Great Read

Most of the drivers who've related the tale of their 'Worst Racing Car' can now look back on the experience with a smile. It may have been awful at the…

I first met James back in 1971 when I joined the March team for my first season of international Formula Two racing. In those days I was living in London,…

Jan Opperman sprint car rebel, flower child and holy roller Christian minister with magic roaring out of his ears — was a trendsetter. This was in the 1970s. Emulating their…

I met Pedro Rodriguez de la Vega just once, although I watched him with huge enthusiasm from the spectator areas for the last couple of years of a career that…

Talk about going out in style! Not only did Phil Hill win the last professional race he entered — the BOAC 500 at Brands Hatch in 1967 — but as a…

For many of us, grand prix racing entered a fallow period after the death in May 1982 of Gilles Villeneuve, and none felt that more keenly than Denis Jenkinson. Even…

John Miles beckons me over with a crook of a gloved index finger. He points to a smear of blue paint on the inside of the monocoque. "See that? This…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

In motor sport these days, the term ‘privateer’ has fallen into disuse. Outside the professional teams, most serious racers either have access to much personal wealth – their own or…

Date: 20 July 1985, 3.12pm Location: Silverstone Circuit, Northamptonshire Event: Final qualifying, British Grand Prix Point of interest: Then the fastest F1 lap of all time Not many Formula 1…

Late at night on July 14 1973, Andrea de Adamich lay in a hospital bed in Milan, his legs both broken. Life as a Grand Prix driver had come to…

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…