Little Belter: the Cooper F1 team
Pragmatists, not purists: That was Cooper compared to design-led Lotus, or the intensive engineering of BRM. While Colin Chapman was stripping out every gramme and making components double up, Cooper's…
Seeing it lined up, in the Goodwood paddock at the Revival Meeting, with such as the Dino 246, the 250F and the Mercedes-Benz W196, it struck me again how small is the Lancia D50, how astonishing…
Just minutes after picking up the mountain pass we come to the first hairpin. I look at my photographs of behemoth Mercedes and Auto Unions scrabbling around tight Alpine bends…
F186 (1986) There have been less successful Ferraris than the F186 (it did score podium finishes) but it was Maranello’s only turbo car to fail to win a race. Stefan Johansson…
When Mateus goes to bed he settles down on the kitchen floor beside the cooker. There are seven people living in two rooms. It is hot and there is no…
The newspapers didn't sensationalise; the facts were hideous enough. 'Grand Prix Ace in Helicopter Crash' read the headlines. 'Life not in danger' they assured, in smaller type. But then phrases…
Friday evening at Monaco, and a drink or two on Keke Rosberg's boat, moored near the chicane. The host, as usual, was chattering away about this, that and the other,…
Just as it finally seemed within his reach, a broken titanium component crushed Peter Revson's F1 dream Peter Jeffrey Revlon Revson had it all. Good looks, breeding, an attractive personality…
If you were drawing up a list of the best-looking Formula One cars, Williams' FW11B would be passed over in an instant. Williams cars, despite their huge success over the…
On the face of it, Bob Anderson's third place in the 1964 Austrian GP was not very special. He finished three laps behind winner Lorenzo Bandini, and only a handful of…
"Geentair! Alors, un nouveau record du tour pour Reeshi Geentair!" May 14 1961, Monaco, by common consent the greatest drive of Stirling Moss's life. In Rob Walker's old Lotus 18,…
Damon Hill gives it to you straight. “I’m getting sick of hearing what I have to say about things. But since this is Jacques…” Immediately you get the picture. Both…
It is early afternoon on Saturday November 1, 1980. A call is placed to the Brabham headquarters in Chessington, Surrey. The conversation goes something like this: “’Allo?” “Ah, hello. Could…
Some-time, back in the early sixties, shortly after Piers Courage decided that motor racing was going to be his life, his father took him to one side and asked why…
It's hard to think of a recent equivalent to the Matra racing regime. In one glorious decade, from 1965 to 1974, Matra fielded victorious Grand Prix cars and Le Mans…
Karl Kling, who died recently, may never have been a great racing driver but he was certainly one who had his days. I interviewed him only once, appropriately close by…
Back in June 1980 I interviewed Patrick Depailler at Brands Hatch. He was a lovely fellow, a man out of his time, I always felt, very much a throwback to…