1958 Grand Prix of Argentina

 1958 Grand Prix of Argentina

Racing data
1st of 11 races in the 1958 World Automobile Championship
Surname:	VI Gran Premio de la Republica Argentina
Date:	January 19, 1958
Place:	Buenos Aires , Argentina
Course:	Autódromo Municipal Ciudad de Buenos Aires
Length:	312.96 km in 80 laps of 3.912 km
Weather:	sunny, dry
Pole position
Driver:	Juan Manuel Fangio	Maserati
Time:	1: 42.0 min
Fastest lap
Driver:	Juan Manuel Fangio	Maserati
Time:	1: 41.8 min
Podium
First:	Stirling Moss	Cooper-Climax
Second:	Luigi Musso	Ferrari
Third:	Mike Hawthorn	Ferrari

The 1958 Argentine Grand Prix took place on January 19, 1958 at the Autódromo Municipal Ciudad de Buenos Aires near Buenos Aires and was the first race of the 1958 World Automobile Championship .

Reports

background

Mike Hawthorn in the Dino 246F1 at the 1958 Argentine Grand Prix

Stirling Moss - first winner with a mid-engine car ( Cooper T43 ), 2008

As in previous years, the season opener of the 1958 Automobile World Championship was the Argentine Grand Prix, which was held early in the year. For this reason, many teams, including Vanwall and BRM, had not yet finished the new car and stayed away from the Grand Prix. The field consisted of only 10 drivers and only Ferrari brought a new car to the start, the Ferrari Dino 246F1 . The car was developed in the previous season and was used for the first time at the 1958 Grand Prix of Argentina. The car replaced the Ferrari 801 , which was one of the most competitive cars in 1957, but did not achieve a victory. Ferrari used a V6 engine for the first time in the Dino 246, but retained the front-engine design typical and successful for the time. The car was used until 1960 and formed the basis for the Ferrari Dino 246P , Ferrari's first mid-engine car. Last year's regular drivers, Luigi Musso , Peter Collins and Mike Hawthorn , drove for Ferrari .

Since Maserati had left Formula 1 for financial reasons at the end of the 1957 World Cup , Ferrari was the only works team present. The rest of the field consisted of teams using private cars. The reigning vice world champion Stirling Moss drove for the Rob Walker Racing Team in a Cooper T43 , record world champion Juan Manuel Fangio competed for the Scuderia Sud Americana together with compatriot Carlos Menditéguy in a private Maserati 250F . In addition, with Harry Schell , Jean Behra and Paco Godia, other former Maserati drivers started with these cars. The 1958 Grand Prix of Argentina thus had the smallest field in Formula 1 history, with only ten vehicles registered.

The 1958 Formula 1 season brought with it some rule changes that were used for the first time at the 1958 Grand Prix of Argentina. The teams were required to use commercial fuel for their cars rather than traditional alcohol-based mixtures. These were mostly very harmful to the environment and dangerous and were therefore banned. In addition, points were no longer awarded when drivers changed in order to curb this practice. In fact, driver changes in the race became less frequent, but were used up to the 1964 US Grand Prix , as in certain situations a driver change in the race could deprive the competition of points. In addition to the drivers 'classification, there was also a constructors' classification for the first time. For this rating, the points of the best placed driver per race counted. In addition, the minimum race distance has been reduced to two hours and a total of 300 kilometers.

In previous years, Fangio had won the Argentine Grand Prix four times and Ferrari was twice successful.

training

Training for the 1958 Argentine Grand Prix was a battle between the Ferraris and the private Maserati, which Fangio won one last time. Fangio thus reached his 29th and final pole position , a record that was only broken by Jim Clark in the 1967 Automobile World Championship . In addition to Fangio, the Ferrari drivers Hawthorn and Collins, as well as Behra on Maserati, qualified for the front row. This was the last pole position achieved in a Maserati 250F , although the car was still used by various teams for a number of years.

For the second row of the grid, Musso qualified in fifth place in the third Ferrari, ahead of Fangio's team-mates Menditeguy and Moss, whose Cooper was exactly two seconds short of pole time. The third row consisted of Schell in eighth, Godia in ninth and Horace Gould in his private Maserati in last place.

run

In the run-up to the race, the Rob Walker Racing Team calculated that changing all four Moss Cooper tires would take several minutes. Due to the fact that the race distance was shortened due to the extreme heat, the team decided to let Moss go through the entire race without pit stops. This represented an advantage over the competition, which relied on a one-stop strategy. This other strategy was Mos's only chance of winning the race, since the Cooper had an engine that was almost 80 hp weaker than the Ferrari and Maserati and was therefore only partially victorious.

Behra won the starting duel and after the first lap he was ahead of Hawthorn and Fangio. Collins, who started from third place, retired on the first lap of the race due to a broken half-wave. This was the only retirement of the race; all other nine drivers crossed the finish line.

Hawthorn took the lead on the second lap and Fangio also managed to overtake Behra. Hawthorn then dueled with Fangio and kept first place until the ninth lap. In this, Fangio passed him to lead a Formula 1 Grand Prix for the last time in his career.

Halfway through the race, the Italian front-engined cars showed signs of overheating, due to the rule change in the fuel to be used, since alcohol made the engine less hot than the new gasoline mixture. Moss, who tried to complete the race, made up several positions by overtaking Musso and catching up with Hawthorn and Behra, who started their pit stops. Thus Moss was in second place behind Fangio. After Fangio - he suffered a puncture and lost some time - was at the pits, from lap 35 the new order was Moss, ahead of Behra and Musso. Behra made a driving mistake while in second place and fell back a few positions due to the spin, and Fangio also lost time on the top because his car had engine problems.

