User:Harrias/1961 Monaco Grand Prix

The 1961 Monaco Grand Prix was a Formula One motor race held on 14 May 1961 on the Circuit de Monaco in Monte Carlo, Monaco. It was race 1 of 8 in both the 1961 World Championship of Drivers and the 1961 International Cup for Formula One Manufacturers. It was also the first World Championship race under the new 1.5 litre engine regulations.

Qualifying
Due to the tight nature of the street circuit at Monaco, the race organisers limited the race to sixteen entrants. Unlike in previous seasons, where the fastest sixteen drivers during the practice sessions qualified for the race, a new method was implemented. Each of the five works teams were guaranteed places for two drivers. These were allocated to Tony Brooks and Graham Hill of BRM, Jack Brabham and Bruce McLaren of Cooper, Phil Hill and Wolfgang von Trips of Ferrari, Jim Clark and Innes Ireland of Lotus, and Joakim Bonnier and Dan Gurney of Porsche. There were two further places awarded to previous winners, which were taken by Stirling Moss and Maurice Trintignant. Prior to the season, one racing driver, Tony Marsh, highlighted the difficulty that privateers would have in qualifying for Formula One races. This was especially the case under the Monégasque regulations: only four places remained after the automatic allocation, to be competed for by two furthers works drivers and seven privateers.

Qualifying classification

 * Drivers that had to qualify on speed: only the five fastest (four before Ireland's injury) would race.

Race
The race started at 14:30 local time on Sunday 14 May, running for 100 laps over a distance of 314.5 km. Clark, whose car was third on the grid, was suffering from engine problems immediately preceding the race, and left it until ten seconds before the scheduled race start to turn his engine on, whereupon it belched out smoke. Both Ginther and Clark beat Moss to the first corner, and over the course of the opening lap, Ginther opened up a gap on the other pair. On the second lap, Clark slowed and was forced to undergo lengthy repairs on a faulty fuel pump, which ultimately put him several laps behind the leaders. This allowed Moss to move into second place, though Ginther led by around five seconds by the end of the third lap. A couple of laps later, Moss and Bonnier started to close the gap to Ginther, and had mostly caught him by the end of lap eight. Behind them, Gurney, Phil Hill, Brooks, Graham Hill, von Trips and Surtees ran close together, with Brabham just behind that group in tenth. Graham Hill was forced to retire after eleven laps with a failed fuel pump; despite pushing his car back to the pits, he was unable to make a repair to continue. On lap fourteen, both Moss and Bonnier passed Ginther at the front, while behind them Phil Hill had overtaken Gurney. Six laps later, a fifth of the way through the race, Moss was leading by around six seconds from Bonnier. They were followed by the three Ferraris of Ginther, Phil Hill and von Trips in a close group, and then a gap back to Gurney and Brooks. Brabham was in ninth, but according to the journalist Denis Jenkinson was suffering from fatigue due to his return long-haul flights to Indianapolis the day before, which was causing him to miss gear changes and damage his engine.

On lap 24, the Ferraris had closed in behind Bonnier, now with Phil Hill leading the trio. Over the next eight laps these eight cars jostled for position, and according to Jenkinson at times "any of them could have been in any position." After 32 laps, Moss led by around 10 seconds from Hill, Bonnier, Ginther and von Trips, with a gap back to McLaren and Surtees. Brabham retired from the race after 38 laps; he had earlier attempted a repair, but only managed three further laps after that before a failed ignition put him out of the race. Ginther reclaimed third position on lap 41, after passing Bonnier at the Gazometre hairpin, and the pair then caught up to Hill. This trio started to close the gap to Moss, which had remained around ten seconds, bringing it down to seven seconds by the halfway stage. May had become the third retiree from the race on lap 42, with a broken oil pipe.

Brooks dropped out of the race on lap 54; after making contact with Gurney, he had damaged his engine by over-revving. By lap 55, Phil Hill and Ginther had closed to around four and a half second behind Moss, but they struggled to get any closer, particularly once they all started to pass lapped traffic. Bonnier, who had been running in fourth, retired on lap 60 with an injection pump issue. A little later, Surtees was also forced out of the race when his engine blew up. Moss still retained his five second lead on lap 70; Jenkinson suggested that Moss's superior driving ability was compensating for the faster Ferraris driven by Hill and Ginther. Over the next few laps, Moss started to pull back away from the chasing Ferraris, and on lap 75 Ginther overtook Phil Hill on the drive up towards the Casino.

Ginther pushed hard to try and catch Moss; he broke away from Hill behind and was consistently putting in fast lap times. Despite this, Moss was mostly matching him, and the gap only came down slowly. On lap 84, Ginther clocked a 1:36.3 lap, which was only a tenth of a second slower than the track record: a time which had been set in a 2.5-litre car. The gap between the front pair had come down to three and a half seconds, but the following lap Moss, whose car had at least 25 bhp less power, equalled Ginther's 1:36.3 and extended the gap once more. Such was their pace that on lap 89 they lapped von Trips, who was running fourth. As they entered the final stages, Ginther started to catch up again, but he was not making enough progress; Moss won the race by 3.6 seconds. Hill finished on the lead lap, 41.3 seconds behind Moss. In the third Ferrari, von Trips had been forced to retire after starting his 99th lap, and was given a lift back to the pits by Hill. Despite his retirement, von Trips was classified in fourth, ahead of Gurney. McLaren, who had rolled into the pits towards the end of the race after running out of fuel, finished in five laps down in sixth place. Trintignant, Allison, Herrmann and Clark rounded out the top ten.

Championship standings after the race

 * Drivers' Championship standings


 * Constructors' Championship standings


 * Notes: Only the top five positions are included for both sets of standings.