1959 German Grand Prix

Championship standings

Brabham leads Brooks by 13 points after the British Grand Prix.

Previous race

At Aintree, Brabham took his second win of the season, leading all 75 laps from pole. Moss finished second for BRP, with Bruce McLaren — Brabham’s Cooper teammate — completing the podium just 0.2 seconds behind Moss, having lost second late in the race. Ferrari were absent due to labour disputes in Italy.

On the final lap, McLaren set the fastest lap at 21 years and 322 days, becoming the youngest driver to set a fastest lap in Formula One.

Race format

AVUS presents unique safety concerns: the circuit’s north end is defined by a brick-banked turn angled at 43 degrees, and the only direction of travel is left turns. To manage tyre wear, the race is split into two heats of 30 laps each. The aggregate times determine the results. Streamlining is also forbidden — all cars must run with their front wheels exposed at all times.

Entrants

Jean Behra, dismissed by Ferrari after the French Grand Prix, is entered for the Porsche works team in a Behra-Porsche Special for the Grand Prix. He also raced a Porsche RSK in the Formula Two support event that preceded the main race. Behra was killed in that support race when his car went over the top of the banking and his head struck a flagpole. In response, Porsche has withdrawn from the Grand Prix.

Cliff Allison had been listed as a reserve driver; with the Porsche withdrawal, he is permitted to start — but from the back of the grid. Despite setting the outright fastest time in practice, Allison had been classified only as a reserve entrant, so Tony Brooks remains on pole.

Brooks’s pole time at AVUS is the fastest Formula One practice lap recorded to this point — an average speed of 149 mph (240 km/h).