He was accompanied by Luigi Barzini, a journalist who worked for The Daily Telegraph, and a valet, Ettore Guizzardi, who acted as his mechanic and traveled with a supply of Lanson champagne.

Their chief rival was Charles Goddard, a fairground worker and con artist who, until he learned of the race from a scrap of newspaper he found blowing in the wind, had never sat in a motor car and was arrested for fraud as he approached the finish line.

Ferrari won the 1964 World championship with John Surtees by competing the last two races (the United States Grand Prix and Mexican Grand Prix) in Ferrari 158 cars painted white with blue lengthwise "Cunningham racing stripes" -the national colours of the teams licensed in the United States- as these were entered not by the Italian factory themselves but by the American NART team.

Since Ferrari cars entered in 1965 and 1969 seasons by the NART team and at the 1966 Italian Grand Prix by the British privateer Reg Parnell team kept wearing the red colour, the 1964 Mexican Grand Prix was the last time Ferrari cars wore other than the traditional red colour in Formula One.

The Rosso corsa shade of red made a return on the F1 cars at the 2007 Monaco Grand Prix, possibly in line with the increasing market presence of higher quality high definition television.