1956 Belgian Grand Prix

 1956 Belgian Grand Prix

Racing data
4th of 8 races in the 1956 World Automobile Championship
Surname:	XVIII GROTE PRIJS VAN BELGIE
Date:	June 3, 1956
Place:	Spa , Belgium
Course:	Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps
Length:	508.32 km in 36 laps of 14.12 km
Weather:	wet, cloudy, drizzle
Pole position
Driver:	Juan Manuel Fangio	Ferrari
Time:	4: 09.8 min
Fastest lap
Driver:	Stirling Moss	Maserati
Time:	4: 14.7 min
Podium
First:	Peter Collins	Ferrari
Second:	Paul Brother	Ferrari
Third:	Cesare Perdisa Stirling Moss	Maserati

The 1956 Belgian Grand Prix took place on June 3, 1956 on the Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps near Spa and was the fourth race of the 1956 World Cup .

Reports

background

Four days after the Indianapolis 500 , the Belgian Grand Prix took place. The first half of the season was dominated by the Italian teams Ferrari and Maserati , with Jean Behra leading just ahead of Juan Manuel Fangio and Stirling Moss in the drivers' championship .

Both top teams started with five drivers each. In addition to its regular drivers Fangio, Castellotti and Peter Collins, Ferrari used two cars for the Belgian local heroes Paul Frère and André Pilette . For Frère this was his last Grand Prix participation. For Maserati, alongside regular drivers Behra, Stirling Moss and Cesare Perdisa , Chico Godia and Mike Hawthorn also entered the race. Hawthorn drove this race for Maserati because Team BRM did not participate in the race. Also Gordini was missing in this Grand Prix, causing the peloton with 15 riders reported was again relatively small.

As in the Monaco Grand Prix, Vanwall started with Maurice Trintignant and Harry Schell . Four drivers also started with private cars, including Piero Scotti , who contested his only Formula 1 Grand Prix in a Connaught Type B.

With Fangio, a former winner of the race took part. Fangio won the race three times in the previous two years. Ferrari had already been successful twice on this track, Maserati achieved one victory.

training

Like the Argentine Grand Prix and the Monaco Grand Prix, the practice was previously dominated by Fangio. With a lead of over five seconds on Moss, he secured the third pole position of the season. Teammate Collins qualified in third place, followed by drivers' championship leader Behra in the second Maserati. The first four positions were thus evenly divided between Ferrari and Maserati.

Behind Castellotti in fifth place on the grid, both Vanwall qualified. The team thus confirmed its good training performance in the first two races of the season and showed that their car is competitive. Frère in the Ferrari and Perdisa and Louis Rosier completed the top ten on the grid. Luigi Villoresi , who started for Scuderia Centro Sud in a Maserati, qualified in eleventh place, Godia and Pilette placed in the last places with a long time gap to their respective teammates.

All training times that resulted in the starting grid were run on Thursday, the first day of training. Two more trainings on the following days brought no improvement in times due to rain showers.

run

The race started on a wet track, which began to dry out after the first few laps of the race, after no further rain showers fell on the track at the start of the race. At the start, Moss took the lead in the Maserati, Fangio lost several places and fell back to fifth. Behind Moss were Collins, Castellotti and Behra.

Already on the first lap of the race, Fangio overtook Behra, who could not keep up with the lead and thus developed a greater gap between the first four cars and the rest of the field. With Moss ahead of Collins, Castellotti and Fangio, a Maserati was ahead of three Ferraris. Moss finished the first lap of the race three seconds ahead of Castellotti, who overtook Collins. Godia had an accident and was the first driver to retire from the race.

On the second lap of the race, Moss extended his lead over the Ferraris to five seconds, during which Fangio overtook Collins and was in third place. The second Maserati retired with a gearbox damage at Gould. Fangio needed another lap to overtake Castellotti. In second place he was already six seconds behind Moss at this point in the race.

Over the next two laps of the race, Fangio continuously reduced the gap to the leader Moss and overtook him on lap five. That put Fangio in front of Moss, behind him Collins and Castellotti dueled for third place, Behra overtook Schell in the duel for fifth place and behind the two Trintignant and Frère dueled. Fangio extended his lead to eight seconds by lap ten.

On lap ten a series of failures began to affect the classification. First Scotti retired in his only race, then Castellotti had to retire due to a technical defect in his car. Moss lost a wheel on his car and spun off the track, bringing Collins up to second and Ferrari taking a one-two lead. Moss lost the bike immediately after the Eau Rouge corner, which allowed him to run back to the pits and take over the car from Perdisa. While Trintignant also retired with technical problems, Moss resumed the race in sixth position and was one lap behind the leader, Fangio.

On lap 23, Fangio had problems with the fuel transmission of his car and was in the lead. Collins then took the lead for the first time in his career and did not give it up until the end of the race. Behra and Frère dueled for second place in the last third of the race, until Behra had engine problems and dropped back to seventh place. After he overtook Schell, Moss moved up to third place and achieved a podium place in his team-mate Perdisas' car. However, the distance to the leaders was too great that he could not catch up with them.

Collins won his first of a total of three Formula 1 races and gave Ferrari its second win of the season. Frère secured second place in his last race, completing a Ferrari double victory. Moss crossed the finish line in third place, but shared the points with Perdisa.

One lap behind, Schell crossed the finish line in fourth place, and these were the first points for the British team Vanwall. Villoresi secured two points with fifth place, Moss got an additional point for the fastest race lap.

As a result of the failure, Fangio dropped to fourth place in the drivers' standings, Behra lost his lead and was third after the race. Collins and Moss both had eleven points and together led the drivers' standings by one point over Behra at the half-way point.

