Great Read

January 1982. Tears at Number 10, newsreaders scrabbling for a map of north-west Africa and travel agents panicking to get News of the World scribes on the first plane to…

It was nominated by readers of Motor Sport as the world's greatest racing car, and it's not hard to see why. Back-to-back Le Mans wins in 1970 and '71 and…

At 8.46 on the morning of January 4 1967 Donald Campbell took what became the last great gamble of his life on Coniston Water. Only moments after speeding down the…

We sat at the start of the opening special stage. The pace notes were on my knee and, behind our heads, the engine burbled away through its twinchoke Dellortos. We…

Death fully defines a man. Potential for things not yet done no longer exists." Someone said this in a book about jazz great Eric Dolphy, but it applies universally to…

There are numerous cars greater than the sum of all their parts. There are few, though, infinitely greater. And this is one of them. From its Unipart-sourced pressure cap to…

Chapman the designer; Chapman the race team manager; Chapman the business entrepreneur; we are used to these pictures of the charismatic Lotus supremo. But way back at the beginning, he…

Niki Lauda is a legend. There is no other word for it. This is the man who cheated death, was given the last rites and went on to win a…

One of IndyCar racing’s greatest stars of the 1970s and ’80s was Johnny Rutherford, who made his name in the early ’60s on dirt tracks and won the Indianapolis 500…

The one that got away Jacques Laffite: 1983 Monaco Grand Prix "There are a few frustrating races I remember from the Ligier days, especially in 1979 and '80 when we had…

He smiles in a manner that appears more resigned than amused. It’s clear that Ian Ashley has heard the same question in various guises all his professional life. “Ah, the…

It was inevitable that the Monza paddock should be a tense place over the weekend of the 2001 Italian Grand Prix. Everyone arrived there on the Thursday, reeling still from the atrocities of…

X stood for experimental, G for Guinness; same manufacturer, but, as you might have already guessed, radically different mindsets. X had its eye on the midterm future, was – or…

One evening, several years ago, and over a degustivo or two, Jenks was reminiscing about the Mille Miglia. "I've often thought," he said, "what fun it would have been to…

What do racers do when they stop racing? All that competitive edge has to go somewhere. Many attack the world of business with the same will to win that they…

What the history books tell you first about Rubens Barrichello are the statistics: and they are indeed extraordinary. This man was 20 when he came into Formula 1, and 39…

Can a man be cursed by having too many abilities? Spending his life torn between what he's got and what he thinks he wants, struggling to confine his talents and…