Not long before his untimely death a few years ago, our Robert Newman wrote this tribute to his friend and...
Today, Franco Cortese is, perhaps, one of motor sport’s forgotten stars—and he shouldn’t be. He was the driver who put...
One of my favorite motor racing personalities was Piers Courage, a talented young gentleman racer, as well as a member of a famous British brewing family. A public schoolboy with an upper-class English accent, Piers was a charming person, completely devoid of the airs of the super rich—and very much...
Woolf Barnato is the man with a perfect score. He entered the 24 Hours of Le Mans three times and...
Immediately after the Second World War, Jean-Pierre Wimille, Louis Chiron, Philippe Etancelin, and Raymond Sommer carried France’s colors back into...
Dad was a part-time taxi driver and Mom a secretary, and five-year-old Mika plagued the life out of them to let him race a kart. They hired one for him, but he crashed it on the first lap of his first race, so kart racing was a no-no in the...
If he lasted long enough—that is, if he didn’t get killed in the process—canny observers thought this young South African...
Juan Manuel Fangio Biography Affectionately known as “bandy legs” by his many fans, Juan Manuel Fangio was born in Balcarce,...
Bandini in the Ferrari T1512/63 during the non-championship International Trophy race at Silverstone in the Spring of 1965, where he finished 7th. Milan was in mourning the first time I visited the cathedral city, in the late spring of 1967. In fact, all of Italy hung its collective head in...
Louis Chiron Biography Born in August 1899, the son of a French hotelier in Monaco he became that principalities most...
Up from 4th on the grid, Mairesse (#40) battles Graham Hill (#10) and Dan Gurney (#4) for the lead into...
This large, domineering man invented the job of motor racing team manager and in doing so changed the way the sport was run forever. Believe it or not, racing drivers of the 1920s used to thrash around circuits for hours on end without ever knowing their position or even whether...
Berger drove the Benetton B197 to pole and victory at the 1997 German Grand Prix.Photo: Jim Hatfield The world held...
It took a racing department of 240 people and a huge budget to put Michael Schumacher on top of the...
Manfred von Brauchitsch Biography He was called die Pechvogel, the unlucky bird. He was known more for the races that he lost than those that he had won, but to dismiss him as a journeyman driver would do him a great disservice. While not at the level of his teammates Caracciola, Fagioli...
The story of the Marzotto brothers and their brief but mercurial motor racing careers was mostly about Giannino winning the...
Richie Ginther Biography Those readers familiar with the Grand Prix History website know that central to this site is the...
Achille Varzi was the opposite of his capricious nemesis Tazio Nuvolari, who was steeped in instinctive talent. Varzi was a controlled, calculating driver, a ruthless opponent, ferocious in exploiting his adversaries’ weaknesses and was, of course, immensely fast. As a man, he could be charming, had a sardonic sense of...
Jimmy Murphy Biography Jimmy Murphy was born in 1894 but tragedy soon struck the Murphy family when his mother died...
Michael Schumacher Biography Michael Schumacher was born on the third of January 1969 to Rolf and Elisabeth Schumacher. The family...
Alessandro Zanardi is an inspiration to us all. Here is a double CART champion who lost both his legs in a devastating motor racing accident in 2001, nearly bled to death, underwent more surgery in which his legs were further shortened to allow them to heal, fought back through a...
Like his uncle Gianni Agnelli, Ludovico Scarfiotti was a suave, well-mannered gentleman who was no stranger to the privileges of...
King George V thought it was very funny. “You’re late, my boy,” he guffawed. The world’s fastest human being had...
One was born in Shelbyville, Indiana, in 1902 and the other in a cramped workshop in Bologna, northern Italy, 35 years later. Yet, when the two came together, they astounded the world by winning the Indianapolis 500 twice, in 1939 and 1940. Wilbur Shaw built his first car when he...
He was elusive. Confined to a wheelchair, but more difficult to pin down than most people with the full use...
No way did Elisabeth Junek look like a racing driver. She was, well, a woman to begin with, and there...
Eddie Irvine has been a shrewd operator for most of his adult life. He carefully maneuvered himself into the second seat at Ferrari and kept it for four years—no mean feat in itself—where he developed just the right blend of acquiescence and competitiveness to create a positive working relationship with...
The two 3165-cc Alfa Romeo V8 engines in the one car had to be a handful, but that did not...
Until the outbreak of World War I (1914–18), a Targa Florio had been staged every year since 1906, so Vincenzo...
Markku Alén is the person-ification of his favorite rallying expression: maximum attack. Words he lived by throughout his illustrious career, firmly establishing himself as one of the world’s greatest rally drivers. Markku was World Champion in 1978, the last year of the FIA Cup, and ruled the rally world again...
