1961-09-10 156 F1/120 (2) Phill Hill ITA - Monza 1
The 1961 Italian Grand Prix was a Formula One motor race held on 10 September 1961 at Monza. Phill Hill won teh race with this Ferrari 156F1/120, “Sharknose”
The race was marked by one of the most terrible accidents in the history of Formula One, when on the end of lap 2 at the approach to the Parabolica, German driver Wolfgang von Trips lost control of his Ferrari after colliding with the Lotus of Jim Clark and crashed into a fence line of spectators, killing 15 and himself. The race was not stopped, allegedly to avoid the audience going home en masse jamming the roads around the stadium and thus impeding the rescue work for the injured. This was also the last Formula One race ever to be held on the full 10 kilometres (6.2 mi) Monza circuit, with the two banked corners and the straight between the bankings included.
The race was won by von Trips's American teammate Phil Hill; since von Trips was the only one who could challenge him, Hill won the World Championship with one race to go. Hill's Monza win also assured Ferrari of the Constructors' Championship for 1961.
Philip Toll Hill Jr. (1927-2008) was an American automobile racing driver. He was one of two American drivers to win the Formula One World Drivers' Championship, and the only one who was born in the United States (the other, Mario Andretti, was born in Italy and later became an American citizen). He also scored three wins at each of the 24 Hours of Le Mans and 12 Hours of Sebring sports car races.
Born April 20, 1927, in Miami, Florida, Hill was raised in Santa Monica, California, where he lived until his death. Hill began racing cars at an early age, going to England as a Jaguar trainee in 1949.In 1958, paired with Belgian teammate Olivier Gendebien, Hill became the first American-born winner of the 24 Hours of Le Mans] with Hill driving most of the night in horrific rainy conditions. He and Gendebien would go on to win the endurance race again in 1961 and 1962.
Hill began driving full-time for the Ferrari Formula One team in 1959, earning three podium finishes and fourth place in the Drivers' Championship. In 1960 he won the Italian Grand Prix at Monza, the first Grand Prix win for an American driver in nearly forty years (except the Indianapolis 500, once part of Grand Prix World Championship series), since Jimmy Murphy won the 1921 French Grand Prix. This also turned out to be the last win for a front-engined car in Formula 1.
After leaving Ferrari at the end of 1962, he and fellow driver Giancarlo Baghetti started for the new team ATS created by ex-Ferrari engineers in the great walkout of 1961. In 1964 Hill continued in Formula One, driving for the Cooper Formula One Team before retiring from single-seaters at the end of the season and limiting his future driving to sports car racing with Ford Motor Company and the Chaparral Cars of Jim Hall.
THIS MODEL HAS BEEN IN THE COLECTION SINCE IT CAME TO THE MARKET IN 2015. IT IS A MASTER PIECE BY EXOTO. ALSO: THE PACKAGING MADE BY EXOTO IS SO IMPRESSIVE, THAT I HAVE NOT DARE TO UNPACK IT YET. See the Photos. Instead of the typical photo of the car, I have addeD PHOTSO COMPARING ENGINE AND CHASSIS. I leave it to you to discover which is the actual car and which is the Exoto model. I have other version of Exoto and CMC of the Sharknose 1961 to exhibit in my curio.
