GRAN PREMIO DE LA REPÚBLICA ARGENTINA 1960

Less than two months after becoming the youngest driver to win a round of the Formula 1 world championship, Bruce McLaren also became the second youngest ever winner, by winning another round. He also became the youngest man to lead the world championship.

Twenty-two year old Bruce McLaren started the 1960 world championship exactly as he finished 1959 — winning in a works Cooper-Climax. On the second to last weekend of January he’d driven the Lycoming to fourth at Wigram but then he was South America bound for the opening round of the new decade. His teammate, Jack Brabham, was the newly crowned world champion — the first to achieve it in a car with the engine behind the driver.

Ferrari continued to resist giving into this movement and arrived in Argentina with three Dino 246s, with their engines where Enzo believed they belonged.

Ferrari’s lead driver of 1959, Tony Brooks, had departed and the cars were handled by northern Englishman Cliff Allison, Californian Phil Hill, and the aristocratic German Wolfgang von Trips. The works Cooper team comprised Jack Brabham and Bruce McLaren, while Stirling Moss conducted Rob Walker’s private entry. BRM also stuck to the front-engined layout