The annual sports car race over 44 laps of the tortuous Nürburgring once again counted for points in the Manufacturers’ Championship and there was an excellent entry of possible winners, while there was also a strong list of runners in the various classes, the event being open to sports, Gran Turismo and Special Touring cars. The sports cars were divided into two classes, up to 1500cc and 1501-3000cc, and obviously the winner would come from the larger-capacity group. Aston Martin entered three DBR1/300s of the type that won the race in 1957 and their drivers were Moss/Brabham, Brooks/Lewis-Evans and Salvadori/Shelby, while Ferrari entered four 12-cylinder cars with drivers Hawthorn/Collins, Musso/Hill, Seidel/Munaron and von Trips/Gendebien. Jaguar was represented by Ecurie Ecosse with three D-types fitted with 3-litre engines driven by Gregory/Flockhart, Fairman/ Lawrence, Bueb/Sanderson and the winner could be chosen from these 10 cars. For other positions, even as high as second place, the 1500cc sports cars could not be overlooked and for once Porsche was not having things all its own way, for the three RSK cars were to be hotly opposed by three factory Borgwards.

Practice went on continually all day Thursday and Friday, and on Saturday morning, and lap times counted for the line-up on race day, a Le Mans-type run-and-jump start being used. Unfortunately, timekeeping at the Nürburgring is vague in the extreme and the published times bore no relation to fact. For example, the first day’s official bulletin gave Car No4, the Collins/Hawthorn Ferrari, 10min 15.3sec, as the fastest time recorded; admittedly Car No4 did do that time and it was a Ferrari, but neither Collins nor Hawthorn arrived until long after practice was finished that day. Their car was being used by the other team members, and this shuffling about went on throughout practice with no record being kept of who did what time, each lap going to the car, irrespective of the driver. As a result, the third car in the line-up on Sunday was Ferrari No6, driven by Seidel and Munaron, with a time of 9min 45.8sec, whereas in actual fact they were both struggling hard to get below 10min 30sec. This nonsense happens every year at the 1000Kms but nothing is ever done about it, which makes one wonder whether the race as a whole can be taken seriously. And, in addition, there were some lamentably slow GT Ferraris running, and two family saloons, a Peugeot 403 and a Volvo 444, all mixed up with grand prix drivers in thinly disguised GP cars with 3-litre engines.

After its second place in the Targa Florio, Porsche was obviously out for a repeat performance on the Nürburgring, its home ground, and on Thursday it had three RSK cars out and an old hack RS. The third new car was identical to the others with the exception of having no tail fins, making it look very short and stumpy, like a Manx cat. During the first day’s practice Scarlatti went off the road in one of the earlier RSKs and demolished it completely, being very lucky to escape with only minor injuries. This meant a reshuffling of cars and drivers in the Porsche team in conjunction with some private owners of RS models. Behra/Barth were in the lead car. Schell/Frère in the second RSK and Frankenberg/de Beaufort in the old hack RS fitted with the engine from the crashed RSK. As de Beaufort had entered his own RS he agreed to let this be raced by the American Arthur Bunker and Schiller, a Swiss driver.

In strong opposition to the Porsches were three factory Borgwards, these new cars having four-cylinder engines with twin overhead camshafts, four valves per cylinder and Bosch fuel injection. The injector pump was driven off the rear of the inlet camshaft and controlled hydraulically from the single large butterfly throttle mounted at the front of the inlet tract, as on the GP Mercedes-Benz. On the rear of the exhaust camshaft was a distributor supplying sparks to eight plugs. The chassis was fairly conventional, consisting of large-diameter bottom tubes and a smaller-tube superstructure, while the front suspension of wishbones, coil springs and anti-roll bar was made from production Isabella parts. A four-speed gearbox was mounted on the rear of the engine and the differential unit was mounted on the rear of the chassis, rear suspension being of de Dion layout with vertical coil springs, the cross tube being located by a vast A-bracket running from above each hub to a centre point and with short radius arms to each side of the chassis from below the hubs. One interesting feature was beautifully finned telescopic rear shock absorbers, very similar to those that Mercedes-Benz used to use. The two-seater bodies of the Borgwards were simple and devoid of frills, while the cockpits were completely free of pipes, tubes, tanks, batteries and so on, which seem to clutter up most racing/sports cars. The drivers for these cars from Bremen were Herrmann/ Bonnier, Schulze/Jüttner and Cabianca/Mahle, the lesser-known drivers having served their apprenticeship on the Nürburgring. Schulze made some remarkable times with Porsche Carreras two years ago, Mahle created a fine impression last year with his driving of a Giulietta Sprint Veloce and Jüttner is a works test driver. While Behra made fastest practice lap for Porsche, Herrmann did the same for Borgward and the difference was only 1.6sec, the Porsche time being the remarkable one of 9min 57.0sec.

