Nigel Roebuck's Legends: Rob Walker – the gentleman F1 boss
The scene: the Glen Motor Inn, Watkins Glen. The date: September 1979. I am sitting at a table with a couple of colleagues, and studying the menu, unable to make…
As I drive, each July, from Frankfurt airport to Hockenheim, it is my invariable practice to pull off into the rest area by the Langen-Morfelden crossing on the autobahn towards Darmstadt. At…
It was in the fifties, as a kid, that I fell in love with racing, and it is no coincidence that my favourite GP car will always be Maserati's sublime…
A couple of days before the Revival Meeting at Goodwood, BMW held a splendid lunch in honour of Gerhard Berger, who – for the moment – has left the world…
By the end of 1973 Mark Donohue had achieved most of his goals in motor racing. Since 1967 he had worked for Roger Penske, the pair of them synonymous almost…
In terms of world championship races, the 1962 F1 season concluded with a 'New Year' fixture at South Africa's East London. But in those days there were also numerous non-title…
Suzuka, Sunday October 21 1990. The two engineers, formerly colleagues on the same team, were walking through the day’s events. “Well,” said Tim Wright of McLaren, “that was a bloody…
P4. Two syllables to send shivers down your spine — or mine, anyway. In a debate about the best-looking sports-racing car of all time, my choice would lie between the…
Some weekends you can come back from a Grand Prix with a notebook relatively clean. There will be a lap chart in there, of course, together with notes and quotes,…
If ever you were a Lotus fan Goodwood brought it all back. In the paddock, for example, were a pair of Lotus 25s, both ex-Clark, and at the Brooks auction…
Monza. The 2006 Italian Grand Prix is a few days away as I write, and 30 years have passed since the most remarkable happening I have ever encountered in motor…
Much was made recently of the 'interminable' five-week gap between the penultimate and final races of the Formula One season. And certainly it was unusual, given Bernie Ecclestone's dislike of…
A strange thing, the Honours List. Given poor behaviour is apparently something to be celebrated these days, perhaps we should not have been surprised to note the name of Mr…
The 2002 Formula One season may have been largely desultory, for many reasons, but for me it had its moments. Take Monza. I as good as knew that I was…
After who knows how many years, I went back to Brands Hatch in late September for the inaugural A1GP race, and as I walked into the paddock I was struck…
Johnny Servoz-Gavin rather shook everyone at Monaco in 1968. Subbing for an injured Jackie Stewart, he qualified Ken Tyrrell's Matra second, behind Graham Hill's Lotus. An archetypal '60s figure, Servoz-Gavin…
It was at Spa-Francorchamps, 30 years ago, that a Grand Prix car first raced with a wing, and you might reasonably assume, given the innovative reputation of Colin Chapman, that…