1955 British Grand Prix

 1955 British Grand Prix

Racing data
6th of 7 races in the 1955 World Automobile Championship
Surname:	VIII RAC British Grand Prix
Date:	July 16, 1955
Place:	Liverpool , UK
Course:	Aintree Circuit
Length:	434.52 km in 90 laps of 4.828 km
Weather:	sunny, dry, hot
Pole position
Driver:	Stirling Moss	Mercedes
Time:	2: 00.4 min
Fastest lap
Driver:	Stirling Moss	Mercedes
Time:	2: 00.4 min
Podium
First:	Stirling Moss	Mercedes
Second:	Juan Manuel Fangio	Mercedes
Third:	Karl Kling	Mercedes

The 1955 British Grand Prix took place on July 16, 1955 at the Aintree Circuit near Liverpool and was the sixth race of the 1955 World Automobile Championship .

Reports

background

The race was the first British Grand Prix at the Aintree Circuit and the penultimate race of the 1955 season. The reigning World Champion Juan Manuel Fangio had the opportunity to defend his title early in this Grand Prix.

Mercedes had won the last two races with one-two wins and this time with an additional fourth car for Piero Taruffi . Maserati also started with an additional car for André Simon . For Gordini, alongside Robert Manzon and Hernando da Silva Ramos, Frenchman Mike Sparken drove , who contested his only Formula 1 race. Mike Hawthorn drove again as a regular driver at Ferrari alongside Maurice Trintignant and Eugenio Castellotti . Vanwall took part with two cars for the first time after a race break, with drivers Ken Wharton and Harry Schell . As in previous British races, many British drivers were entered in private cars, including Peter Collins and Roy Salvadori . The preferred cars that drivers were Maserati 250F and Connaught Type B . These cars were also used by the official Connaught team for drivers Kenneth McAlpine and Jack Fairman . This team traditionally only participated in the British Grand Prix . Some Connaught cars had a streamlined full fairing similar to Mercedes.

The Australian Jack Brabham was also registered for the race in a Cooper T40 . A successful career began for Brabham in which he became world champion in 1959, 1960 and 1966. His car for the British team Cooper marked the beginning of a new era in Formula 1 history, the mid-engined car. It was the first time in Formula 1 history that a car had the engine behind the driver. The car was only used in this race and was also equipped with a full fairing, but not competitive. It was not until a few years later that Cooper significantly revolutionized the design of Formula 1 cars and was involved at the end of the era of front-wheel drive cars.

Lance Macklin , Leslie Marr , McAlpine, Tony Rolt and Peter Walker each drove their last Formula 1 races.

training

Mercedes dominated the training again and positioned its four cars in the top 5. Stirling Moss was faster than Fangio in this training session and secured his first pole position . It was also the first by a British driver.

As in the previous race, it was only Maserati that kept up with Mercedes. Jean Behra slipped into third place between the four Mercedes. In front of him lay Fangio, behind him Kling and Taruffi. Behind them in sixth place on the grid was Roberto Mieres' second Maserati . Schell achieved the seventh best time in his Vanwall, which was a significant improvement for Vanwall compared to the previous races. The best Ferrari was that of Castellotti in tenth place, at the same time as the Gordini of Manzon, followed by the Ferrari of Trintignant and Hawthorn. It became clear that the Ferrari was not victorious and had to contest duels in midfield.

Connaught and the drivers with private cars were positioned in the lower midfield, Brabham in the Cooper qualified last with a large gap to the competition.

run

At the start, Fangio overtook Moss and kept the lead for the first three laps. Fairman did not compete because his Connaught had engine problems.

Moss attacked Fangio on lap three and passed him to take the lead for the first time in the race. On lap ten, Simon and Behra's car retired two factory Maserati cars, leaving Mercedes in the lead with all four cars. Castellotti in the Ferrari was the fourth driver to retire with technical problems on lap 17, and one lap later, Fangio took the lead again.

While Mercedes was leading the race and once again only Musso in the Maserati was able to keep up with Taruffi's fourth Mercedes, the competition struggled with many technical problems. 15 cars had to give up the race in this way, including Trintignant, Brabham, Mieres and Collins, only nine cars made it to the finish.

The race was marked by the duel between Fangio and Moss. Fangio took the lead again on lap 18, Moss overtook him again on lap 26. Moss then held first place until the last lap when Fangio launched another attack. Both drivers crossed the finish line tied, Moss defended his lead and won.

This was the first Formula 1 win for Moss and the first win for a British driver. Moss won 15 more races in his career, for Mercedes it was his only one. 57 years later, a British driver in a Mercedes, Lewis Hamilton, won the 2013 Hungarian Grand Prix . In addition to the race win and the pole position, Moss also achieved the fastest race lap.

