The Trident and the 250F

Modena's other great marque won nine championship Grands Prix in the 1950s and carried Juan Manuel Fangio to his fifth and final title in 1957.

Maserati was founded by the Maserati brothers in Modena and was a power in Grand Prix racing long before the World Championship began. Its cars won many races in the 1930s, including the Indianapolis 500 in 1939 and 1940, and the prewar 4CL and its postwar development, the 4CLT, filled the grids when racing resumed after the war. The works team raced as Officine Alfieri Maserati.

Maserati cars were present from the first World Championship race, the 1950 British Grand Prix, mostly in private hands at first. The first championship victory came at the 1953 Italian Grand Prix, where Juan Manuel Fangio won in the A6GCM, a car originally designed for Formula Two. For 1954 Maserati introduced the 250F. Fangio won the first two races of that year with it before moving to Mercedes, and those results counted toward his 1954 title.

Stirling Moss drove the 250F to wins at Monaco and Monza in 1956. Then Fangio returned for 1957 and won four times, in Argentina, at Monaco, in France and at the Nürburgring, to take his last championship. Fangio won seven of the nine championship races won by Maserati cars, and Moss the other two.

Financial difficulty forced the works team to withdraw from Formula One in 1958, even though the 250F was still competitive. Private teams kept racing the car until 1960, and in all Maserati cars started 70 World Championship races from 1950 to 1960. In the 1960s Maserati engines powered Cooper, winning twice, and the company later returned to sports car racing and, in recent years, Formula E.

Drivers

• Juan Manuel Fangio