1957 Formula One season

The 1957 Formula One season was the 11th season of FIA Formula One motor racing. It featured the 8th World Championship of Drivers which was contested over eight races between 13 January and 8 September 1957. The season also included nine non-championship races for Formula One cars.

Juan Manuel Fangio driving for Maserati won his fourth consecutive championship. It was his fifth in total, a record that would not be beaten until Michael Schumacher in 2003 . Especially in the latter half of the season, Stirling Moss was Fangio's main rival, but the Brit would finish runner-up for the third year in a row. [ 1 ]

Excluding the Indianapolis 500 , which counted towards the F1 championship although there was very little overlap in contestants, every race was won by a constructor with their own engine. This would not happen again until 2006 .

Three Formula One drivers lost their lives this year while racing in other categories. On 14 March, Ferrari driver Eugenio Castellotti suffered a fatal accident when he tested a new chassis for the team at Modena Autodrome . Trying to beat the lap record by Maserati's Jean Behra , he hit a chicane in a bad way and was thrown out of the car. A skull fracture caused his instant death . [ 2 ] On 12 May, Ferrari lost another driver: Alfonso de Portago was competing in that year's Mille Miglia when h...

Fangio chose to switch teams again, joining Maserati before the start of the season. The decision to switch proved to be a masterstroke, with Ferrari 's line-up of Peter Collins , Eugenio Castellotti and the returning Mike Hawthorn failing to win a race. Castellotti and Alfonso de Portago were killed during the season (neither in Formula One crashes), making this a truly disastrous year for Ferrari.

The man Fangio replaced at Maserati, Stirling Moss , moved to Vanwall , a team beginning to fulfill their promise. Between them, Fangio and Moss won every championship race of the season except the Indianapolis 500 , with Fangio taking four victories to Moss' three. Fangio's drive at the Nürburgring , where he overtook Collins and Hawthorn on the penultimate lap after a pit stop had put him nearly a minute behind, is regarded as a particularly notable one. [ citation needed ]

At the end of the year, it was announced Fangio would not return for another season. Maserati also pulled out, citing financial reasons. This was also the final year in which points were awarded for shared drives.

The first race of the season was in January at the Buenos Aires Autodrome in Argentina's capital city. Briton Moss took pole ahead of Fangio, Behra, and Ferrari drivers Castellotti, Collins, Musso, and Hawthorn. At the start of the race, Behra took the lead from Fangio and Castellotti. Moss was taken by surprise, and a juddering start damaged the throttle mechanism, and he pitted at the end of the first lap. While Moss sat in the pits, Castellotti led but was then overtaken by Behra. Soon after...

Argentina '57 would be Castellotti's last Grand Prix. He was killed testing a Ferrari at the Modena Aerodrome in March. A non-championship race was held in Syracuse on the southern Italian island of Sicily; Peter Collins won this race for Ferrari. The Pau Grand Prix, held on the city streets of the southwestern French town of Pau , was won by home favourite Behra in a Maserati, while on the same day, the Glover Trophy at the Goodwood circuit in southern England was won by Briton Stuart Lewis-Eva...

The Indianapolis 500 was the 3rd round of the championship, but since that race was not run to Formula One rules, no competitors who raced in Formula One raced at the Indy 500, and vice versa. The Belgian and Dutch Grands Prix, scheduled for 2 and 16 June, were both cancelled because of disputes over money affected by the Suez crisis in Egypt. This resulted in a six-week break between Monaco and the French GP, which was to be held at the Rouen-Les-Essarts public road circuit in northern France, ...

In practice, Fangio was fastest, with Behra and Musso alongside on the front row. Behind them were Schell and Collins, with the third row consisting of Salvadori, Hawthorn, and Trintignant. Behra went into the lead at the start, but Musso soon got ahead. Fangio followed in third, with Collins and Schell giving chase. Then came a fast-starting McKay-Fraser. Fangio worked his way past Behra on the second lap and took Musso for the lead on lap four. BRM suffered a setback when Flockhart seriously d...

The British Grand Prix was held at the Aintree circuit in Liverpool instead of at the Silverstone circuit between London and Birmingham the previous year. The Aintree circuit was located in the middle of the horse-racing course where the famous Grand National was held. Both Vanwall drivers missed the French Grand Prix and were back in action for their home race. This was to be a landmark race for British motorsports. At the start of the race, Behra took off into the lead with Moss in hot pursuit...

The Caen Grand Prix, another important non-championship Formula One race held in the town of Caen in northern France (further west of Rouen), held between the British and German Grands Prix, was won by Behra in a BRM.

At the Nürburgring in Germany, the field was as expected, with Lancia-Ferrari fielding Mike Hawthorn, Peter Collins, and Luigi Musso and Maserati running Juan Manuel Fangio, Jean Behra, and Harry Schell in their leading cars. The field was bolstered for the first time by Formula 2 machinery, which included a trio of Porsches and various Cooper-Climaxes; the length of the circuit allowed for these cars to run alongside each other.

Pole position went to Fangio, with Hawthorn, Behra, and Collins completing the front row. Then came Brooks, Schell, and Moss. At the start, Hawthorn and Collins went into a battle for the lead, with Fangio and Behra giving chase. On the third lap, Fangio passed Collins and soon took the lead. Collins then passed Hawthorn and chased after Fangio, but the Argentine driver was edging gradually away. A slow mid-race pit stop lasting 1 minute and 18 seconds (originally supposed to be 30 seconds) drop...

Maserati's Fangio set the fastest time in qualifying, with Stirling Moss second in his Vanwall. Musso was third. The second row of the 3-2-3 grid featured the Maseratis of Jean Behra and Harry Schell, while row three had Vanwall's Tony Brooks and Stuart Lewis-Evans split by the Scuderia Centro Sud Maserati of Masten Gregory.

The weather was hot, at the start, Musso took the lead. Maserati privateer Horace Gould hit a mechanic who was slow to get off the grid. Vanwall's challenge was blunted when Brooks retired with mechanical troubles on the first lap. Moss took the lead from Musso on lap two, but the two cars remained together. Fangio ran third, but the field thinned out quickly as the hot temperatures took their toll, with Lewis-Evans losing nearly a lap because of two tyre failures and Behra suffering an engine ...

The Italian Grand Prix at Monza was held only on the road circuit without the poorly constructed concrete banking this year, as it had caused problems for the Italian constructors the year before. The track was very like the Monza of today, although without the chicanes. Ferrari was back in action for this most important of Italian races after boycotting Pescara. So it was a three-way fight between the Lancia-Ferraris, the Maseratis, and the Vanwalls. The British cars were strong, with pole posi...

Although the Vanwalls went away from the grid at the front, Behra moved up to second on the first lap. Fangio attached himself to the train of cars ahead of him, and the five began to pull away from the rest of the field while indulging in a traditional Monza slipstreaming battle which saw the lead constantly changing between Moss and Behra. On lap seven, Fangio took the lead, but he was soon toppled in favour of Moss, Brooks, and then Lewis-Evans. On lap 20, Brooks dropped out of the fight with...

All seven FIA-mandated championship races had been won by two drivers in 1957: Argentine Juan Manuel Fangio and Briton Stirling Moss. Although Moss took over an ill Tony Brooks's car during the British Grand Prix, he won with it on the road at that event.

All Grand Prix races were run for Formula One cars, while the Indianapolis 500 was run for USAC National Championship cars and also counted towards the 1957 USAC Championship . The ongoing Suez crisis , which affected oil tankers delivering oil to their respective countries, affected several countries, such as the Netherlands, Belgium, and Spain. These countries were to each have Grands Prix, but they were all cancelled because of the very high oil prices in those countries. [ 7 ]

Points were awarded to the top five classified finishers, with an additional point awarded for setting the fastest lap, regardless of finishing position or even classification. Only the best five results counted towards the championship. Formula 2 cars competing in Grands Prix were not eligible for Championship points. Shared drives result in shared points for each driver if they finished in a points-scoring position, except if the driver was deemed to have completed "insufficient distance" in t...

The following Formula One races, also held in 1957, did not count towards the World Championship of Drivers.