Great Read

One thing about Colin Chapman and his staff at Ketteringham Hall, the Research and Development centre of Team Lotus, is that they do have a go and do not sit…

Sports car racing assumed a distinctly transatlantic flavour in the 1960s when hybrids of European chassis and American V8s began to appear on US race circuits in significant numbers. In…

Passing San Lorenzo, the famous restaurant, the other week, I was reminded of a pleasant lunch there, years ago, with a charming American lady: Louise Collins, widow of Peter. She…

Before Williams and BMW tied the knot in Formula 1 they underwent a trial marriage in sports car racing. Unlike the F1 enterprise it quickly proved successful, adding a Le…

Early September, a couple of days after the Belgian Grand Prix and a few before the Italian at Monza. Christian Horner has just walked into the Silverstone garage, still sporting…

As a devotee of Messrs Cook & Moore, I recently learned with horror that most episodes of Not Only… But Also are lost for ever. Back then the BBC would…

On a cold New York winter evening in February 1954, Rudi Caracciola stepped stiffly from a taxi outside Le Chanteclair restaurant at 18 East 49th Street, between Fifth and Madison.…

Day two of Rally Finland, noodling slowly along a public road between special stages three and four, near a place called Kukkaro, Kimi Räikkönen and co-driver Kaj Lindström have pulled…

Big breath. I have to go there. The matter has to be raised. So best get it out of the way, no point pussyfooting around the edges. So I look…

In 1978, Indycar racing was underpaid, undervalued and under the blundering leadership of the United States Auto Club. Purses were paltry, television money was a joke, sanction fees were laughable…

Daniel Perdridge recieved his orders from the top-secret Special Operations Executive in London on 29 February 1944. The objectives of Operation Clergyman in territory that had been under Nazi Germany's…

Back in 1962 Motoring News ran a story about a young up-and-coming driver. The item concluded that we could expect to hear a good deal more of "this promising North…

Having scaled the heights of back-to-back wins in both the drivers' and constructors' championships in 1959-60, Cooper found the terrain beyond steeply downhill. In 1961 it finished fourth in the…

People – not the cars – are the essence of motor racing history. Unlike the chicken and the egg there's no doubting which comes first. The Maserati 250F was the first…

My lamented friend Jabby Crombac always considered the 1967 Le Mans 24 Hours to have been the greatest in the long history of the race. The quality of the entry,…

Indianapolis track announcer Tom Carnegie was whipping the crowd up. "It's a new track record!" he called as Tom Sneva, driving the Penske-run McLaren-Cosworth, completed the first of four laps…

It was on May Day 1955 that Stirling Moss and Denis Jenkinson won the Mille Miglia, and for almost 40 years it had a joyful resonance for ‘Jenks’. “I associated it…