Kling completed the podium with third place, Taruffi in fourth place secured the fourfold triumph of Mercedes. Musso was the only driver of the Mercedes competition to get points for fifth place. Hawthorn handed his car over to Castellotti, who had already retired, due to nausea after a night of drinking, who then finished the race in sixth place.

In the drivers' standings, the first five positions remained unchanged, Fangio only lost a little of his lead and was world champion one race before the end of the season, as Moss was unable to make up eleven points behind in the last race of the season. With this, Fangio defended his driver title from 1954 and became the first driver to become three-time world champion. Fangio won two more titles in the following years. For Mercedes it was the second drivers' world championship. In the Formula 1 World Championship in 2014 , 59 years later, Lewis Hamilton won the driver's title again for Mercedes. Moss also secured the vice world championship in 1955 in this race.

Registration list

team	No.	driver	chassis	engine	tires
Officine Alfieri Maserati	02	Jean Behra	Maserati 250F	Maserati 2.5 L6	E.
	04th	Luigi Musso			P
	06th	Roberto Mieres
	08th	André Simon
Daimler-Benz AG	10	Juan Manuel Fangio	Mercedes-Benz W 196	Mercedes-Benz 2.5 L8	C.
	12	Stirling Moss
	14th	Karl Kling
	50	Piero Taruffi
Scuderia Ferrari	16	Mike Hawthorn	Ferrari 555 Supersqualo / Ferrari 625F1	Ferrari 2.5 L4	E.
		Eugenio Castellotti
	18th	Maurice Trintignant			P
	20th	Eugenio Castellotti	Ferrari 625F1		E.
Equipe Gordini	22nd	Robert Manzon	Gordini Type 16	Gordini 2.5 L6	E.
	24	Hernando da Silva Ramos
	26th	Mike Sparken
Vandervell Products Ltd	28	Ken Wharton	Vanwall VW 55	Vanwall 2.5 L4	P
		Harry Schell
	30th	Harry Schell
Connaught Engineering	32	Kenneth McAlpine	Connaught Type B	Alta 2.5 L4	D.
	34	Jack Fairman
Rob Walker Racing Team	36	Tony Rolt	Connaught Type B	Alta 2.5 L4	D.
		Peter Walker
Leslie Marr	38	Leslie Marr	Connaught Type B	Alta 2.5 L4	D.
Cooper Car Co	40	Jack Brabham	Cooper T40	Bristol 2.0 L6	D.
Owen Racing Organization	42	Peter Collins	Maserati 250F	Maserati 2.5 L6	D.
Gilby Engineering	44	Roy Salvadori	Maserati 250F	Maserati 2.5 L6	D.
Stirling Moss Ltd.	46	Lance Macklin	Maserati 250F	Maserati 2.5 L6	D.
Goulds' garage	48	Horace Gould	Maserati 250F	Maserati 2.5 L6	D.

Remarks

1. ↑ Mike Hawthorn drove the car 60 laps, Eugenio Castellotti 27 laps.
2. ↑ Ken Wharton drove the car 50 laps, Harry Schell 22 laps.
3. ↑ Tony Rolt drove the car 10 laps, Peter Walker 9 laps.

Classifications

Starting grid

Item	driver	constructor	time	Ø speed	begin
01	Stirling Moss	Mercedes	2: 00.4	144.36 km / h	01
02	Juan Manuel Fangio	Mercedes	2: 00.6	144.12 km / h	02
03	Jean Behra	Maserati	2: 01.4	143.17 km / h	03
04th	Karl Kling	Mercedes	2: 02.0	142.47 km / h	04th
05	Piero Taruffi	Mercedes	2: 03.0	141.31 km / h	05
06th	Roberto Mieres	Maserati	2: 03.2	141.08 km / h	06th
07th	Harry Schell	Vanwall	2: 03.8	140.39 km / h	07th
08th	André Simon	Maserati	2: 04.0	140.17 km / h	08th
09	Luigi Musso	Maserati	2: 04.2	139.94 km / h	09
10	Eugenio Castellotti	Ferrari	2: 05.0	139.05 km / h	10
11	Robert Manzon	Gordini	2: 05.0	139.05 km / h	11
12	Mike Hawthorn	Ferrari	2: 05.4	138.60 km / h	12
13	Maurice Trintignant	Ferrari	2: 05.4	138.60 km / h	13
14th	Tony Rolt	Connaught	2: 06.6	137.29 km / h	14th
15th	Ken Wharton	Vanwall	2: 08.4	135.36 km / h	15th
16	Lance Macklin	Maserati	2: 08.4	135.36 km / h	15th
17th	Kenneth McAlpine	Connaught	2: 09.6	134.11 km / h	17th
18th	Hernando da Silva Ramos	Gordini	2: 10.6	133.08 km / h	18th
19th	Leslie Marr	Connaught	2: 11.6	132.07 km / h	19th
20th	Roy Salvadori	Maserati	2: 11.6	132.07 km / h	20th
21st	Jack Fairman	Connaught	2: 11.6	132.07 km / h	21st
22nd	Horace Gould	Maserati	2: 11.8	131.87 km / h	22nd
23	Mike Sparken	Gordini	2: 12.6	131.08 km / h	23
23	Peter Collins	Maserati	2: 13.4	130.29 km / h	23
24	Jack Brabham	cooper	2: 27.4	117.92 km / h	24

