Tony Brooks won the 1959 French Grand Prix at Reims on 5 July, giving Ferrari a major victory on one of the fastest circuits of the season. The result looked strong from the outside: Brooks first, Phil Hill second, and Ferrari taking a one-two. Inside the team, the weekend was far less tidy.
Reims suited Ferrari’s power and Brooks’ coolness. The British driver was one of the cleanest and most precise racers of his era, fast without making a performance look overworked. At Reims he controlled the race ahead of Hill, while Jack Brabham finished third for Cooper, keeping his championship campaign moving in a season that was already pulling Formula 1 toward the rear-engined future.
Behra and Ferrari break apart
The race is also tied to Jean Behra’s final rupture with Ferrari. Behra had joined the team for 1959 after years with Gordini, Maserati and BRM, but the relationship deteriorated badly. Around the French Grand Prix weekend, tensions with team management spilled into a physical confrontation, and Ferrari dismissed him.
It was a harsh ending for a driver who had been a major presence in 1950s Grand Prix racing without ever winning a World Championship race. Behra was brave, combative and often unlucky, a driver good enough to be valued by major teams but never quite placed in the right car at the right moment. Less than a month later, he was killed in a sports car race at AVUS in Berlin.
For Brooks, Reims was part of his strongest Formula 1 season. He would remain in the title hunt, but Brabham’s consistency and Cooper’s efficiency eventually decided the championship. The French Grand Prix therefore sits between two stories: Brooks at his best for Ferrari, and Behra’s career entering its final, bitter turn.
Reader signal