Great Read

On hearing of Sir Jack Brabham’s recent death – at the age of 88 – Australian enthusiast Alec Hawkins sat down at a computer keyboard and submitted the following to…

Pre-war motor racing was well reported by the British weeklies The Motor and The Autocar, with Tom Moore and friends in Motor Sport having more time to get it right.…

Ferrari was the clear pre-season favourite. Team leader John Surtees wasn't so sure, however: he was less than thrilled with the new 3-litre V12, hardly enamoured of team manager Eugenio…

The world was a very different place back in 1978. In Great Britain the Labour Party, led by Jim Callaghan, was desperately hanging onto power with Margaret Thatcher and the…

Its paintwork so dark that on a murky day the green could have been taken for black, the big Lister-Jaguar appeared to flex its shoulders as it powered through the…

During a break between sessions at the 1989 Le Mans 24 Hours, I bumped into event rookie Roland Ratzenberger in the back of the paddock. A pal since his Formula…

Ross Brawn and Adrian Newey have won all but three of 22 world championships for constructors since 1992. The current score is Newey 10, Brawn 9. These two, more than…

I’d known about the autobiography of Peter Revson for years, but never felt inclined to read it. Revson’s was a supporting role on the global motor racing stage: not a…

The great perk of this job is the privilege of getting to know, often quite well, so many talented, single-minded people who have carved out great careers in the cockpit,…

A catch-up with Mark Webber over lunch in a Buckinghamshire pub, near the delightful house in which he and his partner Ann have lived these many years. It was perhaps…

Just as in April 1962, the motor racing world is on tenterhooks as a giant who once bestrode the sport lies in a coma in a hospital bed. While we…

Was Jean Behra the greatest driver never to win a World Championship Grand Prix? Paul Fearnley examines his case with the 1957 season where the Frenchman racked up non-championship and sports car wins as he raced with and against the likes of Fangio and Moss

A curious term, greatness. Some like to measure it in statistical terms, but naked numbers tell only a partial story – and sometimes not even that. Common examples? Stirling Moss…

For most of 2009, a quarter of the drivers on the Grand Prix grids were from Germany. And, thanks to the long reign of Michael Schumacher, that country is statistically…

It takes time for certain cars to assume their place in history. Cars that achieve firsts are easy to recognise and remember, for their importance is clear to see from…

In 1985, Michele Alboreto's star was on the rise. The first Italian to drive for Ferrari for over a decade, he was on the podium eight times in the first…

When the flag waved to start the 1953 Indianapolis 500 it was already an infernally hot and humid day with the temperature in the mid-30s centigrade. At the time part…