The 1961 Formula One season was the 15th season of Formula One motor racing. It featured the 1961 World Championship of Drivers and the 1961 International Cup for F1 Manufacturers, which were contested concurrently from 14 May to 8 October over an eight race series.

Phil Hill of Ferrari won his only Drivers' Championship after his teammate and rival Wolfgang von Trips was killed at the Italian Grand Prix, the penultimate race of the season. Ferrari won its first F1 manufacturers' title. Hill was the first, and so far only American-born driver to win the World Championship, as the other American champion, Mario Andretti, was born in Italy.

The first year of the 1.5-litre formula was dominated by a well-prepared Ferrari team – the 1961 season was the first time they made a mid-engined car, the legendary 156 "Sharknose" - going against team boss Enzo Ferrari's dislike of mid-engined cars and his old-fashioned belief that mid-engined cars were built by people who did not have enough horsepower. Only Stirling Moss, in an outdated Lotus, was able to beat the Ferraris on two tracks where his skills offset the Ferrari power advantage. Innes Ireland also won a race, the 1961 United States Grand Prix, after Ferrari did not enter the race. Giancarlo Baghetti in a privately-entered Ferrari won the French Grand Prix on his championship debut, the only driver to have done so other than Nino Farina, winner of the first Formula One World Championship race. Baghetti had also won his only two previous Formula One races, the non-championship events at Syracuse and Naples, but the French race was his only win in the World Championship. The contest for the championship between Ferrari's leading drivers, Phil Hill and Wolfgang von Trips, ended in tragedy when von Trips collided with Jim Clark at Monza, killing von Trips and 14 spectators. Hill went on to win the championship.

The number of points awarded to a race winner was increased to nine for the World Championship of Drivers.

Besides von Trips, two other drivers died during this season: Briton Shane Summers during the non-championship Silver City Trophy event at Brands Hatch, and Italian Giulio Cabianca during a test at the Modena Autodrome.