THE A.D.A.C. 1,000-KILOMETRE RACE-NURBURGRING

Aston Martin Pull off Another Brilliant Win

ADENAU, June 1st.

THE annual sports-car race over 44 laps of the tortuous Nurburgring 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 cars, Gran Turismo cars and Special Touring cars. The sports cars were divided into two groups, up to 1,500 c.c. and 1,501-3,000 c.c., and obviously the winner would come from the larger-capacity group. Aston Martin entered three DBR1/300 cars of the type that won the race in 1957 and their drivers were Moss/Brabham, Brooks/Lewis-Evans, Salvadori/Shelby, while Ferrari entered four 12-cylinder cars with drivers Hawthorn/Collins, Musso/Hill, Seidel/Munaron and von Trips/Gendebien. Jaguar were 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 1,500-c.c. sports cars could not be overlooked and for once Porsche were not having it all their 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 set up counted for the line-up on race day, a Le Mans-type run-and-jump start being used, but unfortunately, time-keeping at the Nurburgring is vague in the extreme and the published times bore no relation to fact. For example, the first day’s official bulletin gave Car No. 4, Collins/ Hawthorn (Ferrari), 10 min. 15.3 sec., as the fastest time recorded; admittedly Car No. 4 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 time going to the car irrespective of the driver. As a result, the third car in the line-up on Sunday was Ferrari No. 6, driven by Seidel and Munaron, with a time of 9 min. 45.8 sec., whereas in actual fact they were both struggling hard to get below 10 min. 30 sec. This nonsense happens every year at the 1,000-km. race 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 G.T. Ferraris running and two family saloons, a Peugeot 403 and a Volvo 444, all mixed up with Grand Prix drivers in thinly-disguised G.P. cars with 3-litre engines.

After their second place in the Targa Florio, Porsche were obviously out for a repeat performance on the Nurburgring, their home ground, and on Thursday they 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 RSK cars 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 number one car. Schell/Frere in the second RSK, and Frankenberg/de Beaufort were in the old hack RS fitted with the engine from the crashed RSK. As de Beaufort had entered his own RS car he agreed to let this be driven 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 G.P. Mercedes-Benz. On the rear of the exhaust camshaft was a distributor supplying sparks to right 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. An 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/Juttner and Cabianca/Mahle, the lesser-known drivers having served their apprenticeship on the Nurburgring. 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 Juttner is a works test driver. While Behra made fastest practice lap for Porsche, Herrmann did the same for Borgward, and the difference was only 1.6 sec., the Porsche time being the remarkable one of 9 min. 57.0 sec.

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 DBR1/300 cars 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 9 min. 43.1 sec. 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 round the Nurburgring, 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 their 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 10 min. 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 DB3S ex-works car, and to complete the list of over 1,500-c.c. cars there was a Porsche Carrera with a special 1,600-c.c. engine driven by the factory driver Linge and ex-D.K.W motor-cycle rider Winkler.

In the small sports class, in addition to the Porsches and Borgwards, there was a new 1,500-c.c. 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 Fifteen with horizontal twin-cam Climax engine, and while it went it was very fast, but being brand new it needed re-assembling every now and then, as did the Berchem Lotus Fifteen. 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 go 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 Mark XI to Blunter/Power, and as Jon Fast had no co-driver for his Osca a he took Campbell-Jones, whose Mark XI Lotus 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 Green and Latchford/Hall the old Halsylee resplendent in a new coat a 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 G.T. engine.

The big Gran Turismo class had only four Ferrari 250 G.T. entries, while the 1,600-c.c. 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 the badly-driven ones should not have been permitted to start. It really is time a rule was made for G.T. cars in such a race – that they only start if they can lap faster than the class below them. If a 250 G.T. 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 9 a.m. on Sunday morning 54 cars were 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 place with a Porsche was remarkable, as was Herrmann in eighth place with the Borgward. Gregory was in a brave 13th place with the first Jaguar, the next being Bueb in 18th place. Blumer was in an excellent 21st position with the 1,100-c.c. Lotus, ahead of Strahle, who is no mean conductor of a Porsche Carrera. The Finnish Testa Rosso 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 Nurburgring. The first Giulietta was in 36th position, and down towards the end of the line there was actually a Ferrari 250 G.T. 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 Fifteen, 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 were already in trouble for Herrmann was out with a broken de Dion tube and Schulze was only in 16th position. The 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 and fit the spare, and Brooks spun and dropped many places, the exhaust pipes which protrude from under the driver’s door emitting a sheet of flame which scorched the paint. Moss lapped in 9 min. 47 sec. way out on his own, and after the field had gone by, with Brooks in 14th place, 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 9 min. 43 sec., 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 were a bit put out by the failure of their 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-Romeo coupé, while Eugene Hall was making the Halsylee go surprisingly quickly, and Hicks was gradually gaining ground after his had start.

The procession went on and on lap seven Blumer overturned in the Karussel 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 Nurburgring 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 Martin and as they passed the pits the Ferrari went into the lead. Some of the hack-markers stopped for fuel and driver changes, Picard taking over the leading G.T. Ferrari and Frost having a drive in his new Lotus Fifteen, still with no suitable gear for standing starts.

