1958 Belgian Grand Prix

 1958 Belgian Grand Prix

Racing data
5th of 11 races in the 1958 World Automobile Championship
Surname:	XIX Grote Prijs Van Belgie
Date:	June 15, 1958
Place:	Spa , Belgium
Course:	Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps
Length:	338.88 km in 24 laps of 14.12 km
Weather:	sunny, dry, hot
Pole position
Driver:	Mike Hawthorn	Ferrari
Time:	3: 57.1 min
Fastest lap
Driver:	Mike Hawthorn	Ferrari
Time:	3: 58.3 min
Podium
First:	Tony Brooks	Vanwall
Second:	Mike Hawthorn	Ferrari
Third:	Stuart Lewis-Evans	Vanwall

The 1958 Belgian Grand Prix took place on June 15, 1958 at the Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps near Spa and was the fifth race of the 1958 World Cup . The Grand Prix also had the FIA ​​honorary title of European Grand Prix .

Reports

background

The Belgian Grand Prix took place again after a year off. The track has been improved in many places since the last race, the pit lane was renewed and the pit exit was widened. After the Indianapolis 500 was viewed by all teams as a strike result in 1958 , the European teams met for the fourth time in the season. The Rob Walker Racing Team , which won the first two races of the season with a private Cooper T45 , paused for two races, making Vanwall the only team to win this race earlier that season. With Stirling Moss , Tony Brooks and Stuart Lewis-Evans , the team left their driver pairing unchanged. Also, Cooper , Lotus and BRM drove their car with unchanged rider line.

Ferrari increased its number of cars again to four vehicles, alongside regular drivers Peter Collins , Mike Hawthorn and Luigi Musso , Olivier Gendebien again drove for the team. Gendebien's car received a special yellow paint, making the 1958 Belgian Grand Prix one of the rare races in which a Ferrari was painted a color other than red.

Many drivers with private Maserati took part in the race again. The Scuderia Centro Sud presented three vehicles available, Maurice Trintignant drove due to the absence of the Rob Walker Racing Team for the team also started Masten Gregory and Wolfgang Seidel for the Scuderia Centro Sud. Seidel returned to Formula 1 after a five-year break, having previously only participated in the 1953 German Grand Prix . Ken Kavanagh was registered for the race with his own team and also with a private Maserati 250F , but then did not compete due to engine problems. After he did not qualify for the 1958 Monaco Grand Prix , this was Kavanagh's last attempt to take part in a Formula 1 race. Other private Maserati drivers included Jo Bonnier , Paco Godia and Maria Teresa de Filippis , who became the first woman to compete in a Formula 1 race after failing to qualify for the 1958 Monaco Grand Prix.

With Collins, a former winner entered the race, the only previously victorious team was Ferrari, which won the Belgian Grand Prix three times. In the drivers 'championship Moss was five points ahead of Musso, and in the constructors' championship Cooper was also five points ahead of Ferrari.

training

The training for the Belgian Grand Prix 1958 was determined by the duel between Ferrari and Vanwall, who made the first six places among themselves. Ferrari significantly improved the performance of its cars compared to the previous races and secured pole position for the first time of the season . Hawthorn, who set the fastest lap, was four tenths of a second faster than his teammate Musso, who finished second. It was Hawthorn's first pole position in his career. In addition to the two Ferraris, Moss, the leader of the drivers' championship, started from the front row in the Vanwall and took third place in practice.

Collins, in the third Ferrari, was fourth, more than a second ahead of Brooks and Gendebien, while third Vanwall driver Lewis-Evans qualified in eleventh place. For BRM, who took two podium places in the last race and thus the best position in their history to date, a drop in performance was evident. Harry Schell came in seventh in practice, more than seven seconds behind pole time, Jean Behra only achieved tenth place on the starting grid.

There were also big differences between the drivers at Cooper, Jack Brabham qualified in eighth place, while Roy Salvadori was ten seconds slower than Brabham, which was only enough for 13th place. The best Maserati driver was Gregory, who completed the top ten in ninth place. Lotus was again positioned in midfield and Cliff Allison was faster than Graham Hill in the third race . De Filippis qualified in 19th and last place on the grid by a large margin, but she was the first woman to qualify for a Formula 1 race.

run

Moss won the starting duel against Hawthorn and led the race shortly after the start. Brooks and Collins also overtook Hawthorn on the first lap of the race. The Vanwall double lead did not last long, Moss switched to the end of the first lap, which led to an engine failure on his car. With Moss out of the race, Brooks and Collins then dueled for victory and the lead switched between the two drivers five times by the fifth lap of the race. But the race was characterized by engine damage at this point, after Moss and Gregory retired with such a defective engine, the leading Collins followed on lap four with an overheated engine. The second car from Scuderia Centro Sud, with Seidel at the wheel, had already retired one lap before with a broken half-wave, Behra parked his car on lap four with oil pressure problems. And the series of failures was not over for Ferrari either, Musso had an accident just one lap later due to a puncture.

