Practice was due to be held on the afternoons of Friday and Saturday preceding race day, but as always happens before the Italian Grand Prix, there was lots of activity throughout the week, Ferraris testing on one day, Maserati another, then BRM and then Vanwall, while down at Maranello Ferrari was busy working away on his brake problems and at Modena Maserati were preparing two 1958 cars.
Vanwall entered three cars for his brilliant trio of Moss, Brooks and Lewis-Evans; BRM entered Behra, Schell and Bonnier; Ferrari entered four cars with a truly mixed team of drivers, Hawthorn, von Trips, Phil Hill and Gendebien, and Scuderia Buell entered Gregory on a new Maserati and were trying to get Shelby in on the other Maserati, though he was due to drive for Centro-Sud.
The Rome stable also entered Gerini in a Maserati, and Bonnier entered two Maseratis to be driven by Cabianca and Herrmann, while de Filippis entered her own car. Cooper Cars entered Brabham and Salvadori, as always, and Trintignant was in RRC Walker’s Cooper, while Team Lotus entered Allison and Graham Hill to complete the list of runners.