The Aston Martin team had a DB2/4 coupé and a clapped-out 3.7-litre DBR2/370 for their drivers to use for practice, the number of laps done on the DBR1/300s being kept to an absolute minimum, which made it rather hard for the new members of the team. Moss and Brooks were going very fast, as did Hawthorn and Collins on Saturday morning, the former making fastest lap of all in 9min 43.1sec. Since last year a certain amount of resurfacing had been done and the circuit was certainly a few seconds faster, but there was no doubt that the 3-litre cars were proving much more manageable than the 4.1-litres of last year, and the better Ferrari drivers were making full use of all the available power, even if the roadholding was a bit old-fashioned. The Jaguars were truly hopeless, leaping and bouncing from corner to corner, and were nowhere near the times of the Ferraris and Aston Martins, nor were they as quick as the Porsches and Borgwards, so that before the race started they could be discounted as potential winners. It was not for lack of drivers, for Gregory was doing terrific things and lapping faster than any works Jaguar has gone around the Nürburgring, and there was no lack of power from the Wilkinson-tuned engines, but as a chassis the D-type really is out of date and it is time Jaguar Cars Ltd looked to its diminishing prestige. Among the private owners, the Austrian Kötchert had a brand new 3-litre V12 Testa Rossa Ferrari, of production type with the gearbox attached to the engine, and the German driver Bauer did a lap in 10min exactly in this car, which was very good going. Similar cars were being driven by the Belgians Mairesse/de Changy and the Finnish drivers Lincoln/Hietarinta, while Carlsson/Bremer had an old four-cylinder Monza Ferrari that looked as out of place as a 3-litre Bentley would have done. The two Whiteheads had their ex-works DB3S, and to complete the list of over 1500cc cars there was a Porsche Carrera with a special 1600cc engine in the hands of factory driver Linge and ex-DKW motorcycle rider Winkler.

In the small sports class, in addition to the Porsches and Borgwards, there were a new 1500cc Osca and a motley collection of privately owned Lotus cars that spent most of the time in the workshops being sorted out. Frost had a brand-new Lotus XV with horizontal twin-cam Climax engine, and while it went it was very fast, but being so new it needed re-assembling every now and then, as did the Berchem Lotus XV. It is one thing to build cars for sale quickly and another thing to put them together properly: it would be a pity if Lotus goes the same way as Kieft did some years ago, through lack of good detail workmanship. Frost had Hicks as co-driver, so the latter lent his Lotus XI to Blunter/Power, and as Jon Fast had no co-driver for his Osca he took Campbell-Jones, whose Mark XI was then lent to Horridge/Monaco (both of whom turned up on the off-chance of a drive). Piper was sharing his Mark XI with Keith Greene, Latchford/Hall teamed up in the old Halseylec, resplendent in a new coat of green paint, while Fowell/Godfrey had an early swing-axle Lotus-Climax and two German drivers completed the list with a Porsche Speedster with Carrera GT engine.

The big Gran Turismo class had only four Ferrari 250 GT entries, while the 1600cc class was full of Porsche Carreras and the little class full of Alfa Romeo Giuliettas, and the only thing to say about them was that even the well-driven ones got in the way of the fast cars, and those that were badly driven should not have been permitted to start. It really is time a rule was made for GT cars in such a race – that they only start if they can lap faster than the class below them. If a 250 GT Ferrari cannot lap faster than a Giulietta then the driver and/or the car are not qualified to be taking part in a world championship event, while the admission of the Peugeot and the Volvo was nothing short of criminal.

By 9am on Sunday morning, 54 cars lined up in echelon in front of the pits and the drivers were on the opposite side of the road. With the cars arranged in practice-time order, scrutiny of the line from top to bottom was both interesting and infuriating. Seidel in third place was an absurdity, while Behra in sixth with a Porsche was remarkable, as was Herrmann in eighth with the Borgward. Gregory was in a brave 13th place with the first Jaguar, the next being Bueb in 18th. Blumer was in an excellent 21st position with the 1100cc Lotus, ahead of Strahle, who is no mean conductor of a Porsche Carrera. The Finnish Testa Rossa Ferrari should have been embarrassed to be seen in 23rd position, while 25th was Wüsthoff in a Speedster Carrera, second in his group on his first visit to the Nürburgring. The quickest Giulietta was in 36th position, and down towards the end of the line there was actually a Ferrari 250 GT that was slower than the Peugeot 403 and another that only just beat it, of which one need say no more.

