Peter Revson: All work no playboy

Peter Revson, the driver whom Andrew Frankel says “might have the unique distinction of being remembered as less of a driver than he actually was”, took his debut F1 win at the British GP 50 years ago this month.

In our April 2014 archive piece, Frankel looks back on the career of a competitor many dismissed as a playboy, but who was in fact a serious contender and who, like so many drivers in a dangerous era, had his life cut cruelly short – the heir to the Revlon cosmetics fortune was killed testing at Kyalami in 1974.

His greatest day at the wheel came one year before that at Silverstone in 1973, a race often remembered for how it started, not how it ended.

Jody Scheckter initiated a nine-car pile-up on lap one, but it was Revson who held his nerve to win out on a day of attrition.

The New Yorker saw off the attentions of Ronnie Peterson and Denny Hulme, adding to his tally with another win later in the year in Canada.

“One of the greatest injustices was the reputation Peter got as a playboy,” said Mark Donohue at Revson‘s funeral. “He was anything but that. Nobody ever applied himself any harder to succeed in what he did.”

To read the full story, click here