Stirling Moss has another win, this time for Maserati at the Monaco Grand Prix which took place on May 13, 1956. He has received the winner’s trophy from Prince Rainier and is back on the harbor straight to congratulate his mechanics as the officials carry his winnings. 100 laps of Monaco over three hours was a long day for anyone, even when in front as Moss was all day. For practice Maserati had seemed much better organized than their competitors from down the road in Maranello with both carbureted and fuel injected cars to assess while Ferrari could only arrange for two cars to be on hand in first practice for their four drivers.
In the photo at left Moss is surrounded by the Maserati team which had not only won but had all three of their cars reach the finish, even if the other two were some laps down. Racing at Monaco often caused some bent machinery and in the case of Moss he had run into the back of his teammate Cesare Perdisa’s 250F when the young Italian got nervous about Moss coming up to lap him and braked far too early for the next corner.
Moss had led from the end of the first lap and had built up a gap of over 30 seconds on second man Peter Collins in the best of the Ferrari-Lancia’s. Ferrari then had Collins turn his car over to Juan Fangio who had already damaged his own in several semi-offs. Fangio tried really hard, as he had been doing all day, and set fastest lap right at the end, finishing six seconds behind Moss who had controlled the race from the front without straining his Maserati.
After Ascari’s scary crash into the harbor at the Chicane the year before, that corner had been tightened up quite a bit to slow the cars down. Therefore, Fangio’s fastest lap was three seconds slower than his best effort with the Mercedes in 1955.
Photos by Louis Klemantaski ©The Klemantaski Collection – http://www.klemcoll.com
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