1955 Argentine Grand Prix

The 1955 Argentine Grand Prix (formally the III Gran Premio de la Republica Argentina) was the first race of the 1955 Formula One Season and the third Argentine Grand Prix. It was held at the Autódromo 17 de Octubre on 16 January 1955.
Run in extremely hot conditions, the race was won by Juan Manuel Fangio, ahead of the shard drive of José Froilán González, Giuseppe Farina and Maurice Trintignant. Farina and Trintignant, along with Umberto Maglioli, also finished third. Fangio took the fastest lap. The conditions caused many drivers to stop for relief, which resulted in drivers sharing different cars. The situation was so confusing that the organizers called in an accounting firm to audit the results.
As a result of the shared drives, Fangio lead the championship, points ahead of Farina and Trintignant.
== Background ==
The first race of the season, four months ahead of the second, was to the third held at the Autódromo 17 de Octubre.
Local hero and double World Champion, Juan Manuel Fangio, was joined at by old teammates Karl Kling and Hans Herrmann, and new teammate Stirling Moss.
, having lost Mike Hawthorn to , entered with champion Giuseppe Farina, Argentine José Froilán González, Frenchman Maurice Trintignant and spare driver Umberto Magioli for just his fifth race.
 took new recruit Jean Behra to race alongside Luigi Musso, and Sergio Mantovani and Harry Schell as Roberto Mieres got to drive his home race. Local drivers Carlos Menditeguy and Clemar Bucci also drove for the team.
 took along double World Champion Alberto Ascari and his teammates Luigi Villoresi and Eugenio Castellotti.
's three-man team included Frenchman Élie Bayol and Argentines Pablo Birger and Jesús Iglesias.
The only private entry was that of Uruguayan Alberto Uria, who drove a .
== Qualifying ==
=== Qualifying Report ===
=== Post-qualifying ===
=== Qualifying Results ===
Pos.	No.	Driver 	Constructor	Time 	Gap
1 	12 	José Froilán González	 	1:43.1	
2 	32 	Alberto Ascari 	 	1:43.6	+ 0.5
3 	2 	Juan Manuel Fangio 	 	1:43.7	+ 0.6
4 	16 	Jean Behra 	 	1:43.8	+ 0.7
5 	10 	Giuseppe Farina 	 	1:43.9	+ 0.8
6 	4 	Karl Kling 	 	1:44.1	+ 1.0
7 	28 	Harry Schell 	 	1:44.3	+ 1.2
8 	6 	Stirling Moss 	 	1:44.6	+ 1.5
9 	40 	Pablo Birger 	 	1:44.8	+ 1.7
10 	8 	Hans Herrmann 	 	1:44.9	+ 1.8
11 	34 	Luigi Villoresi 	 	1:45.2	+ 2.1
12 	36 	Eugenio Castellotti 	 	1:45.3	+ 2.2
13 	24 	Carlos Menditeguy 	 	1:45.4	+ 2.3
14 	14 	Maurice Trintignant 	 	1:45.8	+ 2.7
15 	38 	Élie Bayol 	 	1:46.1	+ 3.0
16 	18 	Roberto Mieres 	 	1:46.2	+ 3.1
17 	42 	Jesús Iglesias 	 	1:46.3	+ 3.2
18 	22 	Luigi Musso 	 	1:46.4	+ 3.3
19 	20 	Sergio Mantovani 	 	1:46.4	+ 3.3
20 	26 	Clemar Bucci 	 	1:47.6	+ 4.5
21 	30 	Alberto Uria 	 	1:52.1	+ 9.0
=== Grid ===
== Race ==
=== Report ===
The cars seemed closely matched and on the front row of the grid was one of each of the cars from the big four teams: Gonzalez just ahead of Ascari, Fangio and Behra.
Race day was extremely hot and Fangio delighted the locals by getting into the lead on the first lap with Ascari and a fast-starting Stirling Moss chasing him. Then came Gonzalez and Farina.
Fangio's lead did not last long. Ascari challenged him and got ahead only to lose the lead soon afterwards to a flying Gonzalez. The racing stayed close in the early laps but on lap 22 Ascari made a mistake and crashed. His Lancia team mate Villoresi was already out because of early mechanical trouble and had taken over Castellotti's car but before Ascari could claim the car, Villoresi crashed, ending the Lancia challenge.
Moss disappeared with a fuel feed problem and a few laps later Trintignant went out with an engine problem.
And then the heat began to tell on the drivers. Farina pitted because he was exhausted, his car being taken over by Ferrari's spare driver Umberto Maglioli. Then Gonzalez came into the pits and so a revived Farina was sent out in his place. Fangio had to stop for some water and this enabled Schell and Mieres to go ahead although an exhausted Schell was soon handing over to Behra. Mieres ran into technical trouble and that meant that Fangio was soon back in the lead.
