1955 Monaco Grand Prix

 1955 Monaco Grand Prix

Racing data
2nd of 7 races of the 1955 World Automobile Championship
Surname:	XIII Grand Prix Automobile de Monaco
Date:	May 22, 1955
Place:	Monte Carlo , Monaco
Course:	Circuit de Monaco
Length:	318.1 km in 100 laps of 3.181 km
Weather:	sunny, dry
Pole position
Driver:	Juan Manuel Fangio	Mercedes
Time:	1: 41.1 min
Fastest lap
Driver:	Juan Manuel Fangio	Mercedes
Time:	1: 42.4 min
Podium
First:	Maurice Trintignant	Ferrari
Second:	Eugenio Castellotti	Lancia
Third:	Jean Behra Cesare Perdisa	Maserati

The 1955 Monaco Grand Prix took place on May 22, 1955 on the Circuit de Monaco near Monte Carlo and was the second race of the 1955 World Automobile Championship . The Grand Prix also had the FIA ​​honorary title of European Grand Prix .

Reports

background

The 1950 Monaco Grand Prix was overshadowed by a pile-up that resulted in a long break in the race. The 1955 Monaco Grand Prix took place again after a five-year break; without interrupting the Monaco race has since been up to and including 2019, a fixed part of the Formula 1 race calendar before 2020 in the wake of COVID-19 pandemic of the Monaco Grand Prix was the first time dropped from the racing calendar.

Juan Manuel Fangio, who won the first Monaco Grand Prix in 1950 and the first race of the season in Argentina, was the favorite for the race win. His teammate at Mercedes , Karl Kling , paused a race. Ferrari competed with five cars, alongside regular drivers Giuseppe Farina and Maurice Trintignant , Harry Schell , Piero Taruffi and Paul Frère drove . In Monaco, Maserati relied on its three regular drivers Jean Behra , Roberto Mieres and Luigi Musso . A fourth car was used for Cesare Perdisa , who was making his Formula 1 debut race. Lancia kept the driver pairing from the first race of the season and provided a fourth car for Louis Chiron . The Monegasse was 55 years and 292 days old on the day of the race, making it the oldest driver to ever take part in a Formula 1 race. It was also his last race. At the 1958 Monaco Grand Prix he tried to qualify, but did not succeed.

Mike Hawthorn returned to Formula 1 and drove the new Vanwall VW 55 for Vanwall . Also Gordini brought the Gordini Type 32 for Robert Manzon a new car.

Gordini T32 (front)

In addition, four drivers took part in the race in private cars. Formula 1 world champion in 1952 and 1953, Alberto Ascari, died four days after the Monaco Grand Prix during test drives in Monza. Lancia then got out of Formula 1 after only three races and sold its cars to Ferrari. In 1956 Ferrari became world champion with the technology of these cars in the Ferrari D50 .

training

The training was dominated by the battle between Mercedes and Lancia for pole position. Fangio set a time of 1: 41.1 minutes on Friday. He broke the course record of 1937 when Rudolf Caracciola , also in a Mercedes, drove 1: 46.5 minutes. On Saturday, Ascari drove the same lap time as Fangio, but one day later, so that Fangio was classified as the fastest, Ascari in second position. A tenth of a second behind was Stirling Moss in the second Mercedes, and the second Lancia from Castellotti started from fourth. Maserati was able to position itself in fifth and sixth with Jean Behra and Roberto Mieres . The training was disappointing for Ferrari. Trintignant was only ninth, three seconds behind Fangio, Farina started from 14th, Hawthorn started the race from twelfth for Vanwall, the best starting position for a Gordini driver was Robert Manzon's 13th position . The training session was overshadowed by a serious accident involving Mercedes driver Hans Herrmann , who drove into a boundary wall near the harbor. Due to the injuries he suffered, he was out for the rest of the season and did not return to Formula 1 until 1957. Mercedes signed the Ecurie Rosier driver André Simon to replace Herrmann for the race. Lance Macklin and Ted Whiteaway drove in private cars in practice, but did not qualify as the field of drivers was limited to 20 cars for safety reasons. For Whiteaway it was the only attempt to qualify for a Formula 1 race.

