1953 French Grand Prix

The Grand Prix of France 1953 took place on July 7 at the track Reims - Gueux and was the fifth of nine races of the Formula 1 season 1953.

Background

For the race, 1953, the route of the course was changed in Reims. The course was now about 500 m long, what zugutekam almost exclusively to the extension of the straight before Thillois. The Ferrari team joined with four nominations ( Ascari, Farina, Villoresi, Hawthorn ), supplemented by a private message from Louis Rosier. Maserati was also represented with four factory cars, which were controlled by the Argentine Fangio, González and Marimon and the Italians Bonetto. De Graffenried contributed a private Maserati. Cooper was back on the field again. The only despatched from factory car was equipped with a new engine of Alta, while private Cooper of Gerard and Wharton had still installed a Bristol engine.

Training

As usual, in 1953, the Maserati and Ferrari made ​​the best starting positions among themselves. The pole position Alberto Ascari secured with 2:41,2 min before the fastest Maserati - was driven by Bonetto and Villoresi - somewhat surprising. Fangio and Gonzalez were the second row.

Race

The race had been started almost without Ferrari. In sports car racing before the Ferrari of Maglioli / Carini had been disqualified because of " multiple infraction ". In protest about Ferrari wanted to withdraw his cars from the Grand Prix start, when people still agreed at the last minute. After many rather boring race with total Ascari dominance became the Grand Prix of France at a very varied races. From the second row González drove to the top of the field. He had only half full refuel his Maserati and tried to put the weight advantage in faster lap times to be able to make a stop for refueling can. However, until his stop at exactly half of the race on lap 30, his margin was not large enough to hold its top position. He fell back to sixth place. Behind González a battle group from Ascari, Bonetto, Villoresi, Hawthorn, Fangio and Farina had formed in the first few laps of the race, was eliminated from the first Bonetto with a spin. According to González stop this group fought for the victory. Slowly Hawthron and Fangio broke something from the group and led for many laps a hard-fought duel for the victory, in which the lead in almost every round often changed hands several times. Clearly the duel was finally was able to pull through a switching error or transmission problems Fangio in the last round, by the Hawthorn enough of a lead to win by a margin of just one second. González is to fight after his stop again through the entire field of pursuers to be ultimately defeated by Fangio just 0.4 seconds succeeded. Ascari followed 3.2 sec later than fourth.

Message list

Classification

Line-up

Race results

Standings after the race

In 1953 the scoring according to the following scheme:

• It included only the four best results from nine races. String results are shown in brackets.
• The figures marked with * include the point for the fastest lap.
• Same color fields marked point to shared vehicles.