1958 Season

Team and driver changes

Maserati have withdrawn their works team after financial difficulties, despite the 250F remaining competitive. Multiple private teams have adopted the existing chassis and will continue to campaign it through the season.

Lotus make their World Championship debut. Colin Chapman’s team enters with the Lotus 12-Climax.

BRM begin their first full-time season in Formula One, hiring former Maserati drivers Jean Behra and Harry Schell. Cooper enter more races than ever while retaining their drivers from 1957.

Calendar

The season runs over eleven races between January and October. The Dutch and Belgian Grands Prix return to the calendar after being cancelled in 1956 and 1957 due to the Suez Crisis. The Pescara Grand Prix is dropped, having only been added as a replacement for those cancelled rounds.

The Portuguese and Moroccan Grands Prix host their first World Championship rounds. After one year at Rouen-Les-Essarts, the French Grand Prix returns to Reims-Gueux. The British Grand Prix moves from Aintree to Silverstone, in keeping with the event-sharing arrangement between the two circuits.

The Indianapolis 500 counts towards the Drivers’ Championship but not the new Manufacturers’ Cup.

Regulation changes

The International Cup for F1 Manufacturers is awarded for the first time. Points are scored by the highest-finishing car of each constructor per race; fastest lap points do not count, and Indianapolis 500 results are excluded. As with the Drivers’ Championship, only the best six results count.

Minimum race distances are reduced to 300 kilometres or two hours, whichever comes first. Car sharing during a race is discouraged by withholding championship points from any shared drive.

Commercial petrol becomes compulsory, replacing the specialised alcohol-based racing fuels used in previous seasons. The change is introduced late, meaning some teams will need time to re-tune their engines to suit the new fuel.