HOW MOSS OPENED THE FLOODGATES
Sixty years on from a Lotus breakthrough
Over a 26-year period, Team Lotus took 74 grands prix victories. Colin Chapman’s team was at the forefront of innovation and ingenious thinking throughout that period, and can be easily credited with reshaping Formula 1 on several different occasions. That includes introducing sponsorship in earnest, taming ground effect or perfecting the active bolt-ons which defined F1 through to the early 1990s.
The irony for Lotus, which was the UK’S foremost racing car constructor, was that its maiden grand prix win came when the car was in the hands of a privateer.
Rob Walker’s team – and indeed driver Stirling Moss – had form for pulling the rug from a manufacturers’ feet.
The alliance had ripped up record books in the Argentine Grand Prix in 1958 when Moss became the first man to win a world championship race at the wheel of a rearengined car, using the nimble Walker-run Cooper T43. They’d beaten the opposition on that sweltering day in Buenos Aires by employing a clever strategy of not changing tyres during the shortened race. That, in itself, was a watershed. But at Monaco in 1960, which was 60 years ago last week, Moss and Walker did it again, this time at the wheel of a Lotus 18.
Clive Chapman, managing director of Classic Team Lotus and son of Lotus founder Colin Chapman, explains:
“Moss winning the 1960 Monaco GP was a classic David vs Goliath-type story, which was well-received and an important boost to the Lotus marque, still in its relatively early days. Moss was naturally quick, thoughtful and mechanically sympathetic – all characteristics which were of utmost benefit at Monaco, back when the race was three hours long.
“Rob Walker and my father enjoyed a mutually beneficial relationship which realised great success throughout the 1960s. Walker’s enduring relationship with Sir Stirling Moss was even stronger. Evidently Walker, as privateer entrant and sponsor, provided Moss with what he needed in order to realise his prodigious ability.”
Walker certainly did provide Moss with the equipment he needed. In the seasonopening Argentine Grand Prix, Moss had entered in a Walker-run Cooper T51. But the avalanche of success from the Lotus 18 – works driver Innes Ireland had given a glimpse of its competitiveness in Buenos Aires by placing sixth – pointed in one direction. It is unthinkable today, but there were over three months until the next grand prix at Monaco. In that time the Lotus 18, which was also being used in Formula 2 and Formula Junior races, went on a run of success which included victory at Goodwood on Easter Monday and then success in the International Trophy meeting at Silverstone in both F1 and F2. That same day at Silverstone, Jim Clark won the Formula Junior race in a Lotus 18.
So the choice was clear: Moss persuaded Walker to get his hands on a Lotus 18 for the 18th running of the race in the principality, which took place on May 29. Walker wasn’t the only one changing things in the face of the increasing revolution in grand prix racing. BRM turned up with its rear-engined P48s for Jo Bonnier, Dan Gurney and Graham Hill. Ferrari, too, had done the unthinkable and put an engine in the rear for the first time. Richie Ginther drove the new 246 alongside the more traditional frontengined versions for Phil Hill and Wolfgang von Trips (Cliff Allison had been due to race one too but crashed in practice).
The potential of the new Walker-moss partnership in the Lotus was masked in the opening practice sessions in Monaco as an electrical fault meant that the session was untimed. But others were looking nervously to the Walker pit, just as they should have. In qualifying, which took place on the Saturday evening before the three-hour epic on Sunday, Moss set a record-breaking pace to top the 24 cars, a full second ahead of Jack Brabham’s works Cooper T53-cooper Climax.
With 16 machines on the grid in the old style three by two starting grid, it was all to play for. However, from the second row, Bonnier leapt into the lead at the 1500hrs start as the front row all bogged down with too much wheelspin. They were all way ahead of the factory Lotus cars, which were being handled by Alan Stacey, Innes Ireland and grand prix newcomer John Surtees.
Despite losing out initially, Moss soon passed Brabham and kept a watching brief on leader Bonnier. The Swedish racer would often wave Moss through as he was struggling with ailing brakes, but the Briton behind refused to play ball, preferring instead to hang back until lap 17, which was when he pounced down the inside into what was known then as the Station Hairpin.
That should have been the end of the drama, but this was Monaco. The clouds over the Cote d’azur began to darken and spit rain, which meant caution was key: this was, after all, the first time Moss had raced this chassis. He began to reduce his pace while 1959 winner Brabham, who had also overcome Bonnier, took the opposite approach. That was the Australian’s undoing as, although he’d overtaken Moss, he crashed at St Devote on lap 41, damaging the chassis. Having had outside assistance to get going again, he would eventually be disqualified.
The conditions improved and Moss began to manage his 14-second gap to Bonnier, but disaster struck the leader: the Climax V8 engine in the back of his Lotus lapsed onto three cylinders. A quick pitstop on lap 60 diagnosed that a plug lead had fallen off: it was a simple repair but costly in terms of time, and Bonnier retook the lead.
Moss began a charge, and it took him only eight laps to resume his position at the head of the pack to land Lotus’s breakthrough victory. Bonner later retired with suspension failure and that left Bruce Mclaren’s Cooper almost one minute behind with Hill’s front-engined Ferrari dinosaur as the only other machine on the lead lap. Fourth-placed Tony Brooks, in a Yeoman Credit Cooper, was the last full runner at the chequered flag, while other ailing cars were patched up to try and claim the final points on offer for those who could see the chequer.
The spoils belonged to Moss the maestro, and his glory brought him level with Alberto Ascari as the most successful F1 driver in terms of race wins on 13.
Injury ruled Moss out for much of the rest of the season after a crash in practice at Spa, but he returned to win the US Grand Prix to cement third place in the drivers’standings behind Brabham.
The Lotus factory team would have to wait until the very last race of 1961 to taste the champagne in its own right when Ireland won at Watkins Glen. But by that stage, the Lotus bandwagon was gathering the pace that it needed for it to go on and dominate large periods of Formula 1