1950-1959 – Formula 1 (Vol 2)

1955 British Grand Prix (color – 16 min)
The aftermath of the Le Mans disaster resulted in the cancellation of the French GP, which had been scheduled for July 3,
and so the British Grand Prix became the sixth round of the World Championship. The race had always been held at
Silverstone but for the 1955 season the Royal Automobile Club decided that the race would be held at the Aintree
racecourse in the outskirts of Liverpool. Jack Brabham makes his World Championship debut. Stirling Moss took the lead at
the start, but Fangio quickly moved ahead only to see Moss win back the position on lap 3. Fangio and Moss continued to
lap nose-to-tail for the rest of the afternoon, but at the finish it was Moss who took the flag first, to the delight of the huge
crowd. It has often been said that Fangio allowed Moss to win but Fangio never admitted to it. This is an old Speedvision
broadcast, with the watermark in the corner.

1956 Italian Grand Prix (color – 20 min)
The final race of the 1958 season, the Lancia-Ferrari team (with Juan Fangio and Peter Collins), and the Maserati team
(with Stirling Moss), were back in action again at Monza, with Vanwall rejoining the fray having missed the German GP.
Shortly before half distance Fangio pitted with a broken steering arm. Eugenio Castellotti (Lancia Ferrari D50) was put in the
repaired car and Fangio’s hopes of winning the World Championship began to fade. Moss was at the front and beginning to
pull away. Peter Collins was in a position to win the World Championship, but when he came in for a tire check with 15 laps
to go, he made the remarkable decision to hand over his car to Fangio, thus giving Fangio the chance to win another World
title. It was a great sporting gesture. With five laps to go, Moss ran out of fuel. As he was coasting to a stop, his Maserati
teammate Luigi Piotti slowed down and used his car to push Moss’s 250F to the pits. Moss lost the lead, but with three laps
to go, Lancia-Ferrari driver Luigi Musso suffered a broken steering arm as the car came off the final banking and he came to
an unseemly stop opposite the pits. Moss was ahead again and he won the race by six seconds. But with Fangio in second
place the World Championship went to the Argentine driver for the third consecutive year. This is a marvelous color film!

1957 German Grand Prix  (b&w – 16 min)
From the famous Nurburgring track, the German Grand Prix saw Juan Fangio on pole yet again, 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 was soon able to take the lead.
Collins then passed Hawthorn and chased after Fangio but the Argentine driver edging gradually away. A slow mid-race pit
stop dropped Fangio behind the two Lancia-Ferraris but he chased back hard, in one of the greatest drives in F1 history, and
passed both Collins and Hawthorn on the penultimate lap. Fangio would win his fifth World title.

1957 Monaco Grand Prix  (color – 31 min)
Stirling Moss had switched to Vanwall, leaving Juan-Manuel Fangio as the undisputed team leader at Maserati. Ferrari had
lost Eugenio Castellotti in a testing accident at Modena, so Peter Collins and Mike Hawthorn were joined at Monaco by
Maurice Trintignant and Wolfgang Von Trips. There were also a couple of Cooper-Climax chassis for Jack Brabham and Les
Leston, but they were a long way off the pace. In qualifying Fangio was fastest with Collins and Moss alongside him on the
front row. Moss took the lead at the first corner with Fangio behind him, but on the second lap Collins got ahead of the
Argentine driver. This would be his downfall however as Moss went off at the chicane on lap 4. Collins swerved to avoid the
crash and hit the wall himself. Fangio managed to get through without a problem and Brooks braked hard only to be rammed
from behind by Hawthorn. A tough race for the F1 cars, as by the closing laps there were only 6 cars left in the race. It had
been a dominant victory for Fangio, with Tony Brooks taking second for Vanwall.

1958 Belgian Grand Prix  (color – 24 min)
After two years away the Grand Prix circus arrived at Spa to find that the track had been altered in various places and was
now a little faster. Vanwall was the chief competition and Stirling Moss was third on the grid, Tony Brooks fourth. Jack
Brabham put his Cooper sixth and his team mate Roy Salvadori was 11th while BRM’s Harry Schell and Jean Behra were
seventh and ninth. Lotus once again ran two cars and the rest of the field consisted of Maserati 250Fs, three of which were
entered by Scuderia Centro Sud. After being held on the grid for a long time the field set off with Moss leading. Later in the
lap Moss missed a gear and blew up his engine, leaving Brooks in the lead, although he was soon being challenged by
Collins. His engine had suffered on the grid, however, and he was out after five laps. On the next lap Musso suffered a tire
failure and crashed. The event marked the first occasion on which a woman had started a World Championship event with
Marie Theresa de Fillipis in a privately-entered Maserati 250F. The 37-year-old Roman lady qualified over half a minute
behind Hawthorn and finished in 10th position, two laps behind.