Thus Brooks drove a safe race in first place and continuously expanded his lead over the competition. Only Hawthorn tried to keep up with Brooks, but started his chase relatively late in the race. The only moments of tension in the race were therefore the failures due to engine damage, which affected many drivers. Hill got hit on lap eleven, Brabham's engine overheated on lap 16 and Godia retired in the penultimate race of his career for the same reason as most of the others in that race.

In the final laps of the race, Hawthorn increased the pace significantly and narrowed the gap to Brooks on every lap. But even the fastest race lap that he drove on the last lap did not bring him anywhere near Brooks, who won the race with a 20 second lead over Hawthorn. For Brooks this was the second victory of his career and the first one he achieved in the race without changing drivers. For Vanwall it was the second win of the season, which indicated a continuation of the superiority of front-engined cars. This superiority did not end until the 1959 World Automobile Championship . Lewis-Evans completed the podium in third place in the second Vanwall and thus achieved the first podium of his career. Allison crossed the finish line in fourth place, still on the same lap as the leaders. These were the first world championship points for both him and Lotus. Schell on BRM also scored points with fifth place, but was one lap behind. Gendebien was sixth, Trintignant seventh as the best Maserati driver. Cooper placed eighth through Salvadori in midfield, ahead of Bonnier and Filippis, who became the first woman to finish at a Formula 1 Grand Prix. The dominance of the British drivers at this time was clearly shown by the race result, the first four places were occupied by them.

Hawthorn made up four places in the drivers' standings and rose to second. Due to the failure of Moss, Hawthorn also came within three points of the drivers' championship leader. Musso also lost a place and was now third, Schell improved to fourth place. For the winner Brooks it was the first points in the Formula 1 season in 1958, he climbed into sixth place in the drivers' standings. In the constructors' championship the lead changed, Cooper was no longer as competitive as at the beginning of the season, which allowed Ferrari to overtake them without having previously won a race. Ferrari was one point ahead of Cooper, with Vanwall only three points less in third place in the constructors' championship. BRM stayed in fourth place, followed by Lotus with the first points in the team's history behind it in the ranking to fifth.

Registration list

team	No.	driver	chassis	engine	tires
Vandervell Products Ltd	02	Stirling Moss	Vanwall VW57	Vanwall 2.5 L4	D.
	04th	Tony Brooks
	06th	Stuart Lewis-Evans
Owen Racing Organization	08th	Jean Behra	BRM P25	BRM 2.5 L4	D.
	10	Harry Schell
Scuderia Ferrari	14th	Peter Collins	Ferrari Dino 246F1	Ferrari 2.4 V6	E.
	16	Mike Hawthorn
	18th	Luigi Musso
	20th	Olivier Gendebien
Cooper Car Company	22nd	Jack Brabham	Cooper T45	Climax 2.2 L4	D.
	24	Roy Salvadori		Climax 2.0 L4
Maria Teresa de Filippis	26th	Maria Teresa de Filippis	Maserati 250F	Maserati 2.5 L6	P
Scuderia Centro Sud	28	Maurice Trintignant	Maserati 250F	Maserati 2.5 L6	P
	30th	Masts Gregory
	32	Wolfgang Seidel
Ken Kavanagh	34	Ken Kavanagh	Maserati 250F	Maserati 2.5 L6	P
Jo Bonnier	36	Jo Bonnier	Maserati 250F	Maserati 2.5 L6	P
Paco Godia	38	Paco Godia	Maserati 250F	Maserati 2.5 L6	P
Team Lotus	40	Cliff Allison	Lotus 12	Climax 2.2 L4	D.
	42	Graham Hill		Climax 2.0 L4