After the usual scramble to get in the cars it was Moss who shot off into the lead, hotly pursued by Brooks, Schell, Behra, Hawthorn and Salvadori, and then followed a jostling mass of cars of all colours, leaving two lonely Lotuses on the starting grid. Horridge eventually got away and finally Hicks took off in Bill Frost’s Lotus XV, hiccupping away in third gear, the lower ones not being available. With a clear road in front of him and knowing that Brabham could not hope to maintain a high pace, Moss really gave the Aston Martin all it had got and finished lap one so far ahead of the rest of the field that it did not seem possible that they had all started together. Following came Hawthorn, Brooks, von Trips, Salvadori, Behra, Mairesse, Musso, Schell, Banter, Seidel and Gregory, so the order was Aston Martin, Ferrari, Aston Martin, Ferrari, Aston Martin, Porsche, private Ferrari Ferrari, Porsche, another private Ferrari, Ferrari and Jaguar, and the battle was on between Feltham and Maranello with Stuttgart holding a watching brief. Borgward was already in trouble for Herrmann was out with a broken de Dion tube and Schulze was only in 16th position. New boy Wüsthoff was leading the Carrera Porsches, much to the chagrin of the regulars, and Kessler in Picard’s Ferrari was leading the big Gran Turismo cars and the Swiss driver Stern was heading the Giulietta race.

On the next lap Mairesse had a rear tyre burst and had to stop to fit the spare, while Brooks spun and dropped many places, the exhaust pipes that protrude from under the driver’s door emitting a sheet of flame which scorched the paint. Moss lapped in 9min 47sec way out on his own, and after the field had gone by, with Brooks in 14th, it was noticed that Salvadori was missing, having been delayed by a faulty gear-selector mechanism. Mairesse came in for a new spare wheel, the burst tyre looking like a bundle of hay, and set off in last place with the unenviable task of overtaking all the small cars, for he had been making the Belgian 3-litre Ferrari really motor. With two Aston Martins in trouble, Behra had moved up into fourth place and Gregory was doing terrific things with the D-type Jaguar, lying sixth. Salvadori appeared at the pits to retire, unable to get out of fifth gear, and on lap three Moss set up a new record in 9min 43sec, a time that used to be considered quite something with a grand prix car. The class leaders remained unchanged and already the Peugeot saloon had been lapped, while many of the also-rans were about to be overtaken by Moss. The Borgward team was a bit put out by the failure of its number one car and on lap five Schulze drew into the pits and handed over to Herrmann, who had returned by the public roads. By now Moss had lapped 22 cars, so that his ‘traffic’ driving, at which he excels, was really worth watching, and he was continually drawing away from Hawthorn, von Trips, Behra, Musso, Gregory, Brooks, von Frankenberg, Seidel, Schell, Bauer and the rest strung out behind him. Amongst the small cars, Blumer was keeping ahead of the first Porsche Carrera and Piper was only just in front of the first Alfa coupé, while Eugene Hall was making the Halseylec go surprisingly quickly, and Hicks was gradually gaining ground after his bad start.

The procession went on, and on lap seven Blumer overturned in the Karussell banked corner, bending the body of the Lotus but not himself, and Cabianca stopped his Borgward at the pits to say all was not as good as it might be. On the next lap Herrmann, in Schulze’s Borgward, came in with a seized rear axle and the car was wheeled away on a jack, and on lap nine Cabianca returned once more and Herrmann took over his third Borgward for the day. On the next lap Gregory was lying in seventh position with the Jaguar, leaping and bounding his way round the course, when a Porsche coupé got in his way and he smote the bank with the left side of the car, stopping at the pits at the end of the lap to have the body bent straight and a wheel changed. So meteoric was his pace that all this only cost him two places, von Frankenberg and Seidel being the only two to go by. Having completed 10 laps Moss shot into the Aston Martin pit, leapt out, Brabham leapt in, and the car was back in the race still leading by a huge margin from Hawthorn’s Ferrari. Poor Brabham, in his first race with an Aston Martin works car, had an impossible task ahead of him for he had only been allowed three practice laps in the DBR1/300 and the 3.7-litre practice car had been so tired that it taught him little. He now had to learn the circuit and the car while the horde of Ferraris driven by experienced Nürburgring drivers bore down on him. A lesser man would have stopped by the roadside and wept! By the end of the next lap Hawthorn had caught the Aston and, as they passed the pits, the Ferrari went into the lead. Some of the backmarkers stopped for fuel and driver changes, Picard taking over the lead GT Ferrari and Frost having a drive in his new Lotus XV, still with no correct gear for standing starts.