run

At the start, the two Mercedes drivers Fangio and Moss took the lead and dueled with Behra in a Maserati on the first laps of the race, but after a few laps the pace of the Mercedes was too fast, so that there was a gap to the leaders. On laps seven and eight, Rosier and Musso, the first two Maserati drivers, retired due to technical defects. Meanwhile, Fangio and Moss extended their lead over the competition and dominated the race. After 22 laps, a large series of failures began, which had a strong impact on the race result. Hawthorn parked his Vanwall with problems on the gas pedal, two laps later Simon's Mercedes suffered an engine failure, on lap 38 Manzon gave up the race in the Gordini with a gearbox failure. On lap 42, Behra burst a tire while in third place. In response, Lancia, Behra and Perdisa decided to swap cars. A few laps later, Fangio retired with a gearbox failure and his team-mate Moss took the lead. With similar defects, the second Gordini with Élie Bayol and another Maserati with Mieres were eliminated in the following laps . Moss was clearly in the lead at this point in the race and another superior Mercedes victory seemed certain. However, the car suffered an engine failure that put Ascari in the lead. Ascari misjudged himself in a chicane, touched the barrier and flew his car into the harbor basin. He was able to free himself from the sinking car, swam ashore and was rescued from the cold water by a sailor from the shipowner Onassis. The world champion of 1952 and 1953 broke his nasal bone in this accident and suffered a few bruises; four days later he died in an accident in a sports car. In 1965, ten years after Ascari's accident, Paul Hawkins also crashed into the Monaco harbor, but was uninjured. These two incidents were the only ones in Formula 1 history where a car crashed into the sea. Moss drove a few meters with the engine failure and parked his car, but was classified ninth. Trintignant took the lead with the Ferrari, which had lost for the weekend, and won his first of two races. Ferrari benefited from the reliability of its cars compared to the competition. Only Ferrari driver Schell retired on lap 67 with engine failure. Trintignant was thus the first French Formula 1 winner and it was the first race victory for the tire manufacturer Englebert, the only Grand Prix success for Ferrari and Trintignant in 1955. Eugenio Castellotti drove in the Lancia in second place, 20 seconds behind Trintignant and secured himself the first and only podium for Team Lancia in its final Grand Prix. The podium was completed by Formula 1 debutant Cesare Perdisa, who had taken over the Maserati from Behra in the race. Farina in the second Ferrari and Luigi Villoresi in the second Lancia received further points for fourth and fifth place .

Fangio received a point for the fastest race lap, but lost the lead in the drivers' standings to Trintignant. Thus, for the first time in the history of Formula 1, a Frenchman led the overall standings. With second place in the race, Castellotti moved up to fourth, Farina was third after two of seven races.

Registration list

team	No.	driver	chassis	engine	tires
Daimler-Benz AG	02	Juan Manuel Fangio	Mercedes-Benz W 196	Mercedes-Benz 2.5 L8	C.
	04th	Hans Herrmann
	04th	André Simon
	06th	Stirling Moss
Equipe Gordini	08th	Robert Manzon	Gordini Type 16 / Gordini Type 32	Gordini 2.5 L6 / Gordini 2.5 L8	E.
	10	Jacques Pollet	Gordini Type 16	Gordini 2.0 L6
	12	Élie Bayol	Gordini Type 16	Gordini 2.5 L6
Ecurie Rosier	14th	Louis Rosier	Maserati 250F	Maserati 2.5 L6	P
	16	André Simon
Vandervell Products Ltd	18th	Mike Hawthorn	Vanwall VW 55	Vanwall 2.5 L6	P
Stirling Moss Ltd.	22nd	Lance Macklin	Maserati 250F	Maserati 2.5 L6	D.
EN Whiteaway	24	Ted Whiteaway	HWM 53	Alta 2.5 L4	D.
Scuderia Lancia	26th	Alberto Ascari	Lancia D50	Lancia 2.5 V8	P
	28	Luigi Villoresi
	30th	Eugenio Castellotti
	32	Louis Chiron
Officine Alfieri Maserati	34	Jean Behra	Maserati 250F	Maserati 2.5 L6	E.
	34	Cesare Perdisa
	36	Roberto Mieres			P
	38	Luigi Musso
	40	Cesare Perdisa
	40	Jean Behra
Scuderia Ferrari	42	Giuseppe Farina	Ferrari 625F1	Ferrari 2.5 L4	E.
	44	Maurice Trintignant	Ferrari 625F1 / Ferrari 555 Super Qualo
	46	Harry Schell	Ferrari 555 Super Qualo
	48	Piero Taruffi
	48	Paul Brother

Remarks

1. ↑ Hans Herrmann was seriously injured in training and was unable to take part in the race. André Simon replaced him.
2. ↑ Jean Behra drove the car 42 laps, Cesare Perdisa 57 laps.
3. ↑ Cesare Perdisa drove the car 40 laps, Jean Behra 46 laps.
4. ↑ Piero Taruffi did the training, in the race he drove 50 laps, Paul Frère drove 36 laps.

