STORY OF THE DAY: Collins Gives Fangio the Championship

The 1956 Italian Grand Prix at Monza decided the World Drivers’ Championship in extraordinary circumstances. Juan Manuel Fangio began in another Ferrari, but after that car failed he took over Peter Collins’s number 26 Lancia-Ferrari D50 and finished second behind Stirling Moss, securing his fourth world title; Collins and Fangio shared the result under the regulations of the period.

Collins still had a chance of becoming champion when he voluntarily surrendered his car during a pit stop. Luigi Musso had continued in his own Ferrari, but Collins placed the team’s championship objective above his personal opportunity. The gesture became one of Grand Prix racing’s enduring examples of sporting generosity.

Ferrari’s D50 was derived from Vittorio Jano’s innovative Lancia design and powered by a naturally aspirated 2.5-litre V8. Ferrari extensively revised the car during 1956, simplifying aspects of the original layout and developing it into the machine that carried Fangio to the championship.

Peter Collins was a gifted English driver whose speed and open manner made him an important member of Ferrari’s mid-1950s team. He won three World Championship Grands Prix, all for the Scuderia, before his fatal accident at the Nürburgring in 1958; his decision at Monza remains inseparable from Fangio’s 1956 title.