F1/Seasons/1959/Round 2
1959 · Round 2 of 9

Indianapolis 500

May 30, 1959 · Indianapolis Motor Speedway · Indianapolis · USA
Ward
WINNER
Rodger Ward · Watson · from grid 6
FASTEST LAP
Lap timing starts in 2004. This race has none.
+18
MOST PLACES GAINED
Paul Russo · grid 27 to P9
16 of 33
CLASSIFIED
17 retired

01/Classification

33 cars
Finishing order
PosDriverConstructorGrid+/-LapsTime / statusPtsFastest lap
1Rodger WardWatson6+52003:40:49.2008
2Jim RathmannWatson3+1200+23.2806
3Johnny ThomsonLesovsky1-2200+50.6405
4Tony BettenhausenEpperly15+11200+1:47.0903
5Paul GoldsmithEpperly16+11200+2:06.4402
6Johnny BoydEpperly11+5200+3:16.9800
7Duane CarterKurtis Kraft12+5200+4:09.9200
8Eddie JohnsonKurtis Kraft80200+4:10.5300
9Paul RussoKurtis Kraft27+18200+4:11.0400
10Anthony FoytKuzma17+7200+4:14.4800
11Gene HartleyKuzma9-2200+5:42.4800
12Bob VeithMoore7-5200+6:09.7300
13Al HermanDunn23+10200+6:40.4000
14Jimmy DaywaltKurtis Kraft13-1200+6:41.5400
15Chuck ArnoldKurtis Kraft21+6200+8:19.8600
16Jim McWitheyKurtis Kraft33+17200+11:41.6900
REddie SachsKuzma2182Spun off0
RAl KellerKuzma28163Engine0
RPat FlahertyWatson18162Accident0
RDick RathmannWatson4150Heat shield fire0
RBill CheesbourgKuzma30147Magneto0
RDon FreelandKurtis Kraft25136Magneto0
RRay CrawfordElder32115Accident0
RDon BransonPhillips10112Suspension0
RBob ChristieKurtis Kraft24109Engine0
RBobby GrimKurtis Kraft585Magneto0
RJack TurnerChristensen1447Fuel leak0
RChuck WeyantKurtis Kraft2945Accident0
RJud LarsonKurtis Kraft1945Accident0
RMike MagillSutton3145Accident0
RRed AmickKurtis Kraft2645Accident0
RLen SuttonLesovsky2234Accident0
RJimmy BryanEpperly201Engine0

Ordered on the source’s position column and printed from position_text. Those two disagree on purpose: position is a sort key that is never null, and position_text is what happened to the car. 17 of 33 cars here were not classified (17 retired). Across the archive that is 9,612 of 26,048 result rows, so a page that printed the sort key would tell more than a third of every field it finished.


02/Grid to finish

16 of 33 cars
Grid minus finishing position
PLACES GAINED
DriverConstructorGridFin+/-
Paul RussoKurtis Kraft279+18
Jim McWitheyKurtis Kraft3316+17
Tony BettenhausenEpperly154+11
Paul GoldsmithEpperly165+11
Al HermanDunn2313+10
PLACES LOST
DriverConstructorGridFin+/-
Bob VeithMoore712-5
Johnny ThomsonLesovsky13-2
Gene HartleyKuzma911-2
Jimmy DaywaltKurtis Kraft1314-1

Movement is grid minus finishing position, and it is computed for 16 of the 33 cars entered. It is left blank for the other 17: a car that was not classified has no finishing position to subtract from, and no car here carries grid 0, the value the source uses for a pit lane start or for no recorded grid slot. Scoring a grid of 0 as a gain of every place on the grid is the arithmetic this rule exists to stop; 266 of 26,048 rows across the archive are grid 0, and 40 of those were classified.


03/The 1959 season

9 rounds
MAY 10 to DEC 12
RdDateGrand PrixCircuitWinnerConstructorCars
1MAY 10Monaco Grand PrixCircuit de MonacoJack BrabhamCooper-Climax16
2MAY 30Indianapolis 500Indianapolis Motor SpeedwayRodger WardWatson33
3MAY 31Dutch Grand PrixCircuit Park ZandvoortJo BonnierBRM15
4JUL 5French Grand PrixReims-GueuxTony BrooksFerrari22
5JUL 18British Grand PrixAintreeJack BrabhamCooper-Climax24
6AUG 2German Grand PrixAVUSTony BrooksFerrari15
7AUG 23Portuguese Grand PrixMonsanto Park CircuitStirling MossCooper-Climax16
8SEP 13Italian Grand PrixAutodromo Nazionale di MonzaStirling MossCooper-Climax21
9DEC 12United States Grand PrixSebring International RacewayBruce McLarenCooper-Climax19

Every figure here is one race, read from f1_results and f1_races. The finishing order is the source’s position column; the printed position is position_text, which is a letter on 9,612 of 26,048 rows across the archive (R retired 9,089, W withdrew 364, D disqualified 159). Grid 0 is a pit lane start and prints as PIT, not as a place ahead of pole; 266 of 26,048 rows are grid 0. Time is a total for the winner and a gap to the car ahead for everyone else, and it is present on 8,508 of 26,048 rows only, so most of the archive shows the status instead; where both exist and the status is not “Finished” the status is printed beside the time, because 8,335 of 16,436 classified rows finished lapped or otherwise not cleanly. The fastest lap column is empty before 2004: the source carries lap timing on 8,977 of 26,048 rows and a ranked fastest lap in 447 of 1,161 races, and speed on 8,238 of those, none after 2024. Points are printed as the source stores them and are never rounded to a whole number: 38 of 26,048 rows are fractional (0.5, 1.33, 3.14), which is half points for a shortened race and a split score for a shared car, and every one of them is real. Three races (1951 French, 1956 Argentine, 1957 British) print two cars as first, because two drivers shared one car and the record books credit both; in those three the source hangs the race points on other rows, which is why 5 of 1,164 winning rows across the archive print zero points. Constructors carry no logo in any f1_* table, so none is drawn and none is invented. The 1959 season is complete at 9 rounds.