Indy & F1

[Peter Mallett]

Michael.

An interesting question and as a first stab I’ll give you my understanding of the situation.

The World Driver’s Championship started in 1950 (at Silverstone). The qualifying races that year were The British, Monaco, Swiss, Belgian, French and Italian Grands Prix. The Indy 500 also took place and the points scorers in that race were included in the WDC. As you can see the WDC was actually the EDC (European Driver’s Championship) and therefore the inclusion of the Indy 500 gave it the “World” epithet.

The result of the Indy 500 in 1950 was:

1st Johnny Parsons (USA)
2nd Bill Holland (USA)
3rd Walt Faulker (USA)

This appears to continue, with no European/Formula one drivers or cars entering the Indy 500 until 1959 when the Indy 500 took place on 30 May and the first World Championship US Grand Prix occurred on 12 December!

The results of both races were:

Indy 500
Rodger Ward (USA)
Jim Rathmann (USA)
Johnny Thomson (USA)

US GP
Bruce McLaren (NZ)
Maurice Trintignant (Fr)
Tony Brooks (GB)

1960 appears to be the last time that the results of Indy 500 appeared as part of the WDC.

During its time in the WDC the regulations were never unified. So I would guess that it would have been impossible to run an “Indy” car in the Formula One WDC.

I hope others out there can provide more or better info.