THE GP LIBRARY

In 1959 Phil Hill found his Formula 1 feet, but Tony Brooks was the Italian team's star that season and the cool, cultured Englishman was faster in a Formula 1 car, although not in a sports car. Into 1960, and the front-engined V6 Formula 1 Ferraris were obsolescent, but Phil was always aggressive and rapid. He won the Italian Grand Prix in the absence of top-line British team entries - due to a boycott on the grounds that the part-banked Autodrome circuit was unacceptably dangerous - and with this victory Phil became the first American winner of a Grande Epreuve motor race since Jimmy Murphy had won the 1921 Grand Prix de l'ACF at Le Mans. Significantly, Phil was probably the only world-class racing driver of his era who would have realised that, who knew exactly who Jimmy Murphy had been, and even moreso knew a great deal about that 1921 Duesenberg car …... Phil offered his services as a mechanic in return for ‘sponsored' drives and, in 1952, Allen Guiberson entered him in a Ferrari..

Primary location: Alresford United Kingdom