Historic British GP win set for Revival commemoration 60 years on!

On July 20^th, 1957, the two British racing heroes guided one of Tony Vandervell’s 2.5-litre, green teardrop Vanwalls to victory, marking the first win for British drivers in a British car in F1 World Championship history.

Maestro Moss started the #18 machine on pole position and set off into an immediate lead. His luck ran out, though, after 22 laps thanks to a sick engine. He pitted in retirement, his day’s work done.

What followed was a tactical gamble that would pay off in spectacular fashion.

Moss’s team-mate Brooks was still suffering from injuries sustained after crashing his Aston Martin DBR1 sportscar at Le Mans a few weeks earlier. He was clearly struggling for race pace in the #20 Vanwall, despite qualifying third, a whisker adrift of Moss’s pace.

The team summoned Brooks in, helped him out of the car, and ordered the fitter and faster Moss to take it back out.

Cue a Moss masterclass. The 27-year-old charged back up the order and when long-time leader Jean Behra’s Maserati 250F suffered clutch failure Moss retook the lead with 20 laps to run. He reeled off those final laps of the Liverpool venue, scene of his maiden Grand Prix victory for Mercedes two years earlier, to win by almost 30 seconds from a trio of Ferraris.

The famous Moss/Brooks win was only the third time that a Grand Prix victory had been shared, joining the Juan Fangio and Luigi Fagioli French GP win for Alfa Romeo in 1951 and the Argentine GP of ’56 when Fangio shared his Ferrari with Luigi Musso. And it would be the last, as regulations soon came into force banning shared drives.

Revival founder Lord March said: “Both Stirling Moss and Tony Brooks began their careers at Goodwood – Moss with his Formula 3 Cooper-Norton in 1948, and Brooks with his mother’s Austin-Healey in 1952. I am delighted Tony will be with us at the Revival to remember it all.”

Photography courtesy of LAT Images