A couple of months after the tragic 1958 season - which had seen the deaths of Luigi Musso, Peter Collins and Stuart Lewis-Evans - Tony Vandervell, the boss of the Vanwall team, announced that he was withdrawing from Grand Prix racing because of ill-health. A couple of weeks after that announcement Mike Hawthorn, the retired World Champion, was killed in a road accident.

There was considerable change to the driver lineup for the 1959 season with Stirling Moss joining Rob Walker's privateer Cooper team alongside Maurice Trintignant, Tony Brooks moving to Ferrari to join BRM refugee Jean Behra and Phil Hill and Lotus driver Cliff Allison. Bruce McLaren joined Jack Brabham in the factory Cooper team, as Roy Salvadori was recruited to drive for a new Aston Martin team, with team mate Carroll Shelby. BRM retained Harry Schell and Jo Bonnier and Ron Flockhart rejoined to replace Behra.

The first World Championship race did not take place until May but there were three non-championship F1 before that: The Glover Trophy at Good, the BARC 200 at Aintree and the International Trophy at Silverstone. The new 2.5-liter Coventry Climax engine was very competitive and Moss won the first race for Cooper, Behra the second for Ferrari and Brabham the third for Cooper.

It was no surprise, therefore, that these three men were alongside one another on the front row at Monaco with Moss ahead of Behra and Brabham. On the second row were Brooks and Phil Hill and the third row featured Trintignant, Bonnier and Salvadori (driving a High Efficiency Motors Cooper-Maserati as the Aston Martins were not ready.

Behra took the lead at the start and led Moss and Brabham. It was not until lap 22 that Moss managed to get ahead of Behra and Brabham followed through on the next lap as the Ferrari suffered engine failure. This promoted Phil Hill to third place although he would later spin and be overtaken by Schell and Brooks. On lap 81 Moss pitted with transmission trouble. He rejoined but retired almost immediately. This left Brabham out in front of Brooks with Trintignant third. Phil Hill had had three spins but was still fourth. Bruce McLaren finished fifth four laps down while Salvadori was classified sixth 17 laps behind. The race was Jack Brabham's first World Championship victory.