and BRM returned after their Argentine absence and so Stirling Moss, Jean Behra and Harry Schell all went back to their regular drives. In Moss's place at the Rob Walker Racing Team with the new 2000 cc engined Cooper T45 was French driver Maurice Trintignant. The race winning Cooper T43 could not even qualify for the small 16-car Monaco grid, Ron Flockhart was first reserve for the race. Missing from the field was the previous year's winner and reigning World Champion, Juan Manuel Fangio who surprisingly did not have a full-season drive. Fangio himself was in America, preparing for an ultimately disappointing Indianapolis 500 campaign with the Dayton-Walther team. Future Formula One impresario Bernie Ecclestone entered a Connaught B-Type in his first appearance but he failed to qualify, as did two substitute drivers. Also failing to make the grid was 58-year-old Louis Chiron in his final appearance at a Grand Prix. The Monaco local had won the Grand Prix 27 years earlier but Chiron and his Maserati 250F did not make it past qualifying. Tony Brooks took pole position in his Vanwall VW 5 but Behra won the start. He led until his brakes failed in his BRM P25, and Mike Hawthorn swept by in the Ferrari Dino 246. Moss had been duelling with him throughout the race until he retired on lap 38, and Hawthorn followed suit on lap 47 with a broken fuel pump. Graham Hill retired from fourth place in his first race on lap 69, after briefly leading. Vanwall pair Brooks and Stuart Lewis-Evans retired, leaving Trintignant to lead home the Ferraris by some 20 seconds giving Rob Walker his second race win of the year. Behind the Ferraris of Luigi Musso and Peter Collins was Jack Brabham in the factory Cooper T45, although three laps down and still looking a long way from becoming the next years champion. Schell in his BRM P25 was a further six laps behind Brabham picking up the final points after Wolfgang von Trips had an engine failure in the closing stages in his Ferrari Dino 246. The only other car still circulating was the second Lotus 12 of Cliff Allison, 13 laps behind Trintignant. Trintignant's win put to the sword the belief that rear-engined Cooper victory achieved by Stirling Moss in Argentina was a one-off freak circumstance win and the smaller British cars would be treated more seriously, although ultimately a Cooper would not win again until 1959. The Rob Walker Racing Teams pair of early 1958 victories would remain the best ever performance by a privateer team until the rise of Tyrrell Racing in the late 1960s.
