GRAND PRIX OF MOROCCO 1958

Grand Prix announcement

The Royal Car club of Morocco had deposited a candidature for a Grand Prix taking place in Ain-Diab in 1957 as a test. This Grand Prix did not count for driver’s championship. Not seeing an obstacle there, the FIA (Fédération Internationale Automobile) gave an agreement for an official race into 1958, which was going to count for the world championship.

The track of Ain-Diab having already proven reliable (12 hours of Casablanca and other races…), it was quite naturally selected for this Grand Prix.

This event was regarded as a victory because it was very hard to organize a Grand Prix, especially in Morocco which was not yet a tourist country.

The world championship

It was the first time in 1958 that the championship of car manufacturers take place. One added it to the drivers’ championship.

The Grand Prix of Morocco was the last of the season, organized on October 19, placed at the end of the season not to suffer from the hot weather. Time was radiant and it was a little more 30°C .

This end of season was played between two marks: Vanwall and Ferrari. Both contained three pilots. Vanwall engaged Stirling Moss, Tony Brooks and Stuart Lewis-Evans. Ferrari; Mike Hawthorn, Phil Hill and Olivier Gendebien.

Stirling Moss and Mike Hawthorn, both British, were the only ones who could win drivers’ championship.

This last Grand Prix was crucial because the gap separating them was tiny.

Stirling Moss :                                                                                     Mike Hawthorn :
    

           La Vanwall VW 1958 model                                                  The Ferrari 246 Dino

Le driving classifying before the grand prix of Morocco :

1.Mike Hawthorn........................................................................................36 points
2.Stirling Moss............................................................................................33points
3.Tony Brooks............................................................................................24 points
4.Roy Salvadori..........................................................................................15 points
5.Peter Collins.............................................................................................14 points
6.Luigi Musso / Maurice Trintignant / Harry Schell........................................12 points
9.Stuart Lewis-Evans...................................................................................11 points
10.Wolfgang Von Trips / Jean Behra.............................................................9 points
12.Jimmy Bryan............................................................................................8 points
13.Juan Manuel Fangio.................................................................................7 points
14.George Amick.........................................................................................6 points
15.Phil Hill....................................................................................................5 points
16.Johnny Boyd............................................................................................4 points
17.Cliff Alisson / Jo Bonnier / Jack Brabham / Tony Bettenhausen..................3 points
21.Jim Rathmann...........................................................................................2 points

The tactics of Vanwall for this last Grand Prix were clear: to win, Moss had to finish first, with the fastest lap in race (that brought back a bonus point at the time) and another Vanwall had to prevent Hawthorn from finishing in the 2^nd place.
For Ferrari; Hawthorn had to finish at least in the second place, and, to reach the goal, another Ferrari had to block the support of Vanwall or, as well as possible, to put Stirling Moss under high pressure so that it fails.

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