1956 1000 km Buenos Aires

The 1956 1000 km Buenos Aires took place on 29 January, on the Autódromo Municipal-Avenida Paz, (Buenos Aires, Argentina). It was the third running of the race, and once again, it was opening round of the F.I.A. World Sports Car Championship. For this event, a longer section of the Autopista General Pablo Riccheri route was removed, returning the circuit to 9.476km in length, as it was in 1954.

Report

Entry

A grand total of 32 racing cars were registered for this event, of which 28 arrived for practice and 27 for qualifying. Although this was the first major sports car race of the year, the race was poorly supported by the work of teams. Only Ferrari and Maserati sent cars from Europe. Both teams were represented by three cars in the race. Ferrari send a Ferrari 857 S for Olivier Gendebien and Phil Hill, and a pair of Ferrari 410 Sport Scaglietti Spyders for Juan Manuel Fangio/Eugenio Castellotti and Luigi Musso/Peter Collins. Meanwhile, Officine Alfieri Maserati was represented a trio of Maserati 300S in the hands of Stirling Moss/Carlos Menditéguy; Jean Behra/José Froilán González and Francisco Landi/Gerino Gerini. The remained of the field were cars from South American teams. ^[1]

Qualifying

After a three hour qualifying session held on the prior to the race, the local hero, Juan Manuel Fangio took pole position for Scuderia Ferrari, in their Ferrari 410 Sport. ^[2]

Race

Maserati 300S - similar to the car driven to victory by Moss/Menditéguy

The race was held over 106 laps of the 5.888 miles, Autódromo Municipal-Avenida Paz, giving a distance of 624.162 miles (1,004.490km). It was the winner of the 1955 race, Enrique Saenz Valiente who took an early lead from Fangio and Musso. By lap ten, both the works Ferrari had moved ahead of the privately-entered Ferrari 375 Plus of Valinete. On lap 20, Moss and Gendebien were also moving up the leaderboard. However, with just 20 laps left Gendebien were in the pits with problems, while Fangio’s car, now in the hands of Castellotti, was also in the pits following a collision with a dog. With the retirement of Musso just after half distance, the Maserati of Moss and Menditéguy was now in a clear lead. With his car now repaired, Fangio launches a relentless pursuit of the Maserati although the distance is too great and the Ferrari’s differential explodes into many pieces. ^[3][4][5]

As a result of Fangio’s retirement, Moss and Menditéguy in car number 31, took an impressive victory, winning in a time of 6hrs 29:37.9 mins., averaging a speed of 96.116mph. In second was the sole remaining Scuderia Ferrari of Gendebien and Hill, albeit two laps drift. The podium was complete by another works Maserati 300S, of Behra and González, who were a further three laps adrift. ^[6][7][8]

Official Classification

Class Winners are in Bold text.

Pos	No	Class	Driver		Entrant	Chassis	Laps	Reason Out
1st	31	S3.0	Stirling Moss	Carlos Menditéguy	Officine Alfieri Maserati	Maserati 300S	6hr 29:37.9, 106
2nd	36	S+3.0	Olivier Gendebien	Phil Hill	Scuderia Ferrari	Ferrari 857 S	104
3rd	32	S3.0	Jean Behra	José Froilán González	Officine Alfieri Maserati	Maserati 300S	101
4th	4	S1.5	Alejandro de Tomaso	Carlo Tomasi		Maserati 150S	97
5th	20	S2.0	Enrique Muro	Julio Pola		Ferrari 500 Mondial	93
6th	26	S3.0	Eduardo Kovacs-Jones	Raúl Jaras		Mercedes-Benz 300 SL	90
DNF	43	S+3.0	Juan Manuel Fangio	Eugenio Castellotti	Scuderia Ferrari	Ferrari 410 Sport Scaglietti Spyder	89	Transmission
7th	6	S1.5	Isabelle Haskell	Carlos Lostalo		Maserati 150S	88
8th	24	S3.0	Angel Maiocchi	Lucio Bollaert		Ferrari 225 S	85
DNF	1	S1.5	Jaroslav Juhan	José Félix Lopes		Porsche550 Spyder	72	Accident
9th	49	S+3.0	Franco Bruno	Carlos Bruno		Allard-Cadillac J2X	71
DISQ	3	S1.5	Curt Delfosse	Pedro Escudero		Gordini-Porsche T16 Special	70	Pushed through finish line
DNF	33	S3.0	Francisco Landi	Gerino Gerini	Officine Alfieri Maserati	Maserati 300S	68	Engine
DNF	44	S+3.0	Luigi Musso	Peter Collins	Scuderia Ferrari	Ferrari 410 Sport Scaglietti Spyder	61	Differential
DNF	42	S+3.0	Roberto Bonomi	Ernesto Florencio Castro Cranwell		Ferrari 375 MM	59	Fire
DNF	34	S3.0	Luis Milan	Ela Capotosti		Ferrari 625 TF	44	Clutch
DNF	41	S+3.0	Celso Lara-Barberis	Godofredo Vianna		Ferrari 375	41	Engine
DNF	30	S3.0	Lino Fayen	Joao Rozendo Dos Santos	Scuderia Guastalla	Ferrari 750 Monza Spyder Scaglietti	37	Raer axle
DNF	45	S+3.0	Enrique Saenz Valiente	Jorge Camano		Ferrari 375 Plus	35	Overheating
DNF	22	S2.0	Maria Teresa de Filipis			Maserati A6GCS	26	Accident
DNF	46	S+3.0	Carlos Najurieta	Cesar Rivero		Ferrari 375 MM	23	Gearbox
DNF	5	S1.5	Miguel Jantus	Alberto Gomez		Gordini T15S	22	Engine
DNF	23	S2.0	Ricardo Grandio	Alberto Rodriguez-Larreta		Maserati A6GCS	21
DNF	25	S3.0	Danilo Clapesssoni	César Reyes		Ferrari 225 Export	16	Engine
DNF	2	S1.5	Tomas Mayol	Juan Gobbi		Porsche 550 Spyder	14	Engine
DNF	21	S3.0	Osvaldo Carballido	Elias Carballido		Austin-Healey 100M	11	Fire
DNF	35	S+3.0	José M. Millet	Miguel Schroeder		Jaguar C-Type	3
DNS	40	S+3.0	Jean Blanc Pedro J. Llano	Colette Duval		Talbot-Lago T26GS

^[9][10][11]

• Fastest Lap: Peter Collins, 3:26.4secs (102.7034mph) ^[12][13]

Class Winners

^[14]

Standings after the race

Pos	Championship	Points
1	Maserati	8
2	Ferrari	6
3	Mercedes-Benz	1

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• 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 3 results out of the 5 races could be retained by each manufacturer. Points earned but not counted towards the championship totals are listed within brackets in the above table.

References