"Stand back, they are all going off on a warm-up lap. Bonnier is very late starting; something wrong with a rear-wheel fixing; did his mechanic strip the studs?" "Here they…
Great Read
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…
Great Read
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…
Great Read
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…
In a book shop the other day, I noticed by chance a volume on the life and, for want of a better word, works of Mark Thatcher (no, please, stay…
Great Read
The lights blinked yellow before the day-glo car hit the wall. The puff of dust as it dived into Turn 1 had told USAC chief observer Walt Myers all he…
Great Read
A few weeks after storming the Brickyard in May, Dan Wheldon arrived for the Indycar race at the Texas Motor Speedway wearing a T-shirt announcing, 'Actually, I won the Indy 500'.…
The clues to greatness were there to be seen, even in that first car. Professor Ferdinand Porsche's passion for motorsport rivalled even that of Enzo Ferrari, and when he and…
Bruno Giacomelli 1990 LIFE F190 Italy's economy boom threw up some strange F1 outfits, but none stranger than life, whose bizarre W12 engine gave 440BHP less than the Honda unit…
In recent years there's been a spate of new circuits in world championship use, and I mean tracks not merely new to Formula One, but tracks new, period, built in…
Great Read
No one got hurt in the US Grand Prix at Indianapolis in 2005, but otherwise it was one of the most disastrous days in the history of Formula 1. Michelin,…
Great Read
Not even the brilliance of Michael Schumacher, who sat in the wheel tracks of the Williams for the last 20 laps of the European Grand Prix, could deprive Jacques Villeneuve…
Great Read
Bowler hat with plaid plus-fours — Ettore Bugatti was distinctly different. Italian by birth, he constructed the archetypal French racing car in Alsace-Lorraine, a region that Germany was occupying when…
Great Read
"I actually had the idea back in 1968 but for a completely different application." The words belong to Derek Gardner, designer of the Tyrrell Project 34, one of the most…
The worst car I ever drove By putting a fuel tank between the engine and gearbox and having power steering and having power steering, the Ligier JS31 was the most…
Great Read
The 1982 Monaco GP is not remembered for a thrilling battle, or one particular drive. It claims a place in the history books thanks to the extraordinary happenings of the…
