The back straight is quite short, but we’re already running out of revs in top gear. The 100-year-old car is now in a proper hurtle, engine bellowing, tyres singing their…
Great Read
David Coulthard cuts the ignition, wiggles the red leather steering wheel and folds his arms. "Well, if you'd just like to put me in the back of the truck I'll…
Great Read
Blip, blip, buzz — pause — clunk, sputter, sputter. This Lotus 'queerbox' is in perfect condition. But it's still a sod. Next lap, into the first corner, there's a confident…
Great Read
As his wheezy, knock-kneed steed cantered along Kyalami's main straight at almost 150mph — well, it was downhill! — the 'Cowangie Kid' had plenty of time to mull over his…
Great Read
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…
Great Read
In the end, it is just a car. You sit with a steering wheel in your hands. You change gear by shifting a lever fore and aft, working your way…
Great Read
Complacency: a strong word when aimed at brittle motor racing people. But... "Why change it when we're winnin'?" Sounds complacent, doesn't it? Well, at the dawn of the 1960s John…
Great Read
Whilst the idea of a journalist carrying out a serious evaluation of a present-day grand prix car is as unlikely as it is presumptuous, it's not every day that the…
This BRM won the fastest, closest World Championship Grand Prix in history and the third slowest too. It also gave BRM its last win. After 25 years in pieces it…
Great Read
How difficult is it to win in Formula 1? Ask Toyota. For the eight seasons and 140 races that the world's largest car company contested between 2002 and 2009, not…
The car on the left never won a race but its arrival in F1 changed the face of the spor forever. Matthew Franey samples a piece of Grand Prix history…
Great Read
We all remember our first grand prix. You can watch it for years on the television but until you actually go and watch a gridful of Formula 1 cars come past, feel…
In the late 1960s, the Commission Sportive Internationale was concerned that speeds of Group 6 prototype sports cars running at Le Mans and elsewhere were becoming too high. It therefore…
Great Read
There are numerous cars greater than the sum of all their parts. There are few, though, infinitely greater. And this is one of them. From its Unipart-sourced pressure cap to…
When Tyrrell sought an 'unfair advantage', there was an ingenious solution: two extra When I say there will never be another track test like this, I say so with a…
Their laughter fills the place. Morning in the Goodwood pitlane. Keith Duckworth and Mike Costin are a couple of shop floor boys, trading gentle insults. Dick Scammell feels as easy…