He was caught in the closing laps by Gonzalez - who was back in his own car which had been driven in the interim by Farina and Trintignant - but he then had an accident and ruined his chances. He did manage to rejoin and handed the car back to Farina who brought the Ferrari home in second place.
Third place in this complicated race went to Farina's original car which had been driven by Maglioli and then handed on to Trintignant before being handed back to Maglioli.
=== Post-race ===
The hottest F1 race at the time meant that multiple drivers required replacements, and only Juan Manuel Fangio and Roberto Mieres survived the whole race without partaking in a shared drive. All in all, sixteen replacements took place, and three of the shared drives scored points, and while Fangio took the fastest lap, nine drivers scored points, and Fangio was left with a lead of points in the championship over both Giuseppe Farina and Maurice Trintignant. Trintignant, Jean Behra and Harry Schell all managed to drive three different cars during the race.
Fangio suffered severe burns to his right leg after it rubbed against some exhaust-heated chassis frame for the duration of the race. It took the Argentine three months to recover, but he did not miss any championship events.
=== Results ===
Pos	No	Driver 	Constructor	Laps	Time/Retired 	Grid	Points
1 	2 	Juan Manuel Fangio 	 	96 	3:00:38.6 	3 	9
2 	12	José Froilán González Nino Farina Maurice Trintignant	 	96 	+ 1:29.6 	1 	2 2 2
3 	10	Giuseppe Farina Maurice Trintignant Umberto Maglioli 	 	94 	+ 2 laps 	5 	1 1 1
4 	8 	Hans Herrmann Karl Kling Stirling Moss 	 	94 	+ 2 laps 	10 	1 1 1
5 	18	Roberto Mieres 	 	91 	+ 5 laps 	16 	2
6 	28	Harry Schell Jean Behra 	 	88 	+ 8 laps 	7 	
7 	22	Luigi Musso Sergio Mantovani Harry Schell 	 	83 	+ 13 laps 	18 	
Ret	20	Sergio Mantovani Jean Behra Luigi Musso 	 	54 	Engine 	19 	
Ret	26	Clemar Bucci Harry Schell Carlos Menditeguy 	 	54 	Fuel Pressure	20 	
Ret	42	Jesús Iglesias 	 	38 	Transmission 	17 	
Ret	14	Maurice Trintignant 	 	36 	Engine 	14 	
Ret	36	Eugenio Castellotti Luigi Villoresi 	 	35 	Accident 	12 	
Ret	6 	Stirling Moss 	 	29 	Fuel System 	8 	
Ret	30	Alberto Uria 	 	22 	Out of Fuel 	21 	
Ret	32	Alberto Ascari 	 	21 	Accident 	2 	
Ret	38	Élie Bayol 	 	7 	Transmission 	15 	
Ret	16	Jean Behra 	 	2 	Accident 	4 	
Ret	4 	Karl Kling 	 	2 	Accident 	6 	
Ret	34	Luigi Villoresi 	 	2 	Fuel Leak 	11 	
Ret	40	Pablo Birger 	 	1 	Accident 	9 	
Ret	24	Carlos Menditeguy 	 	1 	Accident 	13 	
=== Shared drives ===
Note: The lap figures are the number of laps driven in the car of each entrant, not the individual stints.
