Great Read
John Surtees was always destined to become a constructor. At least that's how it appeared from the outside. For he absolutely knew his own mind – how a team ought…
Great Read
No mistakes this time Long Beach, California, April 8th EACH YEAR the running of the United States Grand Prix (West) through the streets of the town of Long Beach in…
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As I drive, each July, from Frankfurt airport to Hockenheim, it is my invariable practice to pull off into the rest area by the Langen-Morfelden crossing on the autobahn towards Darmstadt. At…
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Only four Indianapolis 500 rookies in 100 years have started from pole: Teo Fabi in 1983 is one. Prematurely balding and softly spoken, his puppy-ish face often apparently bemused, occasionally…
Great Read
Alan Brinton was a good old-school journalist. He was 1950s Fleet Street personified. He addressed everyone as “old boy” or “my dear”, could actually touch-type but, cast adrift by the…
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In order to appropriately mythologise Jackie Stewart, he really should be dead, the better to fulfil the time-served, cruelly macho parapsychology of his chosen sport. Not suburban-dead, felled by atherosclerosis…
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Today’s media like to give our heroes convenient labels. Stirling Moss is “the greatest driver never to win the World Championship” – a glib line which says nothing about The…
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John Godfrey Parry Thomas, holder of the Land Speed Record for nine months in 1926/7 (and 10 days in 1924), was cut from a very different cloth to his more…
Great Read
Jan Magnussen is under few illusions about his Formula 1 career. "I let myself down," he says, "and that always hurts. I planned to be world champion and it didn't…
Great Read
On 17 July 1937, during practice for the German GP, Bernd Rosemeyer fought his wayward Auto Union round the Nürburgring in 9min 46.2sec, a time that staggered the pitlane. By…
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Argentinian Grand Prix, Buenos Aires, 1979 I've always considered Argentina in 1979 to be my first real Grand Prix victory. I'd won in Sweden in 1977, but only because of…
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You are Peter Collins. Young, handsome, living a glamorous life with a film star wife — and quick. You have heaps of respect for Fangio, but today, it would seem,…
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The Hamilton phenomenon has rewritten the Formula 1 record books. But Lewis’s meteoric progress doesn’t diminish the achievements, 37 years ago, of a Brazilian tyro called Emerson Fittipaldi. Emerson was…
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United States GP (East), Watkins Glen, October 5th 1980 From start to finish, the 1980 season was an unbelievable one for me. It was an amazing year because I won…
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Between this year's Australian and Malaysian grands prix, Mrs C and I used up a free week with our first visit to New Zealand. On our travels around the wonderful…
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No racing driver has ever survived such a big accident. And it’s unlikely that a grand prix car will ever again be allowed to run flat out into an earth…
