1957 Mille Miglia
The 24. edizione Mille Miglia (Italian for "One Thousand Miles") was an auto race held on a course totalling 992.332 miles (1,597.004 km), made up entirely of public roads around Italy, mostly on the outer parts of the country on 11–12 May 1957. The route was based on a round trip between Brescia and Rome, with start/finish in Brescia. It was the 3rd round of the 1957 World Sportscar Championship season.[1]
As in previous years, the event was a race against the clock, as the cars were released at one-minute intervals. In the Mille Miglia, the smaller displacement, slower cars started first. Each car number related to their allocated start time. For example, Wolfgang von Trips's car had the number 532, he left Brescia at 5:32am, while the first cars had started late in the evening on the previous day. Some drivers went with navigators, others did not; a number of local Italian drivers had knowledge of the routes being used and felt confident enough that they would not need one.[1]
This race was won by Scuderia Ferrari driver Piero Taruffi without the aid of a navigator, the 3rd time in the past 4 years that a driver won the race without a navigator. He completed the 992-mile distance in 10 hours, 27 minutes and 47 seconds- an average speed of 94.841 mph (152.632 km/h). The Italian finished three minutes in front of his second-placed team-mate, the German driver, von Trips. Olivier Gendebien and Jacques Washer were next, ensuring Scuderia Ferrari finished 1-2-3.[2] The race is marked with fatal crashes of drivers Alfonso de Portago and Josef H. Göttgens, the former involving in an accident that claimed the lives of nine spectators near the road.
Report
Entry
A total of 391 cars were entered for the event, across 25 classes based on engine sizes, ranging from up to 750cc to over 2.0-litre, for Grand Touring Cars, Touring Cars and Sport Cars. Of these, 310 cars started the event. The limit on the number of starts was reduced from previous years. The Auto Club of Brescia took steps to try to combat the unsportsmanlike tactics by which some competitors sought to negate the procedure of drawing lots for departure times.[1][3][copyright violation?]
Even though the event continued to count towards the World Sportscar Championship, only Ferrari and Maserati entered works teams. Officine Alfieri Maserati was in receivership but still managed to have two 450Ss for Stirling Moss and Jean Behra, a brand new 350S for Hans Herrmann and older 300S for the Italian Giorgio Scarlatti. Meanwhile, Scuderia Ferrari entered four Sports cars, to be driven by Taruffi, von Trips, Peter Collins and Alfonso de Portago. They also entered Olivier Gendebien in a Grand Touring car. Britain was represented by a single semi-works Jaguar D-Type, entered by the Scottish team Ecurie Ecosse for Ron Flockhart.[2][3][4]
One of the more unusual entrants was a Kurtis Kraft roadster for Akton Miller, a car constructed in the US, with a powerful 6.4 litre Chrysler engine, mounted on a space-frame single seat chassis, designed for use on American oval circuits.[5][3]
Race
Soon after the race started, Maserati's hopes vanished. Before the event even started, Behra was out, having crashed his 450S during pre-test. Moss was forced to retire soon after the start having rather dangerously snapped a brake pedal. Herrmann did not get as far as the Ravenna checkpoint.[5][3][copyright violation?]
In Guidizzolo, less than 40 miles from the finish in Brescia, de Portago's front tyre exploded.[10] He lost control of the car; it hit a telephone pole, jumped over a brook, then hit several spectators.[10] The Ferrari then bounced back on the road, hitting more spectators, slid over the road, spinning, and ended up, wheels down, in a brook at the other side of the road. In addition to de Portago, his American navigator Edmund Gunner Nelson and nine spectators – among them five children – lost their lives.[10] A further 20 were injured. De Portago's body was found near the car, severed in half. Furthermore, Dutchman Josef Göttgens crashed his Triumph TR3 near Florence and later died of his injuries in a Florence hospital.[5][3][11][12][copyright violation?]
When Taruffi arrived back in Brescia, he was dueling with von Trips but had a three-minute advantage over him due to a later start time. Gendebien finished third, completing a top three sweep for Ferrari. Maserati experienced a debacle with only Scarlatti arriving in Brescia in fourth place overall, followed 15 minutes later by the Porsche 550 RS of Umberto Maglioli. Taruffi reached Brescia after racing for 10 hours and 27 minutes after he left Brescia at 05:35.[3][1][2][4]
Three days after the race, the Italian government decreed the end of the Mille Miglia and banned all motor racing on the public roads of Italy. Taruffi thus became the last winner of this famous event.[3][4]
Classification
Official results
Of the 310 starters, 172 were classified as finishers. Therefore, only a selection of notable racers has been listed below.
Class Winners are in Bold text.
