Entry

The event's entrants list should have been closed on 15 August, but due to a strike in France, the entry list couldn't be closed until 24 August.^[3] A total of 45 cars were initially registered for the event on 24 August.^[4] However, many teams decided to withdraw their registrations. These included the private Jaguar entrants of J. B. Swift and T. H. Wisdom,^[5] the Porsche's due to recent crashes in races at the weekend before the event.^[6] The Italian Stanguellini cars were withdrawn,^[7] potentially due to a shortage of cars due to recent crashes.^[3] Only 28 entrants arrived for practice and qualifying. None of the leading works teams made the trip across to Northern Ireland from mainland Europe. However, from England, the two works teams of Jaguar Cars Ltd. and Aston Martin took part. The team from Coventry arrived with three cars, Jaguar C-Types for the all British pairings of Tony Rolt/Duncan Hamilton, Stirling Moss/Peter Walker, and Peter Whitehead/Ian Stewart. Aston Martin also brought along three of their DB3S, with Reg Parnell pairing up alongside Eric Thompson. Roy Salvadori/Dennis Poore and Peter Collins/Pat Griffith made up the crew of the other two Astons. Also from England came three works entered Frazer Nash Le Mans Mk IIs and Kieft-Bristols.^[8]

Going into this round, Ferrari were leading the Manufacturers Championship by just two points from Jaguar. With no representation in the race, Ferrari would be unable score any points, but due to the nature of the scoring system where only the best four results out of the seven races could be retained by each manufacturer, Jaguar would need to finish at least second to score any points, with only one race remaining in the championship- the Carrera Panamericana in Mexico some 2+1⁄2 months away.

Race

Although World Championship points were awarded based on scratch order, this race was run as a handicap race. The race was run over 111 laps, but no cars started from scratch: the largest cars, the Jaguars, had a handicap of 4 laps and 5 minutes, 11.21 seconds. The race would end once any car completed 111 handicap laps.^[9]

Conditions of the race were foggy. Despite this, Aston Martin would finish in first and second places, both cars on the same lap. Car number 20, driven by Collins and Griffith took an impressive victory, winning in a time of 9hrs 37:12 mins., averaging a speed of 81.715 mph. Second place went to Parnell and Thompson, in their DB3S, just 3:23 minutes behind. The podium was completed by the winner of the two previous Tourist Trophy races held at Dundrod, Moss, aided by his co-driver, Walker, in their Jaguar C-Type.^[10][11][12]

Class Winners

^[10]