The Syracuse Grand Prix in 1960 was held on March 19th on the old public road circuit at Syracusa on the southeast coast of Sicily. The race was for Formula 2 cars then of 1500cc motor capacity. There was considerable interest from both the entrants and the spectators as this would become the capacity for the new Formula 1 a year later. There were entries from Ferrari and Team Lotus and a host of private entries of a number of Coopers plus a Porsche 718 from the Rob Walker team for Stirling Moss.
Moss, as seen above, set fastest time in practice to capture pole position. Innes Ireland in a new Lotus 18 was a half second behind Moss to start from the middle of the front row. Ferrari had brought a Dino 156 front-engined car for Wolfgang von Trips, basically a 1959 F1 car except for its smaller F2 motor. He was only able to hang on for the second row, fifth fastest. Ireland took the lead from the start but Moss and Trips were soon past with Moss slowly opening a margin over Trips, Brabham’s Cooper and Ireland.
It then began to rain and the pace was to take its toll. First the Moss Porsche broke a valve and had to retire and Ireland’s Lotus also had engine trouble. This put Trips, seen at the left, into an unassailable lead to the great delight of the partisan Italian crowd. As the rain receded, Trips took the flag after 56 laps with Maurice Trintignant’s Cooper about 20 seconds behind. This would be one of the last Grand Prix wins for a front-engined car.
Photos by Edward Eves ©The Klemantaski Collection www.klemcoll.com
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