Recalling the start of a new F1 era

BRM had failed to deliver. Connaught had won a non-championship race, but that was without Ferrari opposition and the team was in financial difficulties anyway. German squad Mercedes-Benz had rocked up for a year and a half to crush the Italians before withdrawing – and still Britain hadn’t managed a breakthrough in Formula 1.

Vanwall, founded by disgruntled former BRM backer and industrialist Tony Vandervell, was about to change that. It had built up experience with modified Ferraris and was entering the 1956 season with a new teardrop-shaped design by Frank Costin that would become a world-beater.

It had a fuel-injected 2.5-litre engine producing over 270bhp, disc brakes at a time when Ferrari still used drums, and a chassis penned by Lotus founder and future motorsport game-changer Colin Chapman.

The work of Chapman and Costin had also allowed the staff at Vanwall’s base in Acton to focus on the mechanical side, with many improvements, including to the transmission, while Harry Weslake helped develop the tall, straight-four engine.

“Everyone wanted a British car to win a grand prix and a world championship – it was a collaborative effort that gathered momentum,” says longtime British GP and Silverstone commentator Ian Titchmarsh.

One area that was still lacking, however, was on the driver front. Following the withdrawal of Mercedes, Vandervell had approached 1955 championship runner-up Stirling Moss, still awaiting a topline British F1 car.

Moss dominated the race for Vanwall after Hawthorn’s BRM retired

Photo by: Stanley Sherman/Daily Express/Hulton Archive

Following a Vanwall test at Oulton Park, Moss drove three British contenders on the same day at Silverstone – “not regarded as that amazing, though today it is,” says Titchmarsh. Moss was quicker in the Vanwall than he was in the BRM or Connaught, but signed for Maserati, for which he could drive in F1 and sportscar events. 

Moss did, however, keep the door open. “I told Mr Vandervell I would certainly like to drive for him when other commitments allowed, if he would like me to,” recalled Moss in Stirling Moss: My cars, my career, written with Doug Nye.

Other top-liners were approached, including reigning world champion Juan Manuel Fangio, but nothing quite came off. Harry Schell and Maurice Trintignant were thus signed for 1956. While they were solid drivers – and Trintignant had won the 1955 Monaco GP after dramas for Mercedes and Lancia – Vanwall still lacked an established ace. 

The Silverstone entry was heavily British but its quality was underlined by the presence of two Ferrari D50s, for Fangio and Peter Collins

Nevertheless, Vanwall had made a step forward and Vandervell – who even drove the car himself at the Goodwood shakedown! – decided to focus on world championship F1 events, with one important exception: the British Racing Drivers’ Club International Trophy at Silverstone on 5 May, “one of the highlights of the British racing season” according to Motor Sport magazine.

Vanwall skipped January’s season-opening Argentinian GP, won by Ferrari, and so the new car’s first outing was the non-championship Silverstone event. Extra starting money was on offer if Vanwall could field a top-line British driver. Maserati had decided not to enter the race, so Moss – who was initially entered in his own 250F – was available. His nomination for Vanwall was confirmed three days before the race…

The Silverstone entry was heavily British but its quality was underlined by the presence of two Ferrari D50s, for Fangio and Peter Collins, who was just one month away from his first world championship grand prix victory at Spa. And, though the Maserati factory was absent, there were several 250Fs, including one driven by future world champion Jack Brabham and the Gilby Engineering car for Roy Salvadori.

Fangio briefly leads at the start but Hawthorn (9) is about to pounce

Photo by: Daily Express/Hulton Archive

Connaught was also out in force, while BRM – after much back and forth with the organisers – managed to muster a new P25 for Mike Hawthorn, at that time a two-time world championship GP winner with Ferrari. The result was an estimated crowd of 100,000.

Following considerable testing, Schell shocked the establishment with a 1m42s lap in practice, under the old lap record and quicker than anyone else. And soon, Moss matched him.

“Those who thought Schell’s meteoric lap to have been mistimed or a flash in the pan unrepeatable in the race were sobered by Moss equalling this time on two occasions on the Friday,” reported Motor Sport. The green Vanwalls therefore lined up first and second, joined on the front row of the 4-3-4 grid by Fangio and Hawthorn (who’d been clouted in the face by his own bonnet in testing), followed by Collins and Salvadori on the same time.

“These basically stable understeering cars had to be driven between very precise limits and were never as forgiving in their handling characteristics as the essentially oversteering Maserati 250Fs,” Moss wrote of the Vanwall in Stirling Moss: My cars, my career.

Despite the D50 being heavier than the Vanwall, Fangio made a strong getaway before Hawthorn steamed by exiting Copse to lead for BRM. Poleman Moss briefly slipped to fifth, behind Schell and Collins, but overtook the #2 Ferrari on the second lap before closing on his team-mate.