Classifications

Starting grid

Item	driver	constructor	time	Ø speed	begin
01	Mike Hawthorn	Ferrari	3: 57.1	214.39 km / h	01
02	Luigi Musso	Ferrari	3: 57.5	214.03 km / h	02
03	Stirling Moss	Vanwall	3: 57.6	213.94 km / h	03
04th	Peter Collins	Ferrari	3: 57.7	213.85 km / h	04th
05	Tony Brooks	Vanwall	3: 59.1	212.60 km / h	05
06th	Olivier Gendebien	Ferrari	3: 59.3	212.42 km / h	06th
07th	Harry Schell	BRM	4: 04.5	207.90 km / h	07th
08th	Jack Brabham	Cooper-Climax	4: 05.1	207.39 km / h	08th
09	Masts Gregory	Maserati	4: 05.4	207.14 km / h	09
10	Jean Behra	BRM	4: 06.2	206.47 km / h	10
11	Stuart Lewis-Evans	Vanwall	4: 07.2	205.63 km / h	11
12	Cliff Allison	Lotus Climax	4: 07.7	205.22 km / h	12
13	Roy Salvadori	Cooper-Climax	4: 15.6	198.87 km / h	13
14th	Jo Bonnier	Maserati	4: 15.7	198.80 km / h	14th
15th	Graham Hill	Lotus Climax	4: 17.9	197.10 km / h	15th
16	Maurice Trintignant	Maserati	4: 21.7	194.24 km / h	16
17th	Wolfgang Seidel	Maserati	4: 21.9	194.09 km / h	17th
18th	Paco Godia	Maserati	4: 25.4	191.53 km / h	18th
19th	Maria Teresa de Filippis	Maserati	4: 31.0	187.57 km / h	19th
20th	Ken Kavanagh	Maserati	no time		20th

run

Item	driver	constructor	Round	Stops	time	begin	Fastest lap	Failure reason
01	Tony Brooks	Vanwall	24		1: 37: 06.3	05
02	Mike Hawthorn	Ferrari	24		+ 20.7	01	3: 58.3
03	Stuart Lewis-Evans	Vanwall	24		+ 3: 00.9	11
04th	Cliff Allison	Lotus Climax	24		+ 4: 15.5	12
05	Harry Schell	BRM	23		+ 1 lap	07th
06th	Olivier Gendebien	Ferrari	23		+ 1 lap	06th
07th	Maurice Trintignant	Maserati	23		+ 1 lap	16
08th	Roy Salvadori	Cooper-Climax	23		+ 1 lap	13
09	Jo Bonnier	Maserati	22nd		+ 2 rounds	14th
10	Maria Teresa de Filippis	Maserati	22nd		+ 2 rounds	19th
-	Paco Godia	Maserati	20th		DNF	18th		Engine failure
-	Jack Brabham	Cooper-Climax	16		DNF	08th		Overheating
-	Graham Hill	Lotus Climax	11		DNF	15th		Engine failure
-	Luigi Musso	Ferrari	05		DNF	02		accident
-	Jean Behra	BRM	04th		DNF	10		oil pressure
-	Peter Collins	Ferrari	04th		DNF	04th		Overheating
-	Wolfgang Seidel	Maserati	03		DNF	17th		Half wave
-	Masts Gregory	Maserati	00		DNF	09		Engine failure
-	Stirling Moss	Vanwall	00		DNF	03		Engine failure
-	Ken Kavanagh	Maserati	00		DNS			Engine failure

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 / Vanwall 17th 02  Mike Hawthorn Ferrari 14th 03  Luigi Musso Ferrari 12 04th  Harry Schell BRM 10 05  Maurice Trintignant Cooper-Climax 8th 06th  Tony Brooks Vanwall 8th 07th  Jimmy Bryan Epperly-Offenhauser 8th 08th  George Amick Epperly-Offenhauser 6th 09  Jean Behra Maserati / BRM 6th

Item driver constructor Points 10  Peter Collins Ferrari 4th 11  Stuart Lewis-Evans Vanwall 4th 12  Johnny Boyd Kurtis Kraft-Offenhauser 4th 13  Juan Manuel Fangio Maserati 4th 14th  Tony Bettenhausen Epperly-Offenhauser 4th 15th  Cliff Allison Lotus Climax 3 16  Jack Brabham Cooper-Climax 3 17th  Roy Salvadori Cooper-Climax 3 18th  Jim Rathmann Epperly-Offenhauser 2

Constructors' championship

Item constructor Points 01  Ferrari 20th 02  Cooper-Climax 19th 03  Vanwall 16 04th  BRM 10 05  lotus 3 06th  Maserati 3

Web links

• Results at motorsportarchiv.de
• Photos at f1-facts.com
• F1 1958 - Spa Francorchamps - Race Review at youtube.com
• Grand Prix Results: Belgian GP, ​​1958 on grandprix.com