French GP 1960

French GP, 1960

Three weeks after the disastrous Belgian GP the World Championship contenders gathered at Reims. Stirling Moss was out of action. Tony Brooks had switched from the BRP Cooper team to try the new Vanwall VW11, while Team Lotus had hired Ron Flockhart to replace Alan Stacey. BRP had two new drivers in Henry Taylor and Bruce Halford. In practice both Scarabs blew their engines so neither Lance Reventlow nor Chuck Daigh was able to race.

Jack Brabham was on pole position by 1.4secs with Phil Hill's Ferrari and Graham Hill's BRM sharing the front row. Behind them were Innes Ireland's factory Lotus 18 and the Ferrari of Willy Mairesse.

At the start G Hill was caught unprepared and as he tried to get the BRM off the line he was hit from behind by the Scuderia Centro Sud Cooper of Maurice Trintignant. There was also a collision between Brooks and Lucien Bianchi's outdated Cooper.

The battle for the lead involved Brabham and P. Hill and the pair switched places lap after lap until Hill began to fade with transmission trouble. A similar problem took out third-placed Ferrari driver Wolfgang Von Trips and so Brabham was left out in front all by himself. Mairesse too retired with a similar problem and Ireland had to stop with a broken front suspension. Also retiring were the two surviving BRMS of Dan Gurney and Jo Bonnier disappeared with engine trouble.

This left Gendebien in the BRP Cooper to take second with Bruce McLaren third in the second factory Cooper and with Taylor finishing fourth in his BRP Cooper the company could boast 1-2-3-4 finish. The Lotuses of Jim Clark and Flockhart finished fifth and sixth.

POSNODRIVERENTRANTLAPSTIME/RETIREMENTQUAL POS
16 Jack Brabham Cooper-Climax T53 50 1h57m24.900s  
44 Olivier Gendebien Cooper-Climax T51 50 1h58m13.200s  11 
18 Bruce McLaren Cooper-Climax T53 50 1h58m16.800s  
46 Henry Taylor Cooper-Climax T51 49  13 
24 Jim Clark Lotus-Climax 18 49  12 
22 Ron Flockhart Lotus-Climax 18 49  
20 Innes Ireland Lotus-Climax 18 43  
8r 48 Bruce Halford Cooper-Climax T51 40 Engine 16 
40 Masten Gregory Cooper-Maserati T51 37  17 
10 42 Ian Burgess Cooper-Maserati T51 36  20 
11r Wolfgang von Trips Ferrari D246 31 Transmission 
12r Phil Hill Ferrari D246 29 Transmission 
Jo Bonnier BRM P48 22 Engine 10 
36 Lucien Bianchi Cooper-Climax T51 18 Transmission 15 
10 Dan Gurney BRM P48 17 Engine 
30 Gino Munaron Cooper-Castellotti T51 15 Transmission 19 
Willy Mairesse Ferrari D246 14 Transmission 
14 Tony Brooks Vanwall VW11 Vibration 14 
38 Maurice Trintignant Cooper-Maserati T51 Accident 18 
12 Graham Hill BRM P48 Accident 
ns 28 Richie Ginther Scarab   Engine 21 
ns 34 David Piper Lotus-Climax 16  Engine 22 
ns 26 Chuck Daigh Scarab   Engine 23