The 1957 Formula One season was the 11th season of FIA Formula One motor racing. It featured the 8th World Championship of Drivers which was contested over eight races between 13 January and 8 September 1957. The season also included nine non-championship races for Formula One cars.
Juan Manuel Fangio driving for Maserati won his fourth consecutive championship. It was his fifth in total, a record that would not be beaten until Michael Schumacher in 2003. Especially in the latter half of the season, Stirling Moss was Fangio's main rival, but the Brit would finish runner-up for the third year in a row.[1]
Excluding the Indianapolis 500, which counted towards the F1 championship although there was very little overlap in contestants, every race was won by a constructor with their own engine. This would not happen again until 2006.
Three Formula One drivers lost their lives this year while racing in other categories. On 14 March, Ferrari driver Eugenio Castellotti suffered a fatal accident when he tested a new chassis for the team at Modena Autodrome. Trying to beat the lap record by Maserati's Jean Behra, he hit a chicane in a bad way and was thrown out of the car. A skull fracture caused his instant death.[2] On 12 May, Ferrari lost another driver: Alfonso de Portago was competing in that year's Mille Miglia when his tire blew and his car spun into the crowd. De Portago was killed along with his co-driver and nine spectators.[3][4][5] Herbert MacKay-Fraser made his debut with BRM in the French Grand Prix but was killed a week later in a sports car race at Reims-Gueux.[6]
Marquis Alfonso de Portago dies in a holocaust which probably spells the end of the Mille Miglia, greatest of all the open-road auto races.
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