Class winners
| Class | Winners | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Sport +2000 | 535 | Ferrari 315 S | Taruffi |
| Sports 2000 | 451 | Ferrari 500 TRC | Munaron |
| Sports 1500 | 349 | Porsche 550 RS | Maglioli |
| Sports 1100 | 325 | Osca S950 | Cabianca |
| Sports 750 | 138 | Osca S750 | Rigamonti |
| Grand Touring +2000 | 417 | Ferrari 250 GT LWB Scaglietti | Gendebien / Washer |
| Grand Touring 2000 | 308 | Fiat 8V Zagato | Nobile / Cagnana |
| Grand Touring 1600 | 225 | Porsche 356A Carrera | Strähle / Linge |
| Grand Touring 1300 | 105 | Alfa Romeo Giulietta SV | Convert / Martin |
| Grand Touring 1100 | 012 | Lancia Appia GT Zagato | Mantovani |
| Grand Touring 1000 | 73 | D.B.-Panhard HBR | Vidilles |
| Grand Touring 750 | 52 | Fiat-Abarth 750 Zagato | Thiele |
| Touring Special +2000 | 410 | BMW 502 | Heuberger |
| Touring Special 2000 | 256 | Alfa Romeo 1900 TI | Aumas / Brandt |
| Touring Special 1600 | 208 | Ford Taunus 15 M | Springer |
| Touring Special 1300 | 040 | Peugeot 403 | Delageneste |
| Touring Special 1100 | 006 | Fiat 1100/103 | Mandrini / Bertassi |
| Touring Special 1000 | 64 | Renault Dauphine | Frère |
| Touring Special 750 | 14 | Renault 4CV | Chardin |
| Touring Prep 2000 | 244 | Alfa Romeo 1900 TI | Fona / Della Tore |
| Touring Prep 1600 | 206 | Peugeot 403 | Guiraud / Chevron |
| Touring Prep 1300 | 032 | Alf Romeo Giulietta | Massari / Gatti |
| Touring Prep 1100 | 2348 | Fiat 1100/103 TV | Faggi |
| Touring Prep 1000 | 63 | Panhard Dyna 54 | Chancel / Bergonoukoux |
| Touring Prep 750 | 3 | Saab 93 | Lohmander / Kronegård |
Standings after the race
| Pos | Championship | Points |
|---|---|---|
| 1 |  Ferrari
|
19 |
| 2 | Maserati
|
17 |
| 3 |  Jaguar
|
7 |
| 4 |  Porsche
|
2 |
| 5 | O.S.C.A.
|
1 |
- Note: Only the top five positions are included in this set of standings.
Championship points were awarded for the first six places in each race in the order of 8-6-4-3-2-1. Manufacturers were only awarded points for their highest finishing car with no points awarded for positions filled by additional cars. Only the best 4 results out of the 6 races could be retained by each manufacturer. Points earned but not counted towards the championship totals are listed within brackets in the above table.
In popular culture
The race is dramatized in the 2023 film Ferrari, including a scene of Alfonso de Portago’s crash.
References
- ^ a b c d e f "Mille Miglia 1957 - Racing Sports Cars".
- ^ a b c "Reference at www.teamdan.com". Archived from the original on 2015-09-24. Retrieved 2015-08-25.
- ^ a b c d e f g "1957 Mille Miglia". 10 September 2010.
- ^ a b c "Mille Miglia 1957 - Photo Gallery - Racing Sports Cars".
- ^ Lerner, Preston (May 2018). Speed Read Ferrari: The History, Technology and Design Behind Italy's Legendary Automaker. Quarto Publishing Group USA. ISBN 9780760360415.
- ^ Eason, Kevin. "No seatbelts, 170mph: Days of death and dynamism".
- ^ Levy, Shawn (27 October 2016). Dolce Vita Confidential: Fellini, Loren, Pucci, Paparazzi and the Swinging High Life of 1950s Rome. Orion. ISBN 9781474606172.
- ^ Hays, Charlotte (7 August 2007). The Fortune Hunters: Dazzling Women and the Men They Married. St. Martin's Publishing. ISBN 9781429917438.
- ^ a b c Rospigliosi, William (May 20, 1957). "Horror in Italy". Sports Illustrated. Vol. 6, no. 20. Chicago. pp. 12–15. Retrieved February 3, 2024.
Marquis Alfonso de Portago dies in a holocaust which probably spells the end of the Mille Miglia, greatest of all the open-road auto races.
- ^ "The Ten Most Infamous Crashes in Racing". 20 July 2010.
- ^ "DB - Races - 1957 Mille Miglia".
- ^ "Reference at www.teamdan.com". [permanent dead link]
- ^ "World Sports Racing Prototypes - World Championship 1957". Archived from the original on 2015-02-22. Retrieved 2015-08-25.
Further reading
- Anthony Pritchard. The Mille Miglia: The World's Greatest Road Race. J H Haynes & Co Ltd. ISBN 978-1844251391
- Leonardo Acerbi. Mille Miglia Story 1927-1957. Giorgio Nada Editore. ISBN 978-8879115490
- Mille Miglia 1957: L'Ultimo Atto Di Una Corsa Leggendaria. Giorgio Nada Editore. ISBN 978-8879115322