1961 Formula One season
Phil Hill driving for Ferrari won his first and only Drivers' Championship after his teammate and rival Wolfgang von Trips was killed during the Italian Grand Prix, the penultimate race of the season.
[4] Although Enzo Ferrari was opposed as well, the manufacturer got it right by designing their first mid-engined car, the legendary 156 "Sharknose", and won five out of the eight championship races.
[5] Besides Wolfgang von Trips, two other F1 drivers died this year: Italian Giulio Cabianca during a test at the Modena Autodrome and Briton Shane Summers during the non-championship Silver City Trophy.
Furthermore:[3][5][16][17][18] Numerous technical innovations were made mandatory from the aspect of safety:[5][17][18] The number of championship points awarded to a race winner was increased to nine.
The Dutch race was held at the Circuit Zandvoort located in small sand dunes right next to a popular beach 20 miles west of Amsterdam.
The injured Innes Ireland was replaced at Team Lotus by Trevor Taylor but otherwise the field was much as it had been at Monaco, with local hero Carel Godin de Beaufort getting a drive in one of the Porsches, entered by his Ecurie Maarsbergen.
Further back Graham Hill battled with Moss and Ginther, but it was von Trips who emerged ahead for most of the race, and won it.
The London Trophy was held at the short, tight and twisty Crystal Palace circuit in London the day after the Dutch Grand Prix, and it was won by Salvadori driving a Yeoman Credit Cooper, whilst another English race, the Silver City Trophy at the undulating and twisty Brands Hatch circuit nearby Crystal Palace was held in wet conditions and was won by Moss in a Walker Lotus, but was marred by the death of 24-year-old Welshman Shane Summers in a Cooper, who was killed almost instantly when he spun at the challenging, anti-cambered Paddock Hill Bend, went off and crashed into a concrete wall near an underground tunnel entrance.
Ferrari had a fourth car painted up in Belgian racing yellow for Olivier Gendebien, which was being run by Ecurie Nationale Belge, which also had a pair of Emeryson chassis for Lucien Bianchi and Willy Mairesse.
The team decided that the fastest driver would race, and as a result Allison went too fast, crashed heavily at Blanchimont, rolled the car and suffered severe leg injuries which would end his F1 career.
Phil Hill took pole with von Trips alongside while Gendebien made the most of his local experience to take third despite using a less powerful engine than the factory Ferraris.
A fortnight after the Belgian GP the F1 teams gathered at the very fast, straight dominated Reims public road circuit for the French Grand Prix in Champagne country.
Ferrari had a fourth car, run in the colors of the Federazione Italiana Scuderie Automobilische and driven by Baghetti who arrived at Reims undefeated.
The field at Aintree was not very different from that which had been seen at Reims, although Rob Walker ran a four-wheel-drive Ferguson for Jack Fairman, although this was also driven by Stirling Moss during practice.
The race began in heavy rain with Phil Hill, Von Trips and Ginther getting ahead at the start, chased by Moss and Bonnier.
Jack Brabham had the new Climax V8 FWMV engine for the first time in his factory Cooper, while Porsche had four cars, Edgar Barth joining Jo Bonnier, Dan Gurney and Hans Herrmann.
Phil Hill charged up and took the lead, but Moss passed the American before they reached the finish line to start the second lap.
Moss would stay ahead for the rest of the race while Von Trips came up and overtook Hill for second after a long battle.
The organisers, wanting to give the advantage to the Ferrari team decided to use the combined oval/road course again making this Monza the fastest circuit of the year.
This circuit had been boycotted by the British teams last year because of the terrible quality of the extremely rough and bumpy concrete banking, which was of such poor quality and design that it even went as far as to badly affect the structural strength and reliability of the cars, particularly in regards to the cars' chassis and suspension but the British teams relented and they all competed in this year's event.
At the start, Phil Hill and Ginther managed to get into first and second places followed by Rodriguez, the fast-starting Jim Clark and Von Trips.
Of the rest, Brabham went out with engine trouble while Surtees retired after running to the back of Bonnier who had slowed his Porsche at the site of Von Trips's accident.
Von Trips's fatal retirement meant that Phil Hill became the first American to win the Formula 1 World Championship.
Having won both World Championships Ferrari decided not to bother crossing the Atlantic, denying Phil Hill the chance to race at the Glen.
Not counting the famous Indianapolis 500, run to totally different regulations and not included again on the Grand Prix calendar from 1961 onwards, this was the 3rd time the US GP had been held since the international championship started in 1950, with one off-spells at Sebring in Florida and Riverside in southern California failing to achieve any success.
The field was joined by a number of local stars, notably Hap Sharp and Roger Penske in Coopers and Jim Hall and Ken Miles in Lotuses.
With puffs of smoke appearing from the left-side exhaust, the Cooper dropped back from Moss and finally entered the pits on lap 45.
Only he knew, however, that his oil pressure was dropping, and on lap 59, the dark blue Lotus peeled off and retired suddenly, handing the lead to Ireland.
Hill was right on the tail of the Scot, hounding him for 15 laps, until he, too, suddenly coasted down the pit lane with a loose magneto wire.
Ireland came home under the waving chequered flag of Tex Hopkins, less than five seconds ahead of American Dan Gurney, as Britain's Tony Brooks finished the last GP of his career in third.
