That Was The Week That Was – Anniversaries And Milestones From Motorsport’s Past

November 28

1957: Swedish Rally ace Mats Jonsson was born. He contested 40 World Rally championship events between 1979 and 2007, winning his home event twice – in 1992 and 1993 – in a Toyota Celica.

1985: Flying Finn Henri Toivonen and his British co-driver Neil Wilson gave Lancia’s fearsome Group B Delta S4 a debut win on the Lombard RAC Rally. The sister car of Markku Alén and Ilkka Kivimäki finished second for an historic Lancia one-two. Crowd favourite Tony Pond took the MG Metro 6R4, also making its first WRC appearance in the five-day, Nottingham-based event, to third. 

November 29

1975: Double World Champion Graham Hill perished alongside his protégé Tony Brise in a light-aircraft crash in North London. Four members of Hill’s Embassy Hill Formula 1 team, Tony Alcock, Ray Brimble, Terry Richards and Andy Smallman, also died in the tragedy that occurred in thick fog as the team returned home from a test session in France.

November 30

1939: Legendary rally team manager Ninni Russo was born. The former co-driver oversaw Fiat’s successful campaign in the WRC between 1979 and 1981 with the 131 Abarth and then switched to Lancia. He guided the Martini-backed 037s, Group B Delta S4s and Group A Delta HF Turbos and Integrales to multiple rally wins from 1982 to ’92. After many years in rallying the Italian moved into touring car racing with Alfa Romeo, notably masterminding Gabriele Tarquini’s BTCC title win with the 155 in 1994.

1966: Finnish ace Mika Salo was born. He came to prominence in British Formula 3 in 1990, pushing eventual champion and fellow Finn Mika Häkkinen hard all season. He spent three years in Japan before making his F1 debut with Lotus in 1994. He contested 109 GPs in total, also racing for Tyrrell, Arrows, BAR, Ferrari, Sauber and Toyota. