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Read more. Canada, montréal, June 12, 2011. Full race report. F1 at 70, the greatest races: longlist. France, Reims-Gueux, July 5, 1953
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Canada, Montré al, June 12, 2011
Button celebrates his unlikely win
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It might not sound an obvious winning strategy, but Jenson Button made six pit stops, suffered one puncture, survived a collision with McLaren team-mate Lewis Hamilton, collected a drive-through penalty for lapping too briskly during one of several safety car periods… and pulled-off a last-lap pass to defeat Sebastian Vettel by 2. 7sec. On an ordinary day he’d have been lucky to finish in the top 20, but this wasn’t an ordinary day. Between laps 40 and 64 he rose from 21st to second and, with a little assistance from safety cars, was 3. 1sec in arrears with six laps to go. Not his most conventional victory, but perhaps his best.
FULL RACE REPORT
F1 at 70, the greatest races: longlist
Scroll down to see our initial longlist of races, from the French Grand Prix of 1953 to last year’s visit to Austria
1950s
France, Reims-Gueux, July 5, 1953
Hawthorn passes with two laps remaining in Reims
Included not for reasons of jingoism – Mike Hawthorn’s victory for Ferrari was the first for a British driver since the world championship’s inception three years earlier – but for its outrageous competitive intensity. Hawthorn and Juan Manuel Fangio (Maserati) swapped the lead constantly throughout the 60 laps – a race distance of slightly more than 500 kilometres. They remained but 1. 0sec apart at the end, with José Froilá n Gonzá lez (Maserati) only another 0. 4sec in arrears. This was the championship’s second year under F2 regulations; the period’s dominant force Alberto Ascari came home fourth, finally vanquished after nine straight GP victories.
FULL RACE REPORT
Britain, Aintree, July 16, 1955
The sport remained numb in the slipstream of the Le Mans disaster, which had claimed more than 80 lives the previous month, and grands prix in France, Germany, Spain and Switzerland were subsequently cancelled. This would be the penultimate round of the season – and second place would be enough to secure Fangio’s third title, though that wasn’t clear at the time. The talking point? A duel between the Argentine maestro and his emerging Mercedes team-mate Stirling Moss. The latter has often suspected his mentor allowed him to win on home soil, but Fangio denied as much. The full truth will never be known.
FULL RACE REPORT
Argentina, Buenos Aires, January 19, 1958
Moss’s tyres hold out and he takes victory in Buenos Aires
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With Vanwall not ready for the start of the new campaign, Stirling Moss drove instead for Rob Walker’s private team, his Cooper T43 the lone mid-engined entry against a slim field of Ferraris and Maseratis. The Italian factory cars were faster, but Moss paced himself, looked after his tyres – and in the second half of the race his team manager Alf Francis waved a wheel over the pit wall, to remind him of the need to stop – a simple con trick. By the time rivals realised he had no intention of doing any such thing, it was too late. The Cooper finished with its tyres through to the canvas, but GP racing had its first victory by a car with its engine behind the driver.
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FULL RACE REPORT
United States, Sebring, December 12, 1959
From day one, America had been represented on the world championship calendar by the Indy 500 – a token gesture, and an anomaly. Not until the final month of the decade did it host its first conventional grand prix. Tony Brooks’s hopes of taking the title were dented in the early stages, when he was hit by Ferrari team-mate Wolfgang von Trips and made a precautionary pit stop – unnecessarily so, as it transpired. He recovered to third, but that wasn’t enough to wrest the crown from Brabham… who ran dry on the final lap and had to push his Cooper to the line to secure fourth place – almost five minutes after team-mate Bruce McLaren had taken victory.
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