On lap 12 Hawthorn (Ferrari) led from Brabham (Aston Martin), Behra (Porsche), Musso (Ferrari), Brooks (Aston Martin), von Frankenberg (Porsche), Seidel (Ferrari), Gregory ( Jaguar), Bauer (Ferrari), Graham Whitehead (Aston Martin) and Bunker (Porsche), all the rest of the cars having been lapped by the leader. The Gran Turismo pace-setters were still Picard, Wüsthoff and Stern, though second-place men in the two smaller groups were only seconds behind the leaders. At the end of lap 13 Hawthorn went by in the lead and Brabham brought the Aston Martin into the pits; the fuel tank was filled, the rear wheels changed and then the front wheels changed and just as von Trips, in third place, went by to take second place, Moss roared back into the race, spinning his wheels furiously to scrub the new rear tyres on the rough concrete apron in front of the pits. Seidel came in for fuel and to hand over to Munaron and Brooks was about to pass Musso to take fifth place behind Behra in the RSK Porsche, which was going at a remarkable speed, his best lap being in 9min 54sec, which would have been good in a 3-litre car let alone a 1500. Moss soon repassed von Trips and was now after Hawthorn, and at the end of lap 13 Hawthorn was very overdue, eventually to appear and head slowly for the pits, his nearside rear tyre in ribbons, Mr Englebert having once more let the Scuderia Ferrari down. The car was refuelled, had new rear tyres fitted and Collins took over, but not before Moss and von Trips had gone by. Behra stopped for fuel amid loud applause and Barth took over, and Schell handed over to Frère, while the Whiteheads changed over and Campbell-Jones took over from Fast on the very reliable and sturdy little Osca 1500. Mairesse handed the Belgian Ferrari over to de Changy, having pulled it up from 51st place to 29th, and many of the smaller cars made routine stops. On lap 15 Brooks came in for fuel, a change of all four wheels, and Lewis-Evans set off, while Musso took on fuel and changed rear wheels only, and Phil Hill took over the driving. The Behra/Barth Porsche had dropped from fourth to sixth due to its stop, but now went back into fourth place while the others made their stops. In the Gran Turismo category Wüsthoff had lost the lead to Strahle in a Carrera GT, but Stern was still leading the Giuliettas, hotly pursued by Foitek, and Picard was safely leading the GT Ferraris, even though be had been overtaken by the two leading Porsche Carreras.

On lap 16 von Trips came in to hand over to Gendebien and already Collins had gone by into second place, but Moss, in the lead, was drawing right away, completely unchallenged. With the No7 Ferrari making its first pit stop, Barth now took the Porsche into third place, but not for long, for he stopped at the pits at the end of lap 18 with the engine making a horrid noise, something in the valve gear having broken. Lewis-Evans was feeling sick and could not keep up with Hill, who had taken fifth place from him, but the Ferrari was in trouble on the 18th lap, when a rear tyre burst on leaving the Karussell. Hill continued to the top of Hohe Acht on the ruined tyre and then stopped and fitted the spare, which was a small front one. He came into the pits very much overdue and having dropped to ninth place, so that with the leading Porsche retirement the order was now: Moss/Brabham (Aston Martin), Hawthorn/Collins (Ferrari), von Trips/Gendebien (Ferrari), Brooks/Lewis-Evans (Aston Martin) and von Frankenberg/de Beaufort (Porsche), only these five still being on the same lap. Flockhart (Jaguar) was next, way ahead of his team-mates and leading the Seidel/Munaron works Ferrari as well as Hill, who was trying to make up time after his tyre trouble; then came Frère, having taken over from Schell, with the second RSK Porsche and the Whitehead Aston Martin, running very regularly, as was the Bunker/Schiller Porsche RS. Herrmann was still going in the last remaining Borgward, but was nowhere in the running and had been into the pits to have the steering checked.