Lap 12 saw the order Hawthorn (Ferrari), Brabham (Aston Martin), Behra (Porsche), Musso (Ferrari), Brooke (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 leaders of Gran Turismo 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 9 min. 54 sec., which would have been good in a 3-litre car let alone 1,500-c.c. car. Moss soon re-passed 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 near-side rear tyre in ribbons, Mr. Englebert having once more let the Scuderia Ferrari down. The car was refuelled and 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 Frere, while the Whiteheads changed over, and Campbell-Jones took over from Fast on the very reliable and sturdy little Osca 1,500. Mairesse handed the Belgian Ferrari over to de Changy, having pulled it up from 51st place to 29th place, 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 G.T. but Stern was still leading the Guiliettos, hotly pursued by Foitek, and Picard was safely leading the G.T. Ferraris, even though be had been overtaken by the two leading Porsche Carreras.

On lap 16 von Trips canto 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 number seven 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 in 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 Karussel. Hill continued to the top of Hohe-Act 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 Frere, 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 looked at.

Things settled down as half-distance approached, and at the end of lap 22 Moss had a 2 min. 15 sec. lead over Collins, 5 min. 35 sec. over Gendebien and 6 min. 39 sec. over Lewis-Evans, these four being the only ones on the same lap. It was clear that the luckless Brabharn 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 classmates. At last Herrmann let someone else drive a Borgward and Bonnier took over from him, but not for long as the steering became de-arranged 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, but Godfrey had spun off long ago and Horridge and Monaco were in trouble and way back, as was the Halsylee, which was now last. The Belgian Ferrari retired with a broken rear axle, and on lap 27 Frere 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 the other Aston Martin in. 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 Nurburgring, 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 skilled 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 Nurburgring 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 hank had ruined the brake cooling scoop on that side and it had overheated. This was an unfortunate end to an homeric drive, for he had just done a lap in under 10 min., 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/Frere, Seidel/Munaron, the Whiteheads, Bunker/ Schiller, Bueb/Sanderson, Bauer/Köchert, Fairman/Lawrence, Lincoln/Hietarinta and Fast/Campbell-Jones. The battle in the 1600-c.c. G.T. class had stopped when the Wüsthoff /Wilbourne Porsche had a rear wheel break off, they dropping 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 now ease up for the first time since the start. On this same lap the American driver Bunker, who was making his first European appearance, flew off the road, demolished de Beaufort’s Porsche he had borrowed and injured himself. Further back in the field the Piper/Green Lotus was touring round with a broken rear hub bearing casting, and was also delayed at one pit stop by the cable falling off the starter motor. The Frost/Hicks Lotus Fifteen had not lasted long for a rear radius-arm had broken, so it looks as though Chapman will have to do some redesigning if he is to beat Porsche anywhere but at Le Mans. At the end of lap 36 Moss was about to lap Brooks and Hawthorn was about to lap Musso, which was something to speculate on as far as both teams were concerned. Then Bueb came into the pits with very-erratic road holding, and another Jaguar went out, part of the front suspension having come adrift, and Schell was about to pull into the pits to complain that fuel was still leaking into the cockpit when it was realised that the Whitehead Aston Martin was about to take eighth place from the Porsche, so Schell was waved on frantically.

Now the leader’s race was really over and, lapping beautifully consistently. Moss brought the DBR1/300 Aston Martin over the line to win the 1,000-km. of Nurburgring for the second year running for the Feltham team. Two wins with the same car and different teams of drivers must surely indicate that the Aston Martin 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. This let the Musso/Hill Ferrari into fourth place, followed by Seidel/Munaron and then the two works Porsches. The regulations said that the leader in each class had to complete 44 laps, the full race distance, so as the big cars were flagged off after Moss had crossed the line, the 1,500-c.c. 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 G.T. cars 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 1958 A.D.A.C. 1,000-kilometre race on a sad note.

Results:
1,000-KILOMETRE RACE – NURBURGRING – 44 Laps – Warm and Dry
*1st: S. Moss/J. Brabham (Aston Martin DBR1/300), 7 hr. 23 min. 33.0 sec. – 135.6 k.p.h. (new race record).
2nd: J. M. Hawthorn/P. Collins (Ferrari V12 TR) … 7 hr. 27 min. 17.0 sec.
3rd: W. von Trips/O. Gendebien (Ferrari V12 TR) … 7 hr. 33 min. 15.0 sec.
4th: L. Musso/P. Hill (Ferrari V12 TR) … 1 lap behind
5th: W. Seidel/G. Munaron (Ferrari V12 TR) … 2 laps behind
*6th: R. von Frankenburg/G. de Beaufort/E. Barth (Porsche 1,500 RS) … 3 laps behind
7th: H. Schell/P. Frere (Porsche 1,500 RSK) … 3 laps behind
8th: A. G. Whitehead/P. Whitehead (Aston Martin DB3S) … 3 laps behind
9th: J. Fairman/J. Lawrence (Jaguar D-type) … 4 laps behind
10th: S. Kochert/E. Bauer (Ferrari V12 TR) … 4 laps behind
11th: J. Fast/J. Campbell-Jones (Osca 1,500) … 5 laps behind
12th: K. Lincoln/H. Hietarinta (Ferrari V12 TR) … 5 laps behind
Fastest lap: S. Moss (Aston Martin), lap three, in 9 min. 43.0 sec. – 140.9 k.p.h.
Starters: 54. Finishers: 32.
* Class winners.
1st in G.T. class over 1,600 c.c. : Dernier/Beurlys (Ferrari) … 111.4 k.p.h.
1st in G.T. class up to 1,600 c.c. : Strahle/Walter (Porsche) … 118.6 k.p.h.
1st in G.T. class up to 1,300 c.c. : Stern/Vogel (Alfa-Romeo) … 112.4 k.p.h.