F1 1961 Season - History of Motor Racing

Description

The 1961 Formula One season included the 12th FIA Formula One World Championship season, which commenced on May 14, 1961, and ended on October 8 after eight races. Phil Hill of Ferrari won his only Driver's Championship, his teammate and rival Wolfgang von Trips was killed at the Italian Grand Prix, the penultimate race of the season. Ferrari won their first Constructor's Championship. The first year of the 1.5 litre formula was dominated by a well-prepared Ferrari team. Only Stirling Moss, in an outdated Lotus, was able to beat the Ferraris on two tracks where his skills offset the Ferrari power advantage. Ferrari driver Giancarlo Baghetti won the French Grand Prix on his championship debut, the only driver to have done so other than Nino Farina, winner of the first F1 World Championship race. Baghetti had also won his only two previous Formula One races, the non-championship events at Syracuse and Naples, but the French race was his only win in the World Championship. The contest for the championship between Ferrari's leading drivers, Phil Hill and Wolfgang von Trips, ended in tragedy when von Trips collided with Jim Clark at Monza, killing the Ferrari driver and 14 spectators. Hill went on to win the championship, the first American to do so. With the change of formula and the introduction of the United States Grand Prix, the Indianapolis 500 was dropped from the championship.

Keywords

gp, f1, motor, racing, history, clark, brabham, moss, bandini, hill, surtees, hulme, steward, rindt, von, trips, ferrari, cooper, brm, lotus, matra, 1960, 1961, 1962, 1963, 1964, 1965, 1966, 1967, 1968, 1969, nordschleife, nurburgring, british, era, crash

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