The bespectacled American driver Masten Gregory is seen here driving a Maserati 250F for Mimmo Dei’s privateer Maserati team at the 1957 Pescara Grand Prix. The car’s original color was red but was repainted especially for him in the traditional American colors of blue and white shortly after the Monaco race that season.
The Pescara circuit was a 16.032-mile road course that featured two four-mile straights. It holds the distinction of being the longest circuit ever to hold a World Championship Grand Prix. The Pescara circuit was used frequently for Grand Prix racing in the thirties but was seldom used for F1 World Championship Grand Prix races. This 1957 Grand Prix race was elevated to World Championship status due to cancellations of other races that season. It also later proved to be the last time the circuit would hold a World Championship F1 Grand Prix.
For the race, Gregory qualified his mount 7th and started on the third row for the race. The rookie performed admirably, finishing on the lead lap in fourth position behind race winner Stirling Moss, second place finisher Juan Manuel Fangio and Harry Schell. This was only Gregory’s third World Championship Grand Prix start and the second in which he would score championship points. The first was his brilliant 3rd place finish at Monaco in his first F1 World Championship start which incidentally was the first podium finish ever scored by an American in F1. He later went on to score another fourth place finish in the season ending Italian Grand Prix at Monza. He finished sixth in the World Championship that season while participating in only half of the races. Impressive, since he accomplished all of this running up against the factory teams of Ferrari, Maserati, Vanwall, Cooper and BRM.
Gregory earned his shot at Formula One for the 1957 season after an impressive performance in a sportscar race at Buenos Aires in front of all the big shots of international racing. Gregory shared the win in the Argentine 1000km with Eugenio Castelloti and Luigi Musso, which came one week after the season opening F1 race in Buenos Aires. His impressive performance resulted in an opportunity for him to fill in for Peter Collins’ Lancia-Ferrari D50 in the non-championship F1 Grand Prix at this same circuit the following week. He was then offered a contract to drive for Ferrari as a fourth driver but he turned it down since he would only get to race in a couple of Grand Prix races a year. Instead, he preferred to be racing over standing around on the sidelines and consequently accepted ride driving for Mimmo Dei’s Scuderia Centro Sud team.
The 1958 season saw Gregory back driving Maserati 250Fs again for Scuderia Centro Sud. Unfortunately, injuries kept him from competing much of the season, but it probably did not matter as the four year old Maserati 250F was past its prime. However, he did manage a sixth place finish in the season ending Moroccan Grand Prix. The injuries he incurred during the 1958 season were the result of one of his trademarked high-speed bailouts during a sports car race at Silverstone.
Gregory’s best F1 ride came in 1959 driving for Cooper. However, after scoring his best finish of his F1 career with a second place finish at the Portuguese Grand Prix and then sustaining a season ending injury in a sportscar race at Goodwood, Masten Gregory’s contract with Cooper surprisingly was not renewed for the 1960 season. Masten, along with close friend Carroll Shelby believed that he had been a victim of team politics. Specifically believing that World Champion Jack Brabham had John Cooper fire him because he viewed him as a threat.
From 1960 onward, Gregory toiled in generally unreliable and less competitive equipment for various independent teams: Scuderia Centro Sud, Camoradi International, UDT Laystall, Tim Parnell, and Reg Parnell Racing. The best finishes Gregory was able to produce before his Formula One career ended in 1965, occurred during the 1962 season when he drove a Lotus 24 for the UDT Laystall team. He finished seventh in the British Grand Prix at Aintree, sixth in the US Grand Prix at Watkins Glen as well as a win in the non-championship Kannonloppet F1 race at Karlskoga, Sweden. At the French Grand Prix, he was running fourth behind Dan Gurney (the eventual winner) before having to retire due to ignition problems. Otherwise, it might have produced an interesting scenario of the two Americans battling it out for their first Formula One win.
There is no doubt that Masten Gregory was a championship-calibre driver who never got the opportunity to display his talent in frontline equipment. Carroll Shelby said that Masten was the fastest American that ever went over to drive a Grand Prix car. Looking back at his career, the decision that probably cost him an opportunity to challenge for a World Driver Championship, was his decision to turn down an offer as a fourth driver at Ferrari in 1957. If he had signed on with Ferrari at that time, he more than likely would have been promoted to a number one driver like Phil Hill was in 1959. Hill started off as a fourth driver for Ferrari in 1958, performed well and worked his way up the ladder at Ferrari due to the deaths of drivers Peter Collins and Luigi Musso during the 1958 season as well as the retirement (and subsequent death) of Mike Hawthorn after the season’s conclusion.
Fortunately, Masten Gregory had better luck with his sports car career, winning the highly coveted Nürburgring 1000km in 1961 and the Le Mans 24 Hours in 1965 as well as quite a few other minor non-championship sports car races. The Nürburgring win in 1961 was in a Birdcage Maserati T61 and represents the last major win for a Maserati. The 1965 Le Mans win came in a Ferrari 275LM and incidentally was the last time a Ferrari has ever won Le Mans outright. Gregory also had an impressive run at Indianapolis in 1965, running in the Indy 500. He started on the last row (31st), passed 14 cars before the first turn of the opening lap and was running fifth before engine problems ended his great run.
Gregory decided to distance himself from competitive racing in 1972 after the death of long time friend Jo Bonnier. He never officially retired because he felt that was phony since many drivers would announce their retirement and then come back. He died unexpectedly of a heart attack in his sleep at the age of 53 at his winter home in Porto Ercole, Italy.
Although other Americans raced in Formula One before him, Masten Gregory was a pioneer since he was the first American-born driver to compete in F1 on a regular basis. He also carries the following distinctions: 1) First American to score a podium finish in a F1 World Championship Grand Prix (1957 Monaco GP), 2) Second American to ever lead a lap in a F1 World Championship Grand Prix (at the 1959 Dutch GP), 3) First American to record the fastest lap overall in a sports car race at Le Mans (at the 1960 Le Mans 24 Hours).
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