Classifications

Starting grid

Item	driver	constructor	time	Ø speed	begin
01	Juan Manuel Fangio	Mercedes	1: 41.1	113.27 km / h	01
02	Alberto Ascari	Lancia	1: 41.1	113.27 km / h	02
03	Stirling Moss	Mercedes	1: 41.2	113.16 km / h	03
04th	Eugenio Castellotti	Lancia	1: 42.0	112.27 km / h	04th
05	Jean Behra	Maserati	1: 42.6	111.61 km / h	05
06th	Roberto Mieres	Maserati	1: 43.7	110.43 km / h	06th
07th	Luigi Villoresi	Lancia	1: 43.7	110.43 km / h	07th
08th	Luigi Musso	Maserati	1: 44.3	109.79 km / h	08th
09	Maurice Trintignant	Ferrari	1: 44.4	109.69 km / h	09
10	André Simon	Mercedes	1: 45.5	108.55 km / h	10
11	Cesare Perdisa	Maserati	1: 45.6	108.44 km / h	11
12	Mike Hawthorn	Vanwall	1: 45.6	108.44 km / h	12
13	Robert Manzon	Gordini	1: 46.0	108.03 km / h	13
14th	Giuseppe Farina	Ferrari	1: 46.0	108.03 km / h	14th
15th	Piero Taruffi	Ferrari	1: 46.0	108.03 km / h	15th
16	Élie Bayol	Gordini	1: 46.5	107.53 km / h	16
17th	Louis Rosier	Maserati	1: 46.7	107.33 km / h	17th
18th	Harry Schell	Ferrari	1: 46.8	107.22 km / h	18th
19th	Louis Chiron	Lancia	1: 47.3	106.73 km / h	19th
20th	Jacques Pollet	Gordini	1: 49.4	104.68 km / h	20th
21st	Lance Macklin	Maserati	1: 49.4	104.68 km / h	DNQ
22nd	Ted Whiteaway	HWM	1: 57.2	97.71 km / h	DNQ

run

Item	driver	constructor	Round	Stops	time	begin	Fastest lap	Failure reason
01	Maurice Trintignant	Ferrari	100		2: 58: 09.8	09
02	Eugenio Castellotti	Lancia	100		+ 20.2	04th
03	Jean Behra Cesare Perdisa	Maserati	99		+ 1 lap	05
04th	Giuseppe Farina	Ferrari	99		+ 1 lap	14th
05	Luigi Villoresi	Lancia	99		+ 1 lap	07th
06th	Louis Chiron	Lancia	95		+ 5 rounds	19th
07th	Jacques Pollet	Gordini	91		+ 9 rounds	20th
08th	Piero Taruffi Paul Frère	Ferrari	86		+ 14 rounds	15th
09	Stirling Moss	Mercedes	81		DNF	03		Engine failure
-	Cesare Perdisa Jean Behra	Maserati	86		DNF	11		Lathe operator
-	Alberto Ascari	Lancia	80		DNF	02		accident
-	Harry Schell	Ferrari	67		DNF	18th		Engine failure
-	Roberto Mieres	Maserati	64		DNF	06th		Power transmission
-	Élie Bayol	Gordini	63		DNF	16		Power transmission
-	Juan Manuel Fangio	Mercedes	49		DNF	01		Power transmission
-	Robert Manzon	Gordini	38		DNF	13		transmission
-	André Simon	Mercedes	24		DNF	10		Engine failure
-	Mike Hawthorn	Vanwall	22nd		DNF	12		accelerator
-	Louis Rosier	Maserati	08th		DNF	17th		Loss of fuel
-	Luigi Musso	Maserati	07th		DNF	08th		Power transmission
-	Hans Herrmann	Mercedes	00		DNS			Training accident

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.	Maurice Trintignant	Ferrari	3.3	8th						11.3
2.	Juan Manuel Fangio	Mercedes	9 *	1*						10
3.	Giuseppe Farina	Ferrari	3.3	3						6.3
4th	Eugenio Castellotti	Lancia		6th						6th
5.	Roberto Mieres	Maserati	2							2
	José Froilán González	Ferrari	2							2
	Jean Behra	Maserati		2						2
	Cesare Perdisa	Maserati		2						2
	Luigi Villoresi	Ferrari Lancia		2						2
10.	Umberto Maglioli	Ferrari	1.3							1.3
11.	Stirling Moss	Mercedes	1							1
	Karl Kling	Mercedes	1							1

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Maria Reyer: Formula 1 live ticker The whole statement about the Monaco cancellation! In: motorsport-total.com. March 19, 2020, accessed March 20, 2020 . 
2. ↑ "GP Stories - The Races of 1955" (www.motorsport-magazin.com on July 16, 2013)

Web links

• Results at motorsportarchiv.de
• Photos at f1-facts.com