1956 Mille Miglia

The 23. edizione Mille Miglia was an auto race held on a 992.332 mile (1597 km) course made up entirely of public roads around Italy, mostly on the outer parts of the country on 28–29 April 1956. The route was based on a round trip between Brescia and Rome, with start/finish, in Brescia. It was the 3rd round of the 1956 World Sportscar Championship season.

As in previous years, the event this not strictly a race against each other, this is race against the clock, as the cars are released at one-minute intervals with the larger professional class cars going before the slower cars, in the Mille Miglia, however the smaller displacement slower cars started first. Each car number related to their allocated start time. For example Peter Collins’s car had the number 551, he left Brescia at 5:51am, while the first cars had started late in the evening on the previous day. Some drivers went with navigators, others didn't; a number of local Italian drivers had knowledge of the routes being used and felt confident enough that they wouldn't need one.

This race was won by Scuderia Ferrari driver Eugenio Castellotti without the aid of a navigator. He completed the 992-mile distance in 11 hours, 37 minutes and 10 seconds- an average speed of 85.403 mph (137.442 km/h). The Italian finished 12 minutes in front of their second-placed team-mates, the English pairing of Collins and Louis Klementaski. Luigi Musso and Juan Manuel Fangio were next ensuring Ferrari finished 1-2-3-4.

A total of 426 cars were entered for the event, across 13 classes based on engine sizes, ranging from up to 750cc to over 2.0-litre, for Grand Touring Cars, Touring Cars and Sport Cars. Of these, 365 cars started the event.

Following Daimler Benz AG and Lancia both withdrawing from motor sport at the end of 1955, this left the World Sportscar Championship wide open for Ferrari to regain the title their held in 1953 and 1954. Although Maserati had other ideas. After one win apiece from the first two races, Ferrari had the upper hand, and led the championship by four points.

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