Racing History

“These men were the best in their profession. Through all the years we worked together I always felt they were much better at their jobs than I was at mine.…

The Iron Curtain was just beginning to twitch when the mechanised might of Formula 1 first rolled into Budapest town. Well, not quite ‘town’ – rather a few clicks northeast.…

When you think of Hollywood film stars who could drive, James Garner is easy to forget. He never came second at Sebring like Steve McQueen, nor at Le Mans like Paul…

“I love this place,” he grins as we look out over the pits towards the huge grandstand. “I’ve been coming here since 1970 and it’s still such an exhilarating place…

He's been a racing driver for 40 years, but still there remains a boyish enthusiasm about Tiff Needell. His autobiography (see Reviews, p129) tells his roller coaster story of 'could've…

If ever proof was needed that for some people, things come all too easily, then look no further than the case of one Stirling Moss. In 1961 he secured his…

Broadley speaking It is hard to pinpoint precisely when Eric Broadley went from being a special builder to becoming a constructor, but in 1958 he appeared with his Lola-Climax Mk1…

Few competitors have made the transition from motorcycle racing to the world of Formula One with the same success as Mike Hailwood. John Surtees of course, for whom Hailwood drove…

Neil Davis was one of Ken Tyrrell’s most trusted and loyal employees, preferring to down tools rather than move to Brackley when BAR took over the team. “I wasn’t terribly…

Dan Gurney's 1967 Belgian Grand Prix-winning Eagle-Weslake is widely regarded as one of the most beautiful grand prix cars ever constructed. From the tip of its shapely Eagle beak, through…

Ray Rowe joined Bruce McLaren Motor Racing Ltd at its lock-up garage in Chessington in April 1965. And he’s still working for Vodafone McLaren-Mercedes at the McLaren Technology Centre in…

Life, for Stirling Moss, continues at 150 mph, a series of bends and obstacles to be taken at maximum throttle. But instead of balancing a Maserati 250F, a Vanwall, a…

As a young engineer at Rolls-Royce, I needed a source of inspiration, like most people, and I looked towards the Alfa Romeo 158/159. Then I was lent by R-R to…

Cooper T72. Goodwood. 1964 by Jean-Pierre Jaussaud Jim Russell opened a school at Magny-Cours, and I won a Cooper-BMC F3 car. I had to collect this car from England and…

The other day I listened again to an interview, recorded in early 1957, with the Marquis Alfonso de Portago. Originally put out on a Riverside LP, it was reissued on…

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…

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…