Stirling Moss won his 16th and final Formula One Grand Prix, defeating the dominant Ferrari team at the Nürburgring in 1961.
Key Facts
- Race distance
- 213 miles over 15 laps
- Circuit lap length
- 14.2 miles (Nürburgring Nordschleife)
- Moss's victory margin
- Just over 20 seconds ahead of von Trips
- Starters / Finishers
- 26 starters, 16 classified finishers
- Championship milestone
- 100th race since World Championship began in 1950
- Moss's Grand Prix wins
- 16th and last career victory
By the Numbers
Location
Cause → Event → Consequence
Ferrari had dominated the 1961 Formula One season with its 156 model, winning four consecutive races. Stirling Moss, driving a privately entered Lotus 18/21 for the Rob Walker Racing Team, represented one of the few non-Ferrari challengers capable of threatening that dominance, aided by Jack Brabham's early retirement after a sticking throttle caused a crash on the opening lap.
On 6 August 1961, Moss led every lap from the second row of the grid over 15 laps of the 14.2-mile Nürburgring Nordschleife, finishing more than 20 seconds ahead of Ferrari's Wolfgang von Trips and Phil Hill. It was the first German Grand Prix victory for a rear-engined car since 1936 and celebrated as the championship's 100th race.
The victory ended Ferrari's four-race winning streak and pushed Moss into third in the drivers' championship, making him the only non-Ferrari driver still mathematically in contention for the 1961 title. Von Trips's second place secured the constructors' championship for Ferrari, though he died five weeks later at Monza before the season concluded.