How the DBR1 gave Aston Martin the 1959 World Sportscar Championship

Le Mans, as ever, was very much on the radar for Aston with a further improvement of the pure-bred DBR1 that had first raced in 1957. The French enduro remained the holy grail for David Brown, but the owner of the Newport Pagnell marque since 1947 also had arguably bigger fish to fry. The sportscar manufacturer was finally focussing on its Formula 1 programme with the DBR4 design that that been up and running since early '57.

Le Mans, a race in which Aston had had a perpetual presence since 1931, was the only round of the WSC that the marque intended to contest. But the programme gradually expanded over the course of the season.

The promise of start money had helped team manager Reg Parnell persuade John Wyer, the marque's long-time racing boss and now its general manager as well, to enter a car at the Sebring 12 Hours championship opener in March. Stirling Moss was then instrumental in the decision to attend the Nürburgring 1,000Km in June, reckoning that the improved DBR1/300 would give him a decent shot of repeating his '58 victory with Jack Brabham.

And then after finally securing Le Mans glory with Shelby and Roy Salvadori, Aston found itself only two points behind Ferrari in the WSC manufacturer's standings. And Goodwood, the final round, was a track on which the DBR1 had excelled the previous year...

Sebring didn't go well for Aston, though Salvadori did lead initially. Shortly after Shelby took over, the gear stick parted company with the rest of the car. Legend has it that the American carried the errant lever back to the pits and threatened to hit Parnell over the head with it.

But Moss's hunch about the Nürburgring proved correct, though he had to pull off one of his greatest ever drives to claim victory. A series of new lap records allowed the 'Maestro' to build up a lead of half a lap, but his good work was undone after team-mate Jack Fairman climbed aboard.

Fairman was put off the track by a slower car and had to dig the car out of the undergrowth to get going again. When Fairman returned to the cockpit for a second time, his lead over the chasing Ferrari 250 Testa Rossa shared by Phil Hill and Olivier Gendebien began to shrink alarmingly. Aston's reaction was to bring him back into the pits after just a handful of laps and bolt Moss back in. Victory was secured by a shade over 40 seconds.

Aston Martin made it two WSC wins in a row at Le Mans after Ferrari's challenge wilted. Suddenly it had a shot at the title that Ferrari's had won in all but one season since the start of the world championship in 1953. With only three rounds to count from the five championship rounds, the British manufacturer now had 16 points to Ferrari's 18. Porsche, which had won the Targa Florio in May, was just one point further behind.

A three-car assault was assembled by the works for the Tourist Trophy at Goodwood, a prototype-only race sponsored by the News of the World. But it almost unraveled when the car Salvadori was sharing with Moss caught fire after fuel spilled onto the car's hot exhaust during a pitstop. Worse still, a 50 gallon drum of petrol caught alight in the confusion.

Both car and driver were rendered hors de combat, so Moss hopped in the DBR1 in which Fairman was partnered with Shelby. Aston privateer Graham Whitehead then sportingly called in team-mate Henry Taylor in their DBR1 and retired an already-delayed car so that the works team could take over their pit.

Moss put the car into the lead within half an hour of taking over and stayed in the car to the finish. He and his team-mates were a lap up on the chasing Porsche 718 RSK driven by Wolfgang von Trips and Jo Bonnier after six hours of racing.

Aston had won a championship that it had never intended to chase, and with a maximum score to boot. Mission accomplished, it withdrew from sportscar racing and focussed on the DBR4. But that car and its successor would enjoy little of the success of the DBR1.

Photography courtesy of Motorsport Images.