page_title: 1955 Mille Miglia
section_title: Race
hierarchical_section_title: 1955 Mille Miglia / Race
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context_page_description: The 22. edizione Mille Miglia was a motor race held on a 992.332 mile course made up entirely of public roads around Italy, mostly on the outer parts of the country on April 30-May 1, 1955. The route was based on a round trip between Brescia and Rome, with start/finish, in Brescia. It was the 3rd round of the 1955 World Sportscar Championship and for the Coppa Franco Mazzotti.
  As in previous years, the event this not strictly a race against each other, this is race against the clock, as the cars are released at one-minute intervals with the larger professional class cars going before the slower cars, in the Mille Miglia, however the smaller displacement slower cars started first. Each car number related to their allocated start time. For example, Luigi Musso’s car had the number 651, he left Brescia at 6:51am, while the first cars had started late in the evening on the previous day. Some drivers went with navigators, others didn't; a number of local Italian drivers had knowledge of the routes being used and felt confident enough that they wouldn't need one.
  This race was won by Mercedes-Benz factory driver Stirling Moss with the aid of his navigator Denis Jenkinson.
context_section_description: Moss and Jenkinson were the favourites to win, although they had no knowledge of the local roads despite this being Moss’s fifth attempt at the Mille Miglia. Moss was relying entirely on Jenkinson's pace notes (now used ubiquitously in modern rallying) that they had spent months compiling. Jenkinson's innovative pace notes were written on a home-made roller scroll.
  Initially the race wasn't in favor of the Mercedes duo, as Eugenio Castellotti streaked away from the field in his privately entered Ferrari 735 LM. With its massively powerful 4.4-litre engine, he had sufficient speed to do the job, but he was trying the extract more than the car had to offer. By the time the fastest cars reached the town of Ravenna on the Adriatic Sea, he was two minutes ahead of Moss/Jenkinson, but Castellotti was driving like a madman as he slid his Ferrari through the corners, his tyres leaving large black streaks on the road and enveloping itself in a cloud of dust. However, as the cars streaked down the coastline towards Pescara, Castellotti had simply been pushing too hard, and he ended up breaking his Ferrari. His teammate, Marzotto had a promising start but disaster struck when a tyre threw a tread as he was traveling at 174 mph. He was able to keep the car on the road but as he stopped to grab the spare, he noticed that it was a different size from the others, so he was forced into retirement.
  Moss surged into the lead as the fastest Ferrari expired, but there was still opposition to be dealt with – this time from the Scuderia Ferrari driver, Piero Taruffi. Taruffi had averaged a stunning 130 mph on the sprint down to Pescara, leaving all previous Mille Miglia records shattered in the dust of his 376 S. At this time, only a wafer-thin margin now separated the lead two cars as they refuelled, with Moss snatching the advantage thanks to a quicker stop. Fangio at this stage began to develop engine problems.
  The next checkpoint was in the town of L’Aquila. In order to get there, a 62.5 mile (100 km) route through the mountains had to be bypassed. By the time Moss and Jenkinson reached this town, they were leading by 35 seconds, followed by Herrmann, Taruffi, Fangio and Kling - All the Mercedes cars entered were running 1st, 2nd, 4th, and 5th.
  By this time, Jenkinson’s map-rolling device was paying off well. Moss’s supreme confidence in his co-driver allowed him to slam over blind brows in absolute confidence at around 170 mph; on occasion the Mercedes actually flew for about 200 feet before crashing back on the tarmac. In that 28 second stop at Pescara, the 300SLR was quickly topped with 18 gallons of fuel, sufficient to reach its main stop in Rome.
  The next checkpoint was the Italian capital of Rome, which was the halfway point. Moss had taken 1 hour and 6 minutes to reach Rome from L’Aquila and he had extended his lead to 1 minute and 15 seconds over Taruffi. Kling crashed just outside the city and was now out of the race. His Mercedes was up against a tree, as he crashed avoiding some spectators; luckily he only suffered broken ribs. Meanwhile, Fangio was still struggling with engine problems; his complaints were ignored by Mercedes pit personnel in Rome. Moss buckled down to tackle the most challenging and demanding section of the route. Constantly on his mind was a fierce desire to disprove one of the old sayings – ‘He who leads at Rome never finishes’.
  The mountainous 140 mile (227 km) route from Rome to the next time control in Siena was a race of attrition. Perdisa and Taruffi both retired, and by the time he reached Siena, Moss had extended his lead to 5 minutes and 40 seconds over Herrmann - he had extended 1 minute and 36 seconds on Herrmann on this section alone. At this point, 690 mi (1,101 km) of distance had been covered in 6 hours, 51 minutes and 16 seconds by Moss and Jenkinson.
  The next stage was from Siena to Florence, 44 mi (70 km) long. Moss had pulled out only 8 seconds over Herrmann, who was pushing hard. Fangio's engine began to make unhealthy noises, and when the mechanics checked the engine, one of the very adv
caption: Moss’s winning Mercedes-Benz 300 SLR in the Mercedes-Benz Museum
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