1957 1000 km Buenos Aires

The 1957 1000 km Buenos Aires took place on 20 January, on the Circuito de la Costanera Norte, (Buenos Aires, Argentina). It was the fourth running of the race, and once again, it was opening round of the F.I.A. World Sports Car Championship. For this event, was moved from its previous venue, the Autódromo Municipal-Avenida Paz, only to return to the Autódromo in 1958.

A grand total of 30 racing cars were registered for this event, of which all 30 arrived for practice and 24 for qualifying for the race. Although this was the first major sports car race of the year, as in previous years, the race was poorly supported by the work of teams. Again, only Ferrari and Maserati sent cars from Europe. Both teams were represented by multiple cars in the race. Ferrari send a two 290 Ss and a single Ferrari 290 MM, but also loaned works driver to the Americans entered 290 MM of Scuderia Temple Buell during the meeting. Meanwhile, Officine Alfieri Maserati was represented a four different cars, across five entries. The remaining bulk of the field, were cars from South American teams.

Unlike the previous 1000 km Buenos Aires races, the Automóvil Club Argentino decided the race should take place at a different venue, instead of the Autódromo Municipal-Avenida Paz. They choose the Circuito de la Costanera Norte, which used the wide service roads of the Aeroparque Jorge Newbery. The reason for the change was that need to move to a “safer” track.

After a three-hour qualifying session held on the prior to the race, the local hero, Juan Manuel Fangio took pole position for Officine Alfieri Maserati, in their Maserati 450S.

The race was held over 98 laps of the 6.350 mile, Circuito de la Costanera Norte, giving a distance of 622.281 miles (1,001.462 km). in front of an estimated crowd of 100,000, it was the winner of the 1956 race, Stirling Moss, Fangio’s team-mate, who took an early lead from the entire fleet of Ferraris, piloted by Eugenio Castellotti, Peter Collins, Alfonso de Portago and Masten Gregory in the Temple Buell Ferrari. Jean Behra appears next in sixth. At the end of lap one, Castellotti pits with differential problems and loses more than seven minutes, and hands the car over to Luigi Musso. During the second lap, the Maserati 300S of Oscar Cabalén skidded off the track and into the crowd, causing numerous injuries.

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Wikipedia