1957 Mille Miglia

The 24. edizione Mille Miglia was an auto race held on a course totalling 992.332 miles (1,597.004 km), made up entirely of public roads around Italy, mostly on the outer parts of the country on 11–12 May 1957. The route was based on a round trip between Brescia and Rome, with start/finish, in Brescia. It was the 3rd round of the 1957 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, Wolfgang von Trips’s car had the number 532, he left Brescia at 5:32am, 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 Piero Taruffi without the aid of a navigator. He completed the 992-mile distance in 10 hours, 27 minutes and 47 seconds- an average speed of 94.841 mph (152.632 km/h). The Italian finished 3 minutes in front of his second-placed team-mate, the German driver, von Trips. Olivier Gendebien and Jacques Washer were next ensuring Scuderia Ferrari finished 1-2-3.

A total of 391 cars were entered for the event, across 25 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, 310 cars started the event. The limit on the number of starts was reduced from previous years. The Auto Club of Brescia took steps to try to combat the unsportsmanlike tactics by which some competitors sough to negate the procedure of drawing lots for departure times.

Even though the event continued to count towards for World Sportscar Championship, only Ferrari and Maserati entered work teams. Officine Alfieri Maserati was in administration though still managed to have two 450Ss for Stirling Moss and Jean Behra, a brand new 350S for Hans Herrmann and older 300S for the Italian Giorgio Scarlatti. Meanwhile, Scuderia Ferrari entered four Sports cars, to be driven by Taruffi, von Trips, Peter Collins and Alfonso de Portago. They were entered Gendebien in a Grand Touring car. England was represented by a single semi-works Jaguar D-Type, entered by the Scottish team Ecurie Ecosse for Ron Flockhart.

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