Things settled down as half-distance approached, and at the end of lap 22 Moss had a 2min 15sec lead over Collins, 5min 35sec over Gendebien and 6min 39sec over Lewis-Evans, these four being the only ones on the same lap. It was clear that the luckless Brabham would have to take another spell in the leading car, for a three-hour time limit without a break was in the regulations, so obviously Moss was building up as big a lead as possible, for Brabham could not be expected to equal the times of Hawthorn or Collins in the following Ferrari. With more than a lap lead in his class, Picard had gone off the road and bent the front of his Ferrari, and the two Porsche Carreras of Strahle/Walter and Wüsthoff/Wilbourne, the two Americans, were still only seconds apart, while the Stern/Vogel Giulietta was now well ahead of its class-mates. At last Herrmann let someone else drive a Borgward and Bonnier took over from him, but not for long as the steering became deranged and the car had to be withdrawn. At the end of lap 24 Moss drew into the pits, there was a lightning change of drivers, and Brabham was off again, with little chance of losing the lead thanks to the terrific driving of Moss. Of the lesser private owners, Fast and Campbell-Jones were keeping the Osca well placed and Piper and Green were doing all right with the Lotus XI. The Belgian Ferrari retired with a broken rear axle, and on lap 27 Frère spun the works Porsche and dented the nose, but continued; on this lap all three Jaguars refuelled, changed wheels and drivers, and ‘Wilkie’ and his merry Scots had a busy time. At the end of lap 28 Lewis-Evans made a routine stop and Brooks resumed driving again, still in fourth place, and at the end of the next lap Brabham brought in the other Aston Martin. Collins had not been able to catch Brabham but he was not far behind, and there then occurred one of those tense pit-stop scenes that we used to see in grand prix racing a few years ago. The leading Aston was being refuelled and the rear wheels were being changed, and Moss was preparing to take over, when the second-place Ferrari arrived in the pits. The Aston Martin and Ferrari pits were adjacent, so that Collins drew up behind the leading Aston Martin, and as the Ferrari needed fuel and the front wheels changing all the mechanics had to work at top speed and make no mistakes, for at this point the leading and second-place car were separated by the length of one pit, after 29 laps of the Nürburgring, or 460 kilometres of racing. Nobody fumbled and Moss was able to set off still in the lead, with Hawthorn in the Ferrari now only a few seconds behind, but for a moment the outcome of the race hung in the balance in the hands of the mechanics of the two teams.

Barring accidents, it was now all over, for Moss had shown earlier in the race that the Aston Martin had the legs of the Ferrari, even with Hawthorn at the wheel; all he had to do was to draw away into a steady lead. However, there were still 15 laps to go, and as one lap of the Nürburgring represents the average English racer’s whole season of racing, anything could happen. After this little drama among the leaders, Gregory in the leading Jaguar had a private accident when his left-front brake seized solid going into the north turn and he subsided onto the grass. The damage he caused earlier in the race when he hit the bank had ruined the brake cooling scoop on that side and it had overheated. This was an unfortunate end to a Homeric drive, for he had just done a lap in under 10min, an apparent impossibility with a D-type. The rest of the Ferrari team refuelled and changed drivers, as did the works Porsches, and at 30 laps the order was Moss/Brabham, Hawthorn/Collins, von Trips/Gendebien, Brooks/Lewis-Evans, Musso/Hill, von Frankenberg/de Beaufort, Schell/ Frère, Seidel/Munaron, the Whiteheads, Bunker/Schiller, Bueb/Sanderson, Bauer/Köchert, Fairman/Lawrence, Lincoln/Hietarinta and Fast/Campbell-Jones. The battle in the 1600cc GT class had stopped when the Wüsthoff/Wilbourne Porsche had a rear wheel break off, dropping them to fifth place in the class while they fitted the spare, and the lead in the Giulietta group remained unchanged. However, there was still a long way to go, though no more pit stops or driver changes were scheduled, but there was plenty of time for mistakes to be made or engines to blow-up.

On lap 34 Hawthorn made a slight excursion into the undergrowth and, though it did not lose him his second place, all hope of catching Moss was now gone and the leading Aston Martin could nartin is a first-class car. The Ferraris of Hawthorn/Collins and von Trips/Gendebien finished on the same lap, and Brooks was in fourth place on his penultimate lap when a slow car moved across the road in front of him and forced him into the ditch, where he came to rest unhurt but out of the race, and for once in his life very furious, but with every good reason.

The regulations said that the leader in each class had to complete 44 laps, which was the full race distance, so as the big cars were flagged off after Moss had crossed the line, the 1500cc cars had to continue, the leading Porsche of von Frankenberg/de Beaufort and Barth, who had taken a spell at the wheel, still had three more laps to cover, while the GTs were as many as five laps in arrears.

This arrangement caused Bauer in Köchert’s Testa Rossa Ferrari to think he had not finished, for Schell was just in front of him, and while doing an unnecessary extra lap he went off the road while trying to get past the Porsche and died from his injuries, ending the race on a sad note.