Looking at this photo of (left to right) Fangio, Nino Farina, Felice Bonetto, and Toulo de Graffenried in the pits at Monza’s 1951 Italian Grand Prix, I can only assume one thing… That the Alfa-Romeo team had a mandated waistband altitude regardless of driver’s height.
April 23, 1962′s non-championship Glover Trophy race should have been a minor blip on Stirling Moss’ calendar. But when his car had troubles and fell behind he redoubled his efforts and fought hard to climb back up the field. Only to have it all come down again when, after taking the fastest lap, his car careened off the track and crashed into an embankment.
It was an hour before he was extracted from the car. More than a month that he was in a coma; five months to fight off the paralysis that afflicted half his body.
I was among those saddened when Sir Stirling announced his second retirement from racing recently and would no longer be among the vintage racers in the pits at Goodwood and the Monterey Historics and others. That he was around to take part in vintage racing at all is a marvelous bit of good fortune. He’s a tough one.
More at Motorsport Musings, and a hat tip to Scuderiadank.
Clear the next two hours from you calendar, pour yourself a beer, and watch Jackie Stewart’s Tyrrell get airborne on the Nordschleife.
via Pistonheads
Every season I try and give F1 another shot. But more and more I find myself hoping for another series to follow. Something more accessible. Something more inclusive of its fans. Something…. different.
I guess I’ve just never quite forgiven F1 for the 2005 USGP farce.
This footage from various running of Sicily’s non-championship Grand Prix of Syracuse only fuels my desire for a racing series that’s about the race and not the championship. Can you imagine contemporary non-championship races for Formula 1? Or even a reinvigorated Formula 2 (or, better yet, 3). The idea of Moss and Fangio and Ascari and, later, Siffert and Clark running alongside hometown hero local entrants sounds thrilling. The advances in racing technology at the top-levels makes this kind of thing all but impossible today—the notion of a wealthy enthusiast dropping in at Ferrari and buying a customer F1 car is almost laughable. But these images remind me that this type of participation was once commonplace.
The Fifth Rand Grand Prix at Kyalami foreshadowed the international stage that Kyalami, only a year after its construction, was quickly becoming. This Non-Championship race in the ’62 Formula 1 season drew top talent from the British Formula 1 teams in particular with Jim Clark, Graham Hill, and John Surtees along with American Richie Ginther competing on the grid on a December afternoon. Clark won from pole, with Lotus team mate Trevor Taylor three-tenths of a second behind him.
Thanks again to Andrew Duncan who has been sharing with us scans of his program collection from his boyhood visits to Kyalami. See more of the Duncan Collection here.
Somehow Graham Hill even managed to look dapper behind the wheel of this replica of an 1896 Henry Ford Quadricycle. With a top speed of 20 Miles per hour and no brakes, Henry’s contraption was probably a walk in the park for Graham, who seems to be enjoying himself in this shot from ’63; taken while he was on his way to 2nd place in the world championship.
via Jaguar Car Forum
Holy crap.
Goodwood has announced that the 2012 Revival’s Grand Prix grid will include a comprehensive field of Silver Arrows. They have confirmed that in appearance and on track will be the Mercedes-Benz W25, W125, W154 and W165, and examples of the Auto Union Type C and Type D racing alongside other period GP cars. Seeing any one of these at speed would be an absolute thrill. That list right there is six of them. SIX! And there’s likely to be more than one of the Auto Unions.
Just stop and let that sink in for a moment. If you’re like me and keep saying, “maybe next year” each time the Revival rolls around. This might be the year to stop procrastinating.
It doesn’t matter an ounce that Fangio’s Alfetta doesn’t move an inch from it’s starting position for the first minute in this clip of Monza from Hugh Hudson’s film, Fangio.
Want the complete film? Make yourself a snack; strap on your cotton helmet; and enjoy.
This is what a lot of 1963 must have looked like for Jim Clark. His confident expression at the Spa drivers’ meeting before the 1963 Belgian Grand Prix says it all: He was about to own the rest of the year.
I’ve seen countless images of the Grand Prix legends of the 1960s with a bit of gaffers tape obscuring part of their goggles. I never really thought about it until I saw this rather extreme example of Graham Hill’s. Does anyone know why they did this? Was covering the top half of the goggles done to block out the sun? Was it to isolate the extreme motion of items in their peripheral vision? Was it simply to strengthen the goggles themselves?
