Racing History

May 19,1957 Monaco Tony Brooks proved that his Vanwall VW 5 could last the distance at the first European Grand Prix of 1957, finishing second at Monaco behind Juan Manuel…

A former racing driver pal remarked recently “Many of this new generation of F1 drivers seem to be quite good blokes”. He spoke in wonderment, but the likes of Charles Leclerc,…

Forty years. Who knows where the time goes? In the midst of one of grand prix racing’s most unpredictable seasons, a friendship pivoted in one controversial afternoon into a deadly…

The photo shows Ayrton Senna typically getting down to detail with his engineer, Steve Hallam (soft cap) and the Lotus crew in the Detroit pitlane in 1985. The man I…

I have had so many great rivals, Jackie Stewart and Jack Brabham in Formula 1, Jochen Rindt in Formula 2, to name just a few, but most of the time…

So the opening races of this season’s new-era Formula 1 saw Mercedes-AMG perform so badly that team principal Toto Wolff declared it “unacceptable”. Although they are rare, this is not…

IN THE SPIRIT OF BOD AND JENKS Editorial +44 (0) 20 7349 8484 [email protected] 18-20 Rosemont Road, London NW3 6NE, UK Editor Joe Dunn Editors-at-Large Gordon Cruickshank & Simon Arron…

Formula 1’s continent-hopping adventures continue. From a double-header in the Middle East to a red-eye return to Australia, the grand prix teams have travelled back to Europe – briefly –…

During 1964 Brabham, BRM, Cooper and Lotus formed the Formula 1 Constructors’ Association, or F1CA as it was then referred to. Ferrari did not join, but then that was Ferrari.…

Homely, unruly – and just about everything in between. Watkins Glen was a curious but captivating mix, best summed up by the charm of the provincial town from which the…

My rivalry with Tim started in Formula 3 at Castle Combe in 1967 and went on for a long time. I was working on my Brabham and this guy comes…

The French pitcrew couldn’t work out how Richard Brooks was repeatedly roaring past the pits with lit cigarette in hand, all while tackling the gruelling Le Mans 24 Hours. It…

Peter Whitehead pitted his Cooper-Jaguar T38 at Le Mans in 1955 just after a catastrophic chain of events had catapulted Pierre Levegh’s Mercedes-Benz 300 SLR through the crowd at 6.26pm.…

When Les Thacker left the British Army in 1963 a move into the oil industry seemed a natural next step. “I wrote to Shell-Mex and BP, and Esso – and…

F1 Retro July 2005 “His skin was totally burnt and blistered. He was in serious trouble — no doubt about it. But that was him — he just wouldn’t let…

I’ve had a few great rivals but the biggest was Colin Turkington. We were team-mates at BMW for three years and we fought each other for the championship in the…

This year absolutely bulges with anniversaries, and one of the most spectacularly exciting Formula 1 races ever run took place on May 12, 1962. The 14th BRDC International Trophy at…