==== Per car ====
No.	Pos.	Laps	Starting drive 	Starting drive	Second drive 	Second drive	Third drive 	Third drive	Points	Points
No.	Pos.	Laps	Driver 	Laps 	Driver 	Laps 	Driver 	Laps 	Total 	Per driver
8 	 	94 	Hans Herrmann 	30 	Karl Kling 	30 	Stirling Moss 	34 	3 	1
10 	 	94 	Giuseppe Farina 	50 	Umberto Maglioli	22 	Maurice Trintignant	22 	4 	
12 	 	96 	José Froilán González	60 	Giuseppe Farina 	20 	Maurice Trintignant	16 	6 	2
20 	 	54 	Sergio Mantovani 	30 	Jean Behra 	14 	Luigi Musso 	10 	0 	0
22 	7th 	83 	Luigi Musso 	50 	Sergio Mantovani	20 	Harry Schell 	13 	0 	0
26 	 	54 	Clemar Bucci 	30 	Harry Schell 	14 	Carlos Menditeguy 	10 	0 	0
28 	6th 	88 	Harry Schell 	50 	Jean Behra 	38 	 	 	0 	0
36 	 	35 	Eugenio Castellotti 	20 	Luigi Villoresi 	15 	 	 	0 	0
==== Per driver ====
Driver 	Starting drive	Starting drive	Starting drive	Starting drive	Second drive	Second drive	Second drive	Second drive	Third drive	Third drive	Third drive	Third drive	Totals	Totals
Driver 	No. 	Laps 	Result 	Pts 	No. 	Laps 	Result 	Pts 	No. 	Laps 	Result 	Pts 	Laps 	Pts
Jean Behra 	16 	2/2 	 	0 	20 	14/54 	 	0 	28 	38/88 	6th 	0 	54 	0
Clemar Bucci 	26 	30/54 	 	0 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	30 	0
Eugenio Castellotti 	36 	20/35 	 	0 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	20 	0
Giuseppe Farina 	10 	50/94 	 	 	12 	20/96 	 	2 	 	 	 	 	70 	
José Froilán González	12 	60/96 	 	2 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	60 	2
Hans Herrmann 	8 	30/94 	 	1 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	30 	1
Karl Kling 	4 	2/2 	 	0 	8 	30/94 	 	1 	 	 	 	 	32 	1
Umberto Maglioli 	 	 	 	 	10 	22/94 	 	 	 	 	 	 	22 	
Sergio Mantovani 	20 	30/54 	 	0 	22 	20/83 	7th 	0 	 	 	 	 	50 	0
Carlos Menditeguy 	24 	1/1 	 	0 	26 	10/54 	 	0 	 	 	 	 	11 	0
Stirling Moss 	6 	29/29 	 	0 	8 	34/94 	 	1 	 	 	 	 	63 	1
Luigi Musso 	22 	50/83 	7th 	0 	20 	10/54 	 	0 	 	 	 	 	60 	0
Harry Schell 	28 	50/88 	6th 	0 	26 	14/54 	 	0 	22 	13/83 	7th 	0 	77 	0
Maurice Trintignant 	14 	36/36 	 	0 	12 	16/96 	 	2 	10 	22/94 	 	 	74 	
Luigi Villoresi 	34 	2/2 	 	0 	36 	15/35 	 	0 	 	 	 	 	17 	0
===Fastest lap===
Note: No other fastest laps were recorded.
No.	Driver 	Constructor	Lap	Time 	Avg Speed	Race
2 	Juan Manuel Fangio	 	45 	1:48.3	130.039 	1
=== Laps in the lead ===
==== By Lap ====
Stint	Driver 	Laps 	Total	Distance
1 	Juan Manuel Fangio 	1 – 2 	2 	7.824 km
2 	Alberto Ascari 	3 – 4 	2 	7.824 km
3 	José Froilán González	5 – 10 	6 	23.472 km
4 	Alberto Ascari 	11 – 21	11 	43.032 km
5 	José Froilán González	22 – 25	4 	15.648 km
6 	Juan Manuel Fangio 	26 – 34	9 	35.208 km
7 	Harry Schell 	35 – 38	4 	15.648 km
8 	Roberto Mieres 	39 – 42	4 	15.648 km
9 	Juan Manuel Fangio 	43 – 96	54 	211.248 km
==== Totals ====
Pos.	Driver 	Laps	Distance
1 	Juan Manuel Fangio 	65 	254.280 km
2 	Alberto Ascari 	13 	50.856 km
3 	José Froilán González	10 	39.120 km
4 	Harry Schell 	4 	15.648 km
4 	Roberto Mieres 	4 	15.648 km
== Milestones ==
* Joint-hottest F1 race with 1984 Dallas Grand Prix and 2005 Bahrain Grand Prix, at 40°C (104°F), although Dallas would have registered hotter if the race had not started in the morning.
* Championship débuts for Eugenio Castellotti, Alberto Uria.
* Only race for Jesús Iglesias.
* Last race for Pablo Birger, Clemar Bucci and Sergio Mantovani.
* Juan Manuel Fangio's 14th win put him clear in the list of most victories. It was also his 20th podium finish.
* Fifth win for .
* 3rd (and final) pole position and 15th (and final) podium for José Froilán González.
* 2nd (and final) podium for Umberto Maglioli.
== Standings after race ==
Drivers Championship only
Drivers' World Championship	Drivers' World Championship	Drivers' World Championship
Pos. 	Driver 	Pts
1 	Juan Manuel Fangio 	9
2 	Giuseppe Farina 	
2 	Maurice Trintignant 	
4 	José Froilán González 	2
4 	Roberto Mieres 	2
6 	Umberto Maglioli 	
7 	Hans Herrmann 	1
7 	Karl Kling 	1
7 	Stirling Moss 	1
== Notes ==
== External links ==
* Wikipedia article
* STATS F1 page
* Grand Prix Encyclopedia article
* Silhouet page
* Chicane F1 page
Category:Grand Prix articles
Category:1955 Grands Prix
Category:Argentine Grand Prix