Musso did not attack Moss and kept his distance from him, suspecting that Moss would have to come back to the pits. This assumption was reinforced by the mechanics of the Rob Walker Racing Team around Alf Francis , with whom Moss developed this strategy, who were preparing for an upcoming tire change. However, Moss strategy was to go through the race completely and it worked. Towards the end of the race, however, he had to cool his tires - Moss did this by deliberately driving the tires into the grass, among other things - as the tread on one of the rear tires was slowly becoming detached. When Musso realized that Moss would no longer change tires, it was too late to catch up and Moss won the race by a narrow margin of about three seconds.

The first victory for a Cooper car also meant the first victory of a privately used car as well as the first victory of a mid-engine vehicle in Formula 1. This victory marked the beginning of an evolution in Formula 1 in which the mid-engine concept was - so far by many leading manufacturers such as Enzo Ferrari labeled it "bizarre" - and within just a few years it suddenly caught on. In the 1958 Formula 1 season, Cooper did not yet have the racing speed necessary to constantly compete for victories, but this success was the beginning of a process that was continued in the 1959 Automobile World Championship and the 1960 Automobile World Championship and the front-engined cars in the following years completely ousted from Formula 1, as other teams also recognized the advantages of an engine positioned behind the driver.

Musso and Hawthorn completed the podium, Fangio finished fourth and Behra completed the points with fifth. Fangio received the point for the fastest race lap, for him it was the last fastest race lap of his career. In the drivers 'championship, Moss took the lead ahead of Behra, while the constructors' championship was led by Cooper for the first time, ahead of Ferrari and Maserati.

Registration list

team	No.	driver	chassis	engine	tires
Scuderia Sud Americana	02	Juan Manuel Fangio	Maserati 250F	Maserati 2.5 L6	P
	06th	Carlos Menditeguy
Ken Kavanagh	04th	Jean Behra	Maserati 250F	Maserati 2.5 L6	P
Jo Bonnier	08th	Harry Schell	Maserati 250F	Maserati 2.5 L6	P
Francis Godia-Sales	10	Paco Godia	Maserati 250F	Maserati 2.5 L6	P
HH Gould	12	Horace Gould	Maserati 250F	Maserati 2.5 L6	D.
RRC Walker Racing Team	14th	Stirling Moss	Cooper T43	Climax 1.9 L4	C.
Scuderia Ferrari	16	Luigi Musso	Ferrari Dino 246F1	Ferrari 2.4 V6	E.
	18th	Peter Collins
	20th	Mike Hawthorn

Classifications

Starting grid

Item	driver	constructor	time	Ø speed	begin
01	Juan Manuel Fangio	Maserati	1: 42.0	138.07 km / h	01
02	Mike Hawthorn	Ferrari	1: 42.6	137.26 km / h	02
03	Peter Collins	Ferrari	1: 42.6	137.26 km / h	03
04th	Jean Behra	Maserati	1: 42.7	137.13 km / h	04th
05	Luigi Musso	Ferrari	1: 42.9	136.86 km / h	05
06th	Carlos Menditeguy	Maserati	1: 43.7	135.81 km / h	06th
07th	Stirling Moss	Cooper-Climax	1: 44.0	135.42 km / h	07th
08th	Harry Schell	Maserati	1: 44.2	135.16 km / h	08th
09	Paco Godia	Maserati	1: 49.3	128.85 km / h	09
10	Horace Gould	Maserati	1: 51.7	126.08 km / h	10

run

Item	driver	constructor	Round	Stops	time	begin	Fastest lap	Failure reason
01	Stirling Moss	Cooper-Climax	80	0	2: 19: 33.7	07th
02	Luigi Musso	Ferrari	80	1	+ 2.7	05
03	Mike Hawthorn	Ferrari	80	1	+ 12.6	02
04th	Juan Manuel Fangio	Maserati	80	1	+ 53.0	01	1: 41.8
05	Jean Behra	Maserati	78	1	+ 2 rounds	04th
06th	Harry Schell	Maserati	77		+ 3 rounds	08th
07th	Carlos Menditeguy	Maserati	76		+ 4 rounds	06th
08th	Paco Godia	Maserati	75		+ 5 rounds	09
09	Horace Gould	Maserati	71		+ 9 rounds	10
-	Peter Collins	Ferrari	00	0	DNF	03		Half wave

World Cup stands after the race

The first five of the race got 8, 6, 4, 3, 2 points. The driver with the fastest race lap received an additional 1 point. Only the six best results from eleven races counted. Only the points of the best placed driver on a team counted in the constructors' championship.

Driver ranking

Item driver constructor Points 01  Stirling Moss Cooper-Climax 8th 02  Luigi Musso Ferrari 6th 03  Mike Hawthorn Ferrari 4th 04th  Juan Manuel Fangio Maserati 4th 05  Jean Behra Maserati 2

Constructors' championship

Item constructor Points 01  Cooper-Climax 8th 02  Ferrari 6th 03  Maserati 3

Individual evidence

1. ↑ GP Stories - The Races of 1958 In: motorsport-magazin.com , accessed on October 29, 2013.
2. ↑ ^{a b c d e} formula1.com: Argentina '58: Moss bluffs his way to victory - and ushers in new era. Formula 1, April 9, 2020, accessed April 10, 2020 (English). 

Web links

• Results at motorsportarchiv.de
• Photos at f1-facts.com
• GRAND PRIX RESULTS: ARGENTINE GP, 1958 at grandprix.com
• The first GP win by a rear-engined car at forix.com