History of Formula One - Introduction of The Constructor's Championship and The Mid-engine Revolution

Introduction of The Constructor's Championship and The Mid-engine Revolution

See 1958 season, 1959 season, 1960 season and 1961 season.

Although the basic formula remained unchanged in 1958, races were shortened from around 500 km/300miles to 300 km/200 miles and cars had to use Avgas instead of various fuel mixtures using methanol as the primary component.

1958 saw the introduction of a championship for constructors with points allocated on an 8, 6, 4, 3, 2, 1 basis to the first six cars in the race (i.e. unlike the drivers' championship there was no point for fastest lap). Furthermore points were only awarded to the highest placed car of each make, i.e. if a make finished 1st and 2nd they would receive only eight points and the 3rd placed car would receive 4 points.

With Fangio retired, Mike Hawthorn in a Ferrari took the 1958 driver's championship – becoming the first English driver to earn a title. The British Vanwall team took the maiden constructors championship that season, but ruined their driver's championship aspirations by taking points off one another. Stirling Moss, despite having many more wins than Hawthorn, lost the title by one point. Ironically, a moment of high sportsmanship cost Moss the 1958 title. When Hawthorn was threatened with disqualification at the finish of the Portuguese Grand Prix for going in the wrong direction (to restart his car following a spin), Moss argued to stewards on Hawthorn's behalf. The points granted Hawthorn were the difference in the championship. This season also saw a woman driving in Formula One for the first time with Maria Teresa de Filippis racing a private Maserati at the Belgian Grand Prix.

1958 was a watershed in another crucial way for Formula One. Against a small field of Ferraris and Maseratis, Stirling Moss won the Argentine Grand Prix driving a mid-engined Cooper entered by the private team of Rob Walker, and powered by a 2 litre Coventry-Climax Straight-4. This was the first victory for a car with the engine mounted behind the driver in Formula One. The next Grand Prix in Monaco was also won by the same Cooper car, this time driven by Maurice Trintignant and facing more substantial opposition. Powered by undersized engines, the Coopers remained outsiders in 1958 but as soon as the new 2.5 litre Coventry-Climax engine was available, the little British cars went on to dominate Formula One. The 1959 season saw fierce competition between the works Cooper of Australian Jack Brabham and Moss in the Walker team's Cooper. The modified Citroën Traction Avant transaxle proved to be the Achilles heel of the Coopers, so Walker switched to a transaxle of proprietary design. The special transmission turned out to be more unreliable than the standard part, and Brabham took the title with Moss second.

For 1960 while Enzo Ferrari adopted a conservative attitude, claiming "the horses pull the car rather than push it", Lotus and BRM introduced mid-engined machines. Walker's team switched to a Lotus 18 chassis. Moss gave Lotus its first Formula One victory at Monaco but his season was ruined by a serious crash at Spa, Belgium. Brabham took a second title with his Cooper, but Moss returned in time to win the final race of the season, the U.S. Grand Prix at Riverside, California.

The mid-engined revolution rendered another potentially revolutionary car obsolete. The front-engined four-wheel drive Ferguson P99 raced in British Formula One races in 1961, winning the non-Championship Oulton Park International Gold Cup under heavy rain. But the car was too heavy and complex compared to the new breed of mid-engined machines.

In 1961, in an attempt to curb speeds, Formula One was downgraded to 1.5 litre, non-supercharged engines (essentially the then-current Formula Two rules), a formula which would remain for the next five years. Ferrari could have used its already proven V6 powered mid-engined Formula 2 cars, but preferred to go one step forward by designing a very sophisticated car powered by a 120° V6. This led to Ferrari dominance for the 1961 season as the British teams scrambled to come up with a suitable engine. American Phil Hill won the 1961 title in a works Ferrari. His teammate, Wolfgang von Trips of Germany, died along with 14 spectators in a horrific crash on the first lap of the Italian Grand Prix at Monza.

Throughout the 1950s and 1960s, the Formula One World Championship was merely the tip of the iceberg when it came to races run to Formula One regulations. The total number of races run to Formula One regulations remained about the same as it had been before the introduction of the World Championship. Many famous races, such as the Pau and Syracuse Grands Prix, the BRDC International Trophy, the Race of Champions and the Oulton Park Gold Cup, were not part of the World Championship, but nonetheless continued to draw the top drivers and teams to compete.