1960 World Sportscar Championship
The 1960 World Sportscar Championship season was the eighth season of the FIA World Sportscar Championship. It was a series for sportscars that ran in many worldwide endurance events. It ran from 31 January 1960 to 26 June 1960, and comprised five races. The 1000 km Buenos Aires returned to the calendar at the expense of the RAC Tourist Trophy, which formed part of the inaugural FIA GT Cup.
1960 World Sportscar Championship | |||
Previous: | 1959 | Next: | 1961 |
Season
The championship still comprised five qualifying rounds, but what rounds they were; the 1000 km Buenos Aires the 12 Hours of Sebring, the Targa Florio, the Nürburgring 1000 km, with the 24 Hours of Le Mans being the final round.[1]
With reigning champion, Aston Martin works cars not returning to defend their title, this left the door wide open for Scuderia Ferrari to reclaim the title. This wasn’t to be plain sailing as the nearest rivals turned out to be the smaller Porsches. The Italian manufacturer started stronger with Phil Hill and Cliff Allison taking the spoils in Argentina.[2] Next was the annual trip to Florida, for the 12 Hours of Sebring, however the factory Ferrari and Porsche were not present because of the rule change by the FIA, allowing the organisers to permit use of only certain brands of fuel,[3] As a result, the race was between privateers with works-backed drivers, with Porsche coming out on top.[2] The mid-way point of the championship, saw the cars return to Europe for the Targa Florio. The twisty mountains roads of Sicily favoured the more agile car, like the Porsche which duly took the victory.[2]
The championship then into moved into West Germany, the annual trip to the Nürburgring Nordschleife. To the surprise of everyone, the spoils went to an American team, Camoradi/USA Racing Team, whose Maserati was driven by Stirling Moss and Dan Gurney. This result meant, going into the final round, the only way Ferrari could stop Porsche winning the title was to win the 24 Hours of Le Mans, and that was exactly what they did.[2]
Season results
Results
Round | Date | Event | Circuit or Location | Winning driver | Winning team | Winning car | Results |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 | January 31 | Autódromo Municipal-Avenida Paz | Results | ||||
2 | March 26 | Sebring International Raceway | Results | ||||
3 | May 8 | Circuito Piccolo delle Madonie | Results | ||||
4 | May 22 | Nürburgring | Results | ||||
5 | June 25-26 | Circuit de la Sarthe | Results | ||||
Championship
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 awarded points only 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.
Pos | Manufacturer | Rd 1 | Rd 2 | Rd 3 | Rd 4 | Rd 5 | Total |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1† | 8 | (4) | 6 | (4) | 8 | 22 (30) | |
2 | (4) | 8 | 8 | 6 | 22 (26) | ||
3 | 3 | 8 | 11 | ||||
4 | 4 | 4 |
† - Ferrari declared the champion from tie breaker of more points having two 3rd-place finishes to Porsche's one.
The cars
The following models contributed to the net championship point scores of their respective manufacturers.
- Ferrari 250 TR 59/60 & Ferrari Dino 246 S
- Porsche 718 RS 60
- Maserati Tipo 61
- Aston Martin DBR1/300
References
- "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 2016-07-08. Retrieved 2016-07-03.CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
- "1960 World Sportscar Championship". Teamdan.com. Archived from the original on 1 October 2018. Retrieved 31 December 2018.
- "Sebring 12 Hours 1960 - Racing Sports Cars". Racingsportscars.com. Retrieved 31 December 2018.