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…

If a racing driver has to die young, there is an almost gladiatorial rightness that he do so in his element on the track. Gunnar Nilsson was denied even that,…

This was one of those moments Spa seems to produce. It ranks with Mika Hakkinen’s move on Michael Schumacher last year, or the first lap of the 1963 GP when…

When we speak of legendary partnerships in motor racing, perhaps the one that would spring first to most minds is that of Colin Chapman and Jim Clark: throughout his eight-year…

With his dark features and thick, curly, slightly receding hair, Gabriele Tarquini looked not unlike American comedian John Belushi during his time in Formula One. Sadly, the Italian’s machinery often…