After “vigorously waving a fist to emphasise his desire to get by!”, according to Autosport, Moss slotted into third on lap four of 60. Two laps later he matched Hawthorn’s new lap record as the Vanwall overtook Fangio for second.

Ferrari’s D50, which would win the championship, was well beaten in the race

Photo by: Evening Standard/Hulton Archive

BRM and Vanwall were now running 1-2, while Collins soon overcame Schell to put the Ferraris into third and fourth.

Hawthorn maintained a small lead over Moss until lap 14, when the magneto drive sheared on the BRM and Hawthorn retired. Moss now took command and the hard-driven Ferraris could make no impression. “Moss’s progress around the course was exciting in itself; smooth, terribly fast, the Vanwall’s cornering a wonderful sight,” wrote Cyril Posthumus in Autosport’s race report.

Vanwall anxiety was increased when Schell stopped to change plugs, then retired with a broken pipe in the fuel injection. Only a third of the race had been run and Moss’s fears about Vanwall unreliability looked to be coming true.

After 186 miles and nearly 1h45m, Moss took VW2/56 across the line to win by a full lap from Scott Brown, sending “the huge crowd hysterical with excitement”, according to Autosport

But it was the Ferrari challenge that wilted. Fangio was nearly a minute behind Moss when his D50’s clutch failed. Collins came in and handed his car to the team leader in a stop quick enough for the great Argentinian to resume still in second, but the clutch soon failed on that machine, too. Autosport’s John Bolster believed engine developments had produced enough power to “overload the Lancia multi-plate clutch” but also argued – correctly – that this could be easily overcome. 

That left Moss with a lead of more than two minutes over a battle for second between Archie Scott Brown’s works Connaught and the Maserati of Salvadori. That fight only ended in the closing stages when Salvadori went off at Stowe, overturning the 250F and getting trapped underneath but escaping serious injury.

After 186 miles and nearly 1h45m, Moss took VW2/56 across the line to win by a full lap from Scott Brown, sending “the huge crowd hysterical with excitement”, according to Autosport. 

Hawthorn set the early race pace in BRM’s new P25

Photo by: LAT

“I was watching it on TV – not the comprehensive coverage you get today and there’d be gaps where they’d go off to a horse race or something! – and I remember seeing the end of the race and Stirling taking the flag,” recalls Titchmarsh. “I was a Moss fan so that’s what stuck in my mind.”

Interestingly, Titchmarsh feels Tony Brooks’s win for Connaught in the non-championship Syracuse GP in October 1955 was potentially more important, though the small firm was unable to build on that success.

“What has to be remembered is Brooks’s win at Syracuse, which was almost a bigger thing, but it didn’t get as much coverage. If you go through the newspapers at the time it was all Stirling Moss.”

The Vanwall had matched Hawthorn’s fastest lap 14 times – the limitations of timing only taken to a whole second! – and the mark would remain unbeaten at July’s British GP. Vanwall’s meticulous records showed that Moss even had a sizeable 12 gallons of fuel left at the end of the race.

Bolster opined that the Vanwall “is about the most effective piece of road racing equipment that has yet been built” and praised its high level of engineering.

“It now remains for a green car to win a major Grand Prix, an event which, to judge from the results of the Daily Express International Trophy, will not be long in coming,” reckoned Autosport. But the wait would go on a little longer.

Salvadori’s was the quickest 250F; he crashed out at Stowe, overturning his car but escaping serious injury

Photo by: Michael Tee/LAT

The championship campaign did not go so well for Vanwall. Reliability problems were persistent – championship rounds were longer then, with the British GP lasting three hours and covering just under 300 miles. Trintignant failed to get a finish, and the best Schell could manage was a fourth place in the Belgian GP.

The American did give the D50s a fright at the French GP, but the Ferrari’s on-track teamwork to deal with the Vanwall infuriated Vandervell. Legendary motorsport journalist Denis Jenkinson responded by suggesting the outcome might have been different had Moss been behind the wheel, something the Silverstone result had already shown…

“The International Trophy win underlined the need for Vandervell to sign up Stirling Moss permanently,” agrees Titchmarsh. “He was by some margin Britain’s top driver, even though Hawthorn and Collins were very good and Brooks was coming along.”

Vandervell had long since got the message. Moss, Brooks and rising star Stuart Lewis-Evans would form part of an expanded Vanwall attack for 1957. By that season’s end, the Italian stranglehold on F1 would be broken.

This article is one of many in the monthly Autosport magazine. For more premium content, take a look at the June 2026 issue and subscribe today. 

Tony Vandervell (centre) signed Moss (right) and Brooks (left) for 1957 – and won the British GP

Photo by: LAT