stuck was 23rd, while Bechem, down in 30th, was well over 2 minutes shy of Ascari's time, made possible by the extreme length of the Nürburgring circuit. Stuck was out on lap 1, as his new engine failed. By the end of lap 4, Bechem and Fitzau were also out with similar engine problems. AFM's last appearance in championship F1 came at the Italian Grand Prix later in the year, as Stuck entered his car again. He qualified second last, beating only Johnny Claes's Connaught. However, he finished 14th in the race, simply by virtue of not running into difficulties. He was 13 laps behind the victorious Juan Manuel Fangio. As Grand Prix racing abandoned the F2 regulations at the end of 1953, so AFM withdrew