1957 German Grand Prix

 1957 German Grand Prix

Racing data
6th of 8 races in the 1957 World Automobile Championship
Surname:	XIX Grand Prix of Germany
Date:	4th August 1957
Place:	Nuerburg , Germany
Course:	Nürburgring
Length:	487.96 km in 22 laps of 22.18 km
Weather:	sunny, dry
Pole position
Driver:	Juan Manuel Fangio	Maserati
Time:	9: 25.6 min
Fastest lap
Driver:	Juan Manuel Fangio	Maserati
Time:	9: 17.4 min
Podium
First:	Juan Manuel Fangio	Maserati
Second:	Mike Hawthorn	Ferrari
Third:	Peter Collins	Ferrari

The 1957 German Grand Prix took place on August 4, 1957 on the Nürburgring in Rhineland-Palatinate , Ahrweiler district . It was the sixth race of the 1957 automobile world championship .

Reports

background

At the 1957 German Grand Prix, Juan Manuel Fangio had the opportunity to defend his driver's title early. For this he needed a race win, six points more than Luigi Musso and three points more than Tony Brooks to be world champion two races before the end of the season.

Fangio's Maserati team drove again with four cars, alongside Fangio, Jean Behra and Harry Schell a Maserati was driven by Giorgio Scarlatti . Scarlatti returned to Maserati, replacing Carlos Menditéguy for the remainder of the season . Ferrari ended the contract with Maurice Trintignant and only took part in the race with three cars; with Mike Hawthorn , Peter Collins and Musso the first win of the season should be achieved. Vanwall retained his successful line-up in the last race, consisting of Stirling Moss , Brooks and Stuart Lewis-Evans . After a break for several races, Scuderia Centro Sud was again at the start with two cars; Masten Gregory and Hans Herrmann drove in private Maserati 250F . Paco Godia , Bruce Halford and Horace Gould also bet on private Maserati .

Fangio was the only former winner of the race in the field of drivers. He won on the Nordschleife in the previous two years, Ferrari was successful four times. A race that was not part of the world championship one week before the 1957 German Grand Prix, the Caen Grand Prix in France, was won by Behra for BRM , which did not participate in any other Formula 1 races in 1957.

Since the starting field with 15 cars was too small for the organizers to offer the spectators an exciting race, it was decided to have the Formula 2 race of the Formula 2 season in 1957 take place together with the Grand Prix. The Formula 2 drivers also took part in the German Grand Prix and were also included in the Formula 1 statistics. For Team Porsche , drivers Umberto Maglioli and Edgar Barth competed in a Porsche 550 RS . That was Porsche's debut in a Grand Prix. Cooper decided to start as part of Formula 2 , and Jack Brabham came back to the team alongside regular driver Roy Salvadori . A third registered team, Ridgeway Management , also used Cooper cars for Tony Marsh and Paul England . In addition, Carel Godin de Beaufort started in a private Porsche and Brian Naylor and Dick Gibson in a private Cooper T43 .

training

After winning the Grand Prix of Great Britain in 1957 , the Vanwall was unable to win at the Nürburgring and fell back into the front midfield during training. Brooks finished fifth, Moss seventh and Lewis-Evans started the race from ninth. The pole position was between the Italian top teams Ferrari decided and Maserati. Fangio achieved pole position in the Maserati with almost three seconds ahead of second-placed Hawthorn in the Ferrari. In third place, Behra prevailed in the second Maserati against the fourth-placed Ferrari driver Collins.

In sixth place, Schell pushed himself between the vanwalls of Brooks and Moss, Musso did the same in eighth place, between Moss and Lewis-Evans. Gregory completed the first ten, all of whose drivers achieved a time under ten minutes. The Formula 2 drivers also took part in the same training session, the best driver in this category was Barth in a Porsche in twelfth place on the grid, Salvadori in the Cooper came in 14th.

run

Juan Manuel Fangio secured his fifth title early on at the Nürburgring.

Out: Clarin

Maserati 250F, Juan Manuel Fangio's emergency vehicle in 1957

Cockpit of a 250F

20 years after Fangio's victory at the 1977 Oldtimer Grand Prix

Fangio and his team had analyzed Ferrari's racing strategy and assumed that Ferrari would not need a pit stop for the race with hard tires and a full tank. As a result, Maserati decided on a one-stop strategy, gave Fangio softer tires and only filled the tank of his car to halfway.