run

Item	driver	constructor	Round	Stops	time	begin	Fastest lap	Failure reason
01	Stirling Moss	Mercedes	90		3: 07: 21.2	01
02	Juan Manuel Fangio	Mercedes	90		+ 0.2	02
03	Karl Kling	Mercedes	90		+1: 11.8	04th
04th	Piero Taruffi	Mercedes	89		+ 1 lap	05
05	Luigi Musso	Maserati	89		+ 1 lap	09
06th	Mike Hawthorn Eugenio Castellotti	Ferrari	87		+ 3 rounds	12
07th	Mike Sparken	Gordini	81		+ 9 rounds	23
08th	Lance Macklin	Maserati	79		+ 11 rounds	16
09	Ken Wharton Harry Schell	Vanwall	72		+ 18 rounds	15th
-	Maurice Trintignant	Ferrari	60		DNF	13		Engine failure
-	Roberto Mieres	Maserati	48		DNF	06th		Engine failure
-	Kenneth McAlpine	Connaught	31		DNF	17th		oil pressure
-	Jack Brabham	cooper	31		DNF	25th		Engine failure
-	Peter Collins	Maserati	29		DNF	24		coupling
-	Hernando da Silva Ramos	Gordini	27		DNF	18th		Engine failure
-	Roy Salvadori	Maserati	24		DNF	20th		transmission
-	Horace Gould	Maserati	22nd		DNF	22nd		Brakes
-	Harry Schell	Vanwall	21st		DNF	07th		accelerator
-	Tony Rolt Peter Walker	Connaught	19th		DNF	14th		Power transmission
-	Leslie Marr	Connaught	18th		DNF	19th		Brakes
-	Eugenio Castellotti	Ferrari	17th		DNF	10		Power transmission
-	André Simon	Maserati	10		DNF	08th		transmission
-	Jean Behra	Ferrari	10		DNF	03		Oil leak
-	Robert Manzon	Gordini	05		DNF	11		Power transmission
-	Jack Fairman	Connaught	00		DNS			Engine problems

World Cup stand after the race

In 1955, 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 seven 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.	Juan Manuel Fangio	Mercedes	9 *	1*		9 *	8th	6th		33
2.	Stirling Moss	Mercedes	1			6th	6th	9 *		22nd
3.	Maurice Trintignant	Ferrari	3.3	8th						11.3
4th	Giuseppe Farina	Ferrari	3.3	3		4th				10.3
5.	Bob Sweikert	Kurtis power			8th					8th
	Eugenio Castellotti	Lancia		6th			2			8th
7th	Roberto Mieres	Maserati	2			1	4 *			7th
8th.	Luigi Musso	Maserati					4th	2		6th
9.	Karl Kling	Mercedes	1					4th		5
10.	Jimmy Davies	Kurtis power			4th					4th
11.	Johnny Thomson	Kuzma			3					3
	Tony Bettenhausen	Kurtis power			3					3
	Paul Russo	Kurtis power			3					3
	Jean Behra	Maserati		2		1				3
	Paul Brother	Ferrari				3				3
	Piero Taruffi	Mercedes						3		3
17th	José Froilán González	Ferrari	2							2
	Cesare Perdisa	Maserati		2						2
	Luigi Villoresi	Ferrari Lancia		2						2
20th	Umberto Maglioli	Ferrari	1.3							1.3
21st	Hans Herrmann	Mercedes	1							1
	Walt Faulkner	Kurtis power			1					1
	Bill Homeier	Kurtis power			1					1
	Bill Vukovich	Kurtis power			1*					1

Individual evidence

1. ↑ "GP Stories - The Races of 1955" (www.motorsport-magazin.com on August 5, 2013)

Web links

• "1955 British GP" on youtube.com
• Results at motorsportarchiv.de
• Photos at f1-facts.com