Registration list

team	No.	driver	chassis	engine	tires
Scuderia Ferrari	02	Juan Manuel Fangio	Ferrari D50	Ferrari 2.5 V8	E.
	04th	Eugenio Castellotti
	06th	Paul Brother
	08th	Peter Collins
	20th	André Pilette
Vandervell Products Ltd	10	Maurice Trintignant	Vanwall VW 56	Vanwall 2.5 L4	P
	12	Harry Schell
Scuderia Centro Sud	22nd	Luigi Villoresi	Maserati 250F	Maserati 2.5 L6	P
Ecurie Rosier	24	Louis Rosier	Maserati 250F	Maserati 2.5 L6	P
HH Gould	26th	Horace Gould	Maserati 250F	Maserati 2.5 L6	D.
Piero Scotti	28	Piero Scotti	Connaught Type B	Alta 2.5 L4	P
Officine Alfieri Maserati	30th	Stirling Moss	Maserati 250F	Maserati 2.5 L6	P
	32	Jean Behra
	34	Cesare Perdisa
		Stirling Moss
	36	Francisco Godia-Sales
	38	Mike Hawthorn

Remarks

1. ↑ Cesare Perdisa drove the car 13 laps, Stirling Moss 23 laps.

Classifications

Starting grid

Item	driver	constructor	time	Ø speed	begin
01	Juan Manuel Fangio	Ferrari	4: 09.8	203.49 km / h	01
02	Stirling Moss	Maserati	4: 14.7	199.58 km / h	02
03	Peter Collins	Ferrari	4: 15.3	199.11 km / h	03
04th	Jean Behra	Maserati	4: 16.7	198.02 km / h	04th
05	Eugenio Castellotti	Ferrari	4: 16.7	198.02 km / h	05
06th	Harry Schell	Vanwall	4: 19.0	196.26 km / h	06th
07th	Maurice Trintignant	Vanwall	4: 22.8	193.42 km / h	07th
08th	Paul Brother	Ferrari	4: 23.8	192.69 km / h	08th
09	Cesare Perdisa	Maserati	4: 35.7	184.37 km / h	09
10	Louis Rosier	Maserati	4: 35.9	184.24 km / h	10
11	Luigi Villoresi	Maserati	4: 37.7	183.05 km / h	11
12	Piero Scotti	Connaught	4: 41.9	180.32 km / h	12
13	Francisco Godia-Sales	Maserati	4: 49.8	175.40 km / h	13
14th	Horace Gould	Maserati	4: 50.4	175.04 km / h	14th
15th	André Pilette	Ferrari	4: 51.9	174.14 km / h	15th

run

Item	driver	constructor	Round	Stops	time	begin	Fastest lap	Failure reason
01	Peter Collins	Ferrari	36		2: 40: 00.3	03
02	Paul Brother	Ferrari	36		+1: 51.3	08th
03	Cesare Perdisa Stirling Moss	Maserati	36		+ 3: 16.6	09
04th	Harry Schell	Vanwall	35		+ 1 lap	06th
05	Luigi Villoresi	Maserati	34		+ 2 rounds	11
06th	André Pilette	Ferrari	33		+ 3 rounds	15th
07th	Jean Behra	Maserati	33		+ 3 rounds	04th
08th	Louis Rosier	Maserati	33		+ 3 rounds	10
-	Juan Manuel Fangio	Ferrari	23		DNF	01		Power transmission
-	Maurice Trintignant	Vanwall	11		DNF	07th		Fuel system
-	Eugenio Castellotti	Ferrari	10		DNF	05		Power transmission
-	Stirling Moss	Maserati	10		DNF	02		lost wheel
-	Piero Scotti	Maserati	10		DNF	12		Oil pressure / engine
-	Horace Gould	Maserati	02		DNF	14th		transmission
-	Francisco Godia-Sales	Maserati	00		DNF	13		accident
-	Mike Hawthorn	Maserati	00		DNS			illness

World Cup stand after the race

In 1956, points were awarded according to the following scheme:

1st place	place 2	place 3	4th place	5th place	Fastest lap
8th	6th	4th	3	2	1

• Only the five best results from eight races counted. Deleted results are shown in brackets.
• The numbers marked with * include the point for the fastest lap.
• Fields marked in the same color indicate shared vehicles.

Item	driver	constructor									Points
1.	Stirling Moss	Maserati		8th		3					11
	Peter Collins	Ferrari		3 *		8th					11
3.	Juan Manuel Fangio	Ferrari Lancia	5 *	3 + 1.5 *							10.5
4th	Jean Behra	Maserati	6th	4th							10
5.	Pat Flaherty	Watson			8th						8th
6th	Sam Hanks	Kurtis power			6th						6th
	Paul Brother	Ferrari Lancia				6th					6th
8th.	Mike Hawthorn	Maserati	4th								4th
	Luigi Musso	Ferrari Lancia	4th								4th
	Don Freeland	Watson			4th						4th
11.	Johnnie Parsons	Kuzma			3						3
	Harry Schell	Vanwall				3					3
13.	Olivier Gendebien	Ferrari Lancia	2								2
	Hernando da Silva Ramos	Gordini		2							2
	Dick Rathmann	Kurtis power			2						2
	Cesare Perdisa	Maserati				2					2
	Luigi Villoresi	Maserati				2					2
18th	Gerino Gerini	Maserati	1.5								1.5
	Chico Landi	Maserati	1.5								1.5
	Eugenio Castellotti	Ferrari Lancia		1.5							1.5
21st	Eddie Russo	Kurtis power			1						1

Individual evidence

1. ↑ "GP Stories - The Races of 1956" (www.motorsport-magazin.com on August 29, 2013)

Web links

• Results at motorsportarchiv.de
• Photos at f1-facts.com
• "1956 Formula 1 - Grand Prix Spa - Francorchamps - Race Review" at youtube.com