At the start, like in Rouen-les-Essarts and Monaco , Fangio again failed to take advantage of the pole position and was overtaken by Hawthorn. For the next two rounds, Hawthorn held the lead while Collins and Fangio pushed him. On lap three, Fangio prevailed in this three-way battle, first overtaking Collins at the south bend, Hawthorn in the winding curve near Adenau and leading until halfway through the race when he had to make the planned pit stop.

In the back field there were a few failures due to technical defects and car damage. Gould retired after just two laps with an axle damage, Formula 2 driver Gibson followed him one lap later with a defective suspension. This damage could be explained by the very uneven road surface and various large hills that put a heavy load on the wagons. After Gibson's Cooper retired, two more Cooper, driven by England and Brabham, retired with technical defects in the next laps. Shortly before halftime of the race, on lap ten, the transmission went on strike at Lewis-Evans, while at Godia the steering was the reason for failure.

Fangio's pit stop on lap eleven was slower than planned. When the wheel was changed, the rear left wheel nut rolled under the car unnoticed and was only brought out again by the mechanics after half a minute of searching; In total, the stop lasted 50 or even 56 seconds. When Fangio started again, the Ferraris from Hawthorn and Collins were 35 seconds ahead of him, battling among themselves for first place. Collins held his own against his teammate in Rounds twelve to 14, Collins led again from Round 15.

In the Formula 2 classification, there was a fight between Barth and Maglioli in a Porsche and the cars of the Cooper works team. However, after Brabham had already retired, the race was also over for his team-mate Salvadori on lap eleven. His Cooper suffered irreparable suspension damage due to the uneven road surface. After Barth's team-mate Maglioli had an engine failure on lap 13, Barth's victory in the Formula 2 classification was safe and he won by one lap over Naylor in the Cooper. The podium places in this classification were completed by Beaufort, also with a Porsche. In the overall ranking of the 1957 German Grand Prix, these drivers would have occupied positions twelve to 15 had they been included in the Formula 1 ranking for the Grand Prix.

In the first two laps after his pit stop, Fangio did not start to catch up, slowed down and drove two moderate laps so that the gap between him and the leaders increased to 46 seconds. The competition interpreted this (likely) feint as the Maserati's weakness, and both Collins and Hawthorn reduced their pace. Thereupon Fangio stopped his deception and increased his speed continuously over the next nine laps. He broke the Nordschleife lap record on each of these nine laps and improved it by a total of 23 seconds. He drove lap 19 in 9: 17.4 minutes (147.3 km / h).

On the penultimate lap of the race, Fangio was already directly behind Collins and overtook him at the south bend, Collins countered, but seconds later in the north bend, Fangio finally overtook him. At Aremberg, Fangio also overtook Hawthorn. On the final lap, Hawthorn attacked Fangio and was close to overtaking him in several corners, but Fangio retained the lead and won what is considered one of the best races of all time by racing historians by a margin of 3.6 seconds . Fangio's tactic of pretending to be weak and then surprising the competition with several fast laps was unique in Formula 1 history. After the race, Fangio said that he would never take such a risk again, that he had never been so fast on a racetrack and would never be that fast again. This statement came true, the 1957 German Grand Prix was Fangio's 24th and last victory of his career. This record was only Jim Clark in the 1968 Automobile World Championship in the Grand Prix of South Africa in 1968 broken. For Maserati it was also the last victory in the team's history, the top Italian team withdrew from Formula 1 at the end of the season for financial reasons.

Behind Fangio, the Ferraris of Hawthorn, Collins and Musso crossed the finish line, Moss completed the points in fifth. Ferrari again presented itself as the strongest team with the most drivers in the points and on the podium, but they were unable to win the 1957 Formula 1 season. Since Fangio also received one point for the fastest race lap, he got nine points for the drivers' standings, while Musso only got third in fourth place. Brooks reached ninth place and remained without points in this race, which means that Fangio expanded his lead over second-placed Musso to 18 points in the drivers' standings. With this, Fangio was world champion early with two races before the end of the season and set records that were only broken decades later. Fangio became world champion for the fifth and last time, an achievement that was only surpassed by Michael Schumacher in the 2003 Formula 1 World Championship after him . It took Schumacher a season longer to surpass Fangio's record series of four world championship titles in a row.

