Once again the Indianapolis 500 was included in the World Championship. The 1959 race featured - as usual - no European entries at all. In early practice for the 500 Jerry Unser, who had gone over the wall and survived the previous year, crashed and suffered serious burns. He died 17 days later. There was a second fatality between the two qualifying weekends when Bob Cortner crashed head-on into the wall at Turn Three. The result of qualifying was that Johnny Thompson was ahead of Eddie Sachs and Jim Rathmann. and the race developed into a battle between Rathmann, Thompson, Rodger Ward and Pat Flaherty. Flaherty and Thompson both fell out of the fight and Ward beat Rathmann to the flag by 23 seconds.