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.