1955 1000 km Buenos Aires

Circuit Callejero - Buenos Aires 1000km (1955)

The 1955 1000 km Buenos Aires took place on 23 January, on the Autódromo Municipal-Avenida Paz, (Buenos Aires, Argentina). It was the second running of the race, and once again, it was opening round of the F.I.A. World Sports Car Championship. For this event, a longer section of the Autopista General Pablo Riccheri route was added, making the circuit 17.136 km in length.

Valiente/Ibanez - Winners of the 1000 km of Buenos Aires

Despite being a World Championship event, international participation was low, as the majority of drivers and cars were from Argentina.

The week prior, seven Argentinians had entered the 1955 Argentine Grand Prix, with defending World Champion Juan Manuel Fangio winning for Mercedes, but suffering burns to his leg. Most of the visiting F1 pilots remained absent from the 1000 km race, but some would stay on for two weeks and enter the 30 January 1955 Buenos Aires Grand Prix Formula Libre race with their F1 cars. Mercedes did the same, but took the chance to test their new sports car engine. The new Mercedes-Benz 300 SLR sports car chassis was not ready yet, but its enlarged 3 litre straight-8 pump gas engine would be fitted into the single seater Mercedes-Benz W196 Formula 1 cars. The Formula Libre race was won by Fangio ahead of Moss in their Formula Sports hybrids.

Jaguar did not travel to the southern hemisphere, thus the first major sports car race of the year was poorly supported by the works teams. Only Scuderia Ferrari and Equipe Gordini brought works cars from Europe, two each. Anyway, also private team could earn championships point for the brand they had chosen to race.

Ferrari send a Ferrari 376 S for Maurice Trintignant and José Froilán González, and a 750 Monza for Umberto Maglioli and Clemar Bucci, which both were disqualified in the race. France was represented by a Gordini T24S in the hands of Élie Bayol and Harry Schell, and a T15 for the Argentine pairing of Adolfo Schwelm Cruz and Pedro J. Llano. The remainders of the field were cars from South America.

A grand total of 55 racing cars were registered for this event, of which all arrived for practice and qualifying.

The French Grand Prix racer, Trintignant took pole position for Scuderia Ferrari, in the No. 10 Ferrari 118 LM (aka Ferrari 376 S).

The race was held over 58 laps of the 10.648 miles, Autódromo Municipal Avenida Paz, giving a distance of 617.574 miles (993.888 km). In the race, both factory Ferraris were disqualified, for push starting and engine, which did not hurt Ferrari's championships effort as it left the win to the privately entered Ferrari 375 Plus of Enrique Saenz Valiente and José-Maria Ibanez. Leading by nearly five minutes, car number 4 took an impressive victory, winning in a time of 6hrs 35:15.4 mins., averaging a speed of 93.748 mph. In second was another locally prepared Ferrari 375, of Carlos Najurieta and César Rivero. The podium was complete by Equipo Presidente Peron’s Maserati A6GCS of José M. Faraoni and Ricardo Grandio, who were two laps adrift, but did win their class.

Class Winners are in Bold text.

• Fastest Lap: José Froilán González, 6:06.1secs (104.704 mph)

• Note: Only the top five positions are included in this set of standings.

Championship points were awarded for the first six places in each race in the order of 8-6-4-3-2-1. Manufacturers were only awarded points for their highest finishing car with no points awarded for positions filled by additional cars. Only the best 4 results out of the 6 races could be retained by each manufacturer. Points earned but not counted towards the championship totals are listed within brackets in the above table.