F1 Seasons: 1956 Trivia Quiz

Answer: Juan Manuel Fangio

Fangio won his third Championship in a row, finishing 3 points ahead of Moss. Behra was fourth, 8 points back, while Castellotti was only sixth, 22,5 points adrift.

Answer: Ferrari

The Mercedes team retired from motorsports after a huge accident at the 1955 Le Mans 24 Hours, that killed their driver Pierre Levegh, as well as 83 spectators. The reigning Champion, Juan Manuel Fangio, moved to Ferrari and won the Championship again.

Mercedes' retirement meant Stirling Moss also had to find a new home, which he did at Maserati, where he was the best placed driver in the Championship (second). Connaught had their best driver in Jack Fairman (tenth in the table), while Vanwall's best result was Harry Schell's fourth place in the Belgian GP (he was fifteenth in the table).

Answer: Luigi Musso

Musso, Fangio's teammate at Ferrari, started the race third on the grid, but handed his car to Ferrari's team leader after 30 of the 98 laps of the Grand Prix. Fangio would win two more races in the season, in Britain and Germany.

Collins, Fangio's British teammate at Ferrari, won the Belgian and French races, while Moss, driving for Maserati, won in Monaco and Italy. The Indianapolis 500 glory would go to Pat Flaherty's Watson-Offenhauser, entered by John Zink.

Castellotti (also a Ferrari driver) and Villoresi (who drove for Maserati and two privateer teams) had no wins in 1956.

Answer: Watson

Pat Flaherty's Watson-Offenhauser had pole position for the Indy 500. Kurtis Kraft cars had several poles in the previous seasons, but not in 1956. Kuzma and Phillips cars never had pole positions in races that were part of the F1 World Championship.

As for the rest of the pole positions, Juan Manuel Fangio was the master, starting from the front of the grid in 6 races, leaving only one pole to Stirling Moss.

Answer: Juan Manuel Fangio & Stirling Moss

Fangio had 4 fastest laps, to Moss's 3. Paul Russo, in a Kurtis Kraft-Novi, entered by the Novi Racing Corporation, had the fastest lap in the Indianapolis 500.

Answer: Alfonso de Portago

Alfonso Antonio Vicente Eduardo Ángel Blas Francisco de Borja Cabeza de Vaca y Leighton was the Marquis of Portago, so he was usually known as just Alfonso de Portago. His best result of the season (and career) would be a shared second place in the British GP, where he was replaced by Peter Collins, 70 laps from the finish.

Godia was a works Maserati driver, in F1 since 1951. Uría and González were Maserati drivers in Uría's privateer team. They were both from Uruguay.

Answer: Bugatti

Bugatti equipped their car with their own engine. The combination was good enough for eighteenth on the grid, but the car retired with mechanical problemas after only 18 laps.

Maserati and Ferrari engines only equipped their own cars and a Bristol engine could be found on the only Cooper on the grid (the one from Bob Gerard's privateer team).

Answer: Louis Rosier

Rosier was injured in an accident at the Coupe du Salon de l'Auto de Paris at Montlhéry, dying three weeks later at the hospital from head trauma. Claes also died in 1956, but from tuberculosis (and he was Belgian). Simon and Bayol did not die in 1956.

Answer: They claimed the winning car was push-started after a spin

The winning car, driven by Luigi Musso and Juan Manuel Fangio, had a spin, after Fangio had driven it to the lead, ahead of Moss' Maserati. Moss' team argued that Fangio's Ferrari was push-started, something that was not allowed. The protest was dismissed, though, so the Ferrari win was confirmed.

Shared races were allowed and there was no minimum weight limit in place for the 1956 Championship. Agressive driving was very common and not a cause of protest at the time.

Answer: He believed he was young enough to be World Champion later in his career

Juan Manuel Fangio was Ferrari's lead driver, but he retired in the last race of the season, taking over Collins' car when he pitted. Fangio would finish second and won the Championship by 3 points over Moss and 5 over Collins. Had Collins continued on his own and finished second, he would get the full 6 points for second place (instead of the 3 he got for the shared drive) and would have won the Championship, one point ahead of both Fangio and Moss.

He is quoted as saying "I'm young. I have time to win in another year". Sadly, he would not, as he died in 1958, while fighting for the World Championship.