Hawthorn moved up to third in the drivers' championship, Brooks and Hanks each lost one position. The battle for the runner-up title was still completely open and several drivers had a chance to achieve it.

Registration lists

formula 1

team	No.	driver	chassis	engine	tires
Officine Alfieri Maserati	01	Juan Manuel Fangio	Maserati 250F	Maserati 2.5 L6	P
	02	Jean Behra
	03	Harry Schell
	04th	Giorgio Scarlatti
Scuderia Ferrari	6th	Luigi Musso	Ferrari 801	Ferrari 2.5 V8	E.
	7th	Peter Collins
	8th	Mike Hawthorn
Vandervell Products Ltd	10	Stirling Moss	Vanwall VW57	Vanwall 2.5 L4	P
	11	Tony Brooks
	12	Stuart Lewis-Evans
Bruce Halford	15th	Bruce Halford	Maserati 250F	Maserati 2.5 L6	D.
Scuderia Centro Sud	16	Masts Gregory	Maserati 250F	Maserati 2.5 L6	P
	17th	Hans Herrmann
Francis Godia-Sales	18th	Paco Godia	Maserati 250F	Maserati 2.5 L6	P
HH Gould	19th	Horace Gould	Maserati 250F	Maserati 2.5 L6	D.

Formula 2

team	No.	driver	chassis	engine	tires
Dr. Ing.F. Porsche KG	20th	Umberto Maglioli	Porsche 550RS	Porsche 1.5 B4
	21st	Edgar Barth
Cooper Car Co.	23	Roy Salvadori	Cooper T43	Climax 1.5 L4	D.
	24	Jack Brabham
Ridgeway management	25th	Tony Marsh	Cooper T43	Climax 1.5 L4	D.
	26th	Paul England	Cooper T41
Ecurie Maarsbergen	27	Carel Godin de Beaufort	Porsche 550RS	Porsche 1.5 B4	D.
JB Naylor	28	Brian Naylor	Cooper T43	Climax 1.5 L4	D.
R. Gibson	29	Dick Gibson	Cooper T43	Climax 1.5 L4	D.

Classifications

Starting grid

Item	driver	constructor	time	Ø speed	begin
01	Juan Manuel Fangio	Maserati	9: 25.6	141.17 km / h	01
02	Mike Hawthorn	Ferrari	9: 28.4	140.48 km / h	02
03	Jean Behra	Ferrari	9: 30.5	139.96 km / h	03
04th	Peter Collins	Ferrari	9: 34.7	138.94 km / h	04th
05	Tony Brooks	Vanwall	9: 36.1	138.60 km / h	05
06th	Harry Schell	Maserati	9: 39.2	137.86 km / h	06th
07th	Stirling Moss	Vanwall	9: 41.2	137.38 km / h	07th
08th	Luigi Musso	Ferrari	9: 43.1	136.94 km / h	08th
09	Stuart Lewis-Evans	Vanwall	9: 45.0	136.49 km / h	09
10	Masts Gregory	Maserati	9: 51.5	134.99 km / h	10
11	Hans Herrmann	Maserati	10:00 a.m.	133.08 km / h	11
12	Edgar Barth	Porsche	10: 02.2	132.59 km / h	12
13	Giorgio Scarlatti	Maserati	10: 04.9	132.00 km / h	13
14th	Roy Salvadori	Cooper-Climax	10: 06.0	131.76 km / h	14th
15th	Umberto Maglioli	Porsche	10: 08.9	131.13 km / h	15th
16	Bruce Halford	Maserati	10: 14.5	129.94 km / h	16
17th	Brian Naylor	Cooper-Climax	10: 15.0	129.83 km / h	17th
18th	Jack Brabham	Cooper-Climax	10: 10.81	130.72 km / h	18th
19th	Horace Gould	Maserati	10: 20.8	128.62 km / h	19th
20th	Carel Godin de Beaufort	Porsche	10: 25.9	127.57 km / h	20th
21st	Paco Godia	Maserati	10: 32.3	126.28 km / h	21st
22nd	Tony Marsh	Cooper-Climax	10: 48.2	123.18 km / h	22nd
23	Paul England	Cooper-Climax	10: 52.96	122.29 km / h	23
24	Dick Gibson	Cooper-Climax	11: 46.4	113.04 km / h	24

run

Item	Cat.	driver	constructor	Round	Stops	time	begin	Fastest lap	Failure reason
01	F1	Juan Manuel Fangio	Maserati	22nd		3: 30: 38.3	01
02	F1	Mike Hawthorn	Ferrari	22nd		+ 03.6	02
03	F1	Peter Collins	Ferrari	22nd		+ 35.6	04th
04th	F1	Luigi Musso	Ferrari	22nd		+ 3: 37.6	08th
05	F1	Stirling Moss	Vanwall	22nd		+ 4: 37.5	07th
06th	F1	Jean Behra	Maserati	22nd		+ 4; 38.5	03
07th	F1	Harry Schell	Maserati	22nd		+ 6: 47.5	06th
08th	F1	Masts Gregory	Maserati	21st		+ 1 lap	10
09	F1	Tony Brooks	Vanwall	21st		+ 1 lap	05
10	F1	Giorgio Scarlatti	Maserati	21st		+ 1 lap	13
11	F1	Bruce Halford	Maserati	21st		+ 1 lap	16
12	F2	Edgar Barth	Porsche	21st		+ 1 lap	12
13	F2	Brian Naylor	Cooper-Climax	20th		+ 2 rounds	17th
14th	F2	Carel Godin de Beaufort	Porsche	20th		+ 2 rounds	20th
15th	F2	Tony Marsh	Cooper-Climax	17th		+ 5 rounds	22nd
-	F1	Hans Herrmann	Maserati	13		DNF	11		chassis
-	F2	Umberto Maglioli	Porsche	13		DNF	15th		Engine failure
-	F2	Roy Salvadori	Cooper-Climax	11		DNF	14th		suspension
-	F1	Paco Godia	Maserati	10		DNF	21st		steering
-	F1	Stuart Lewis-Evans	Vanwall	10		DNF	09		transmission
-	F2	Jack Brabham	Cooper-Climax	06th		DNF	18th		Power transmission
-	F2	Paul England	Cooper-Climax	04th		DNF	23		Ignition distributor
-	F2	Dick Gibson	Cooper-Climax	03		DNF	24		suspension
-	F1	Horace Gould	Maserati	02		DNF	19th		Axle damage

World Cup stand 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 five best results from eight races counted.

Driver ranking

Item driver constructor Points 01  Juan Manuel Fangio Maserati 34 02  Luigi Musso Ferrari 16 03  Mike Hawthorn Ferrari 13 04th  Tony Brooks Vanwall 10 05  Sam Hanks Epperly-Offenhauser 8th 06th  Peter Collins Ferrari 8th 07th  Stirling Moss Maserati / Vanwall 8th 08th  Jim Rathmann Epperly-Offenhauser 7th 09  Jean Behra Maserati 6th 10  Harry Schell Maserati 5

Item driver constructor Points 11  Maurice Trintignant Ferrari 5 12  Carlos Menditeguy Maserati 4th 13  Masts Gregory Maserati 4th 14th  Jimmy Bryan Kuzma-Offenhauser 4th 15th  Stuart Lewis-Evans Connaught-Alta 3 16  Paul Russo Kurtis Kraft-Novi 3 17th  Andy Linden Kurtis Kraft-Offenhauser 2 18th  Roy Salvadori Cooper-Climax 2 19th  Alfonso de Portago Ferrari 1 20th  José Froilán González Ferrari 1

Web links

Commons : Grand Prix of Germany 1957  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

• Results at motorsportarchiv.de
• Photos at f1-facts.com
• GRAND PRIX RESULTS: GERMAN GP, 1957 at grandprix.com

Individual evidence

1. ↑ GP Stories - The Races of 1957 In: motorsport-magazin.com , accessed on October 18, 2013.
2. ↑ ^{a b} Jörg-Thomas Födisch: Nürburgring. Publishing Union Erich Pabel - Arthur Moewig KG, Rastatt 1991, ISBN 3-8118-3065-1 , p. 38.
3. ↑ Thora Hornung: 50 years Nürburgring - curve labyrinth for experts , Görres-Verlag, Koblenz, pp. 102-106.