Bruce McLaren Becomes Youngest Winner In F-1 - December 12, 1959

December 12, 1959

Motor racing history was set when Bruce McLaren, driving a Cooper T51/Climax 2.5 L4 won the first ever United States Grand Prix to count for the world driver’s championship. He was 22 years, 104 days old, the youngest driver ever to win a Formula 1 Grand Prix. He held this record until Fernando Alonso won in Hungary in 2003.

For the first and only time the event was run on the Sebring International Raceway, Sebring, Florida, a track better known for the 12-hour sports car race. The 8.36 kilometre circuit was laid out on a disused military airfield and the race would be run over 42 laps or 218 miles. 

Three drivers went into that final round with a chance of becoming 1959 world champion. Leading the championship race with 28 points was Jack Brabham followed by Stirling Moss with 25 and a half points. Both Brabham and Moss, driving the small lightweight and nimble rear engined Cooper Climax T51s, Brabham driving for the ‘works’ and Moss in the navy blue colours of his patron Rob Walker. Third in the title standings was Tony Brooks on 23 points piloting the big front engined V6 Ferrari. The former dentist was destined to be a real threat on Sebring’s long straights, the Ferrari punching out around 290bhp, the most powerful car at the time. It would also be the last year a front engined car would be in serious contention for the championship. 

In such circumstances it is the role of the number two driver to support the team leader’s quest for glory and in the fledgling Cooper Grand Prix team that role fell on the young but broad shoulders of Bruce McLaren. Moss had pole position and led for the first five laps before the transmission went and with it his chance for the championship. It was a hot, sunny day, good news for the Coopers and Brabham took the lead following the retirement of Moss, the world championship in his grasp. Brabham and McLaren had broken the Ferrari challenge although Brooks was still strongly placed and if both works Coopers retired, the Englishman needed only a second place to take the title by one point. On the last lap Brabham’s car  ran dry of fuel, and McLaren flashed by to win while Brabham physically pushed his car home for fourth place and the championship.

Bruce McLaren didn’t lead much of the 1959 United States Grand Prix but he led the lap that mattered most, becoming a star overnight as the press made much of his age.