Antonio Brivio

The son of a wealthy textile manufacturer from Vercelli, near Milan, Italy, Marquis Antonio Brivio was one of the great Italian prewar racers: a gentleman driver every bit as professional as his main rivals, Tazio Nuvolari and Achille Varzi. He, like his two more famous contemporaries, was a tough and daring fighter who never gave up. His victory in the 1936 Mille Miglia proved this point, despite the fact that the lights of his P3-engined Alfa Romeo 2900A supercar blacked out 10 times in the last 85 miles.

In addition to winning the Mille Miglia, Brivio’s impressive list of credits include victories in the Targa Florio, the 1932 24-Hours of Spa and the 1933 Grand Prix of Sweden, not to mention helping to found the F1 World Championship when he was the president of the CSAI (the Italian motor sport governing body, ed); it was he who proposed to the Federation Internationale du Sport Automobile that an F1 world championship be established, a proposal the international motor sport sanctioning body accepted and implemented the following year.