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The Underdogs: F1 75 at the Festival of Speed

21st January 2025
Simon Ostler

The history of Formula 1 is not only defined by those who have helped to write the record books. The champions are of course the ones who receive the most recognition, but many of F1’s most memorable moments have been forged by the exploits of underdogs.

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Goodwood’s celebration of the 75th anniversary of the Formula 1 World Championship is set to be the grandest in the history of the Festival of Speed. It’ll sit at the centre of all four days of activity both on and around the famous Goodwood Hill. As part of that showcase, we want to honour those underdogs who overcame adversity to beat the odds.

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Biggest ever celebration of F1 to headline the 2025 Festival of Speed

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It was of course the British who first began building a reputation for themselves as feisty underdogs. The 1950s had been dominated by the superior power of Alfa Romeo, Mercedes, Ferrari and Maserati, and yet by the end of the 1957 season the likes of Vanwall, BRM and Cooper were starting to crash the party.

The Manufacturers' Championship was introduced for 1958, but it wasn’t Alfa or Maserati claiming the trophy, but the plucky Vanwall team, with the trio of Stirling Moss, Tony Brooks and Stewart Lewis-Evans at the wheel of the VW5.

A remarkable result, and one that paved the way for a revolution of ‘Garagistes’ - the disparaging name tossed at these small-time British constructors deemed unworthy by the established Italian teams. Off the back of Vanwall’s success, Cooper, BRM and eventually Lotus would all become championship-winning teams as their success coincided with the demise of Alfa Romeo and Maserati’s participation in the sport.

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Almost a decade later there was another pioneer attempting to inspire a nation. This time it was Dan Gurney, who had committed to building his own team, All American Racers, and embarked on a quest to claim the World Championship for the USA. It had been 46 years since an American constructor had won a Grand Prix, Duesenberg had won the French Grand Prix in 1921, while no American car had ever won an F1 race outside of the Indy 500. 

Gurney was determined to change that, but faced with the challenge of overthrowing the might of Brabham, Cooper and Lotus, the odds were stacked against him. His car, the Eagle Mark 1, was a thing of beauty, but struggled with reliability as Gurney tried to source a competitive engine.

He eventually settled for a 3.0-litre V12 from Weslake which could deliver somewhere near 400PS (294kW). Suddenly, if he could keep the car in one piece, he had the performance to match the very best. But still, no-one ever actually expected him to beat the likes of Jack Brabham, Jim Clark, Denny Hulme and Graham Hill. Yet that’s exactly what he did at the 1967 Belgian Grand Prix in what was one of the shock results of the decade.

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Gurney’s victory at Spa would be one of very few opportunities for an underdog to triumph in F1, but the joy of motorsport is that the next challenger is never far away. Anyone who has seen the film Rush will have some understanding of the Hesketh story. Lord Hesketh had built his racing team on the premise of having fun and embracing the rockstar lifestyle.

After hiring a young but combustible talent by the name of James Hunt, Hesketh made the jump from Formula 2 to F1 in 1973, and with a March 731 chassis fettled by prodigal designer Harvey Postlethwaite, Hunt was immediately quick. He scored his first podium with Hesketh at the fourth attempt, and scored five more over the following 24 months before arriving at Zandvoort for the 1975 Dutch Grand Prix. 

As is often the underdog way, Hunt made the most of changeable conditions to make the bold move to dry tyres before any of the leading runners. It proved to be a fateful decision, because his speed on a drying track put him comfortably into the lead ahead of Niki Lauda. He held off the Ferrari ace to claim a memorable victory for Hesketh, who many both in and out of the paddock had written off as playboys and jokers.

Another team owner who made the brave step up from junior formulae to F1 was Eddie Jordan. He entered the F1 paddock in 1991, and immediately began to make a name for himself as a shrewd leader with an eye for talent. Jordan gave Michael Schumacher his first chance in an F1 car, and finished fifth in the Constructors’ Championship at the first attempt with the beautiful 191.

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After a couple of more difficult seasons, Jordan managed to cement itself as a member of the midfield through the mid-’90s, taking several podium finishes with drivers like Rubens Barrichello, Eddie Irvine, Giancarlo Fisichella and Ralf Schumcher, all the while racing on one of the smallest budgets in the paddock.

Such performances were scarcely believable when you consider just how little money Jordan had to spend, and yet by 1998 the team was expecting to score points in every race. And that would have been enough for the cars in yellow, because beating the likes of Ferrari, McLaren and Williams simply wasn’t considered a possibility, until the F1 circus came around to Spa in 1998.

Held in appalling conditions, the Belgian Grand Prix in ‘98 is memorable for three things, and the winner of the race is quite possibly third on that list. First is the shocking first lap incident that took 12 cars out of the race, second is that infamous collision between Michael Schumacher and David Coulthard that saw the German storm into the McLaren garage to confront his rival in a fit of rage.

Third is the team that benefitted from all this chaos. The Jordan duo of Damon Hill and Ralf Schumacher had somehow avoided the carnage of lap one, and led clean, event-free races to find themselves running one and two. Hill took the chequered flag and the scenes at Jordan were euphoric. It had become increasingly difficult for the minnows of F1 to get a genuine look in at the points, let alone race victories, and yet Jordan had proved it could still be done.

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The 1990s saw similar feats achieved by the likes of Ligier in Monaco 1996, and Stewart at the Nürburgring in 1999, but no underdog story comes close to what happened ten years later in 2009.

From the ashes of the defunct Honda team, Ross Brawn handed over one pound coin and pulled together what remained to try and keep several hundred people in their jobs. Among those in desperate need were drivers Barrichello and Jenson Button.

The team was renamed Brawn GP, and what happened next is legendary, not just for F1, but for all of sport. After arriving at pre-season testing and obliterating the rest of the field, turning up in Melbourne and winning at a canter, and proceeding to do the same at six of the first seven races that season, Brawn and Button were carrying out the greatest underdog story in history.

Making the best use of a car that was originally funded by Honda, Brawn GP desperately tried to cling on through the second half of the year as the teams around them got faster and faster. Button didn’t win again all season after his sixth victory in Turkey, but the buffer he had built in those early rounds was just enough to see him crawl over the line at the final race in Brazil and claim an astonishing World Championship triumph. For both Brawn and Button, this was an extraordinary achievement, one that every aspiring team or driver can draw inspiration from.

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F1’s underdogs are a huge reason why we love this great sport. A reminder that it takes more than money to reach the top step on the podium; sometimes it takes endeavour, bravery and often a healthy dose of good fortune. It’s the exploits of those great teams and drivers who, even in the face of utmost adversity, managed to defy the odds and achieve the greatest honours in motorsport, that we’ll be recognising as part of our F1 75 celebrations at the 2025 Festival of Speed.

The Festival of Speed takes place from Thursday 10th-Sunday 13th July 2025. Tickets are on sale now, and you can save by completing your order before the early bird window closes.

Images courtesy of Motorsport Images. 

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