Race report
The second iteration of the New Zealand International Grand Prix saw the introduction of heats to determine the starting grid positions for the main race. The modified layout from the previous years race to mitigate the slew of cars spinning at the west end of the circuit was retained for the 1955 event. This would be the last year it would be run as, for 1956, Ardmore would revert to the original layout. It was immediately apparent that speeds had drastically increased from the previous year and Bira, with his formidable Maserati 250F and methanol blend fuel mixture, was the fastest of them all in early practice. The two qualifying heats were held mere hours before the race. The first was won by Peter Whitehead while the second was won by Bira.
At the start of the main Grand Prix, Whitehead and Tony Gaze leapt off into an early lead in their Ferraris. However, they were soon vanquished by Bira, who never looked back once he assumed the lead. Both the Ferraris repeatedly made brief calls to the pits during the race, starting from lap 22, while Bira continued to tear around, never needing to venture to the pitlane for the entirety of the race. Whitehead lost 23 seconds in the first stop whilst Gaze lost an entire lap to clear a jammed throttle linkage. Down the pack, local driver Fred Zambucka had trouble negotiating College Corner and spun into the hay bales three times during the course of the race. Australian Stan Coffey exceeded expectations by jostling among the leading pack in the early part of the race before being forced to retire due to oil pressure on lap 16.
From that point, the race was rather processional. However, the effect of Ferrari's pitstops were not immediately apparent. Bira was leading comfortably, but with a handful of laps remaining, Bira's brakes began to fade noticeably and was essentially driving on the gears. The effort required to pull the car up wore out the soles of his shoes and as Gaze scythed past to unlap himself, a late-race challenge by Ferrari might have been feasibly possible had Whitehead and Gaze not lost as much time as they did in the pits. As it was, Bira romped home to take victory, with the winning average speed over six miles an hour faster than the previous year's event. Whitehead and Gaze rounded out the top three, being the only cars other than Bira on the lead lap.
This page is based on this
Wikipedia article Text is available under the
CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
Prince Bira 
