Vanwall (Formula One team)

Vanwall was a Formula One team in the 1950's.

The Vanwall name is an acronym that combines the names of the car owner Tony Vandervell and Thinwall bearings, which his Vandervell Products produced. Originally, the team raced in lower Formula series under the Thinwall name, and he ran cars that were referred to as Thinwall Specials, which were actually old Ferraris.

Tony built a Vanwall Special for Formula One in 1954, and appeared in a points race for the first time in that year's British Grand Prix. Vanwalls ran for two seasons in F1 without much fanfare. After 1955, a worker for Vandervell suggested hiring a young designer to improve their cars. The designer was a young Colin Chapman.

The new cars that Chapman helped build showed early promise in 1956 by winning a pre-season exhibition race. Stirling Moss drove the car to victory in what was his only drive for Vanwall that year, as he was still contracted to drive for Maserati in F1. Talented drivers Harry Schell and Maurice Trintingnant were the full-timers for the season. However, neither of them had much success.

Moss eventually decided to drive a Vanwall full time in 1957. He was joined on the team by South African Tony Brooks and later by Briton Stuart Lewis-Evans. Moss and Brooks shared Vanwall's first Grand Prix victory in Britain, and Moss on his own won both Grands Prix held in Italy.

Both stayed with the team in 1958, and they both won three times that season. Vanwall became the first team to win the Constructor's Championship, held for the first time that season, but Moss and Brooks lost out to Mike Hawthorn in the points race. At the end of the season, during Formula One's only ever race in Morocco, Lewis-Evans was burned to death after an engine failure set his driving suit on fire.

The 1958 season was the last one Vanwall ran full time. Brooks made one appearance in a Vanwall for the next two seasons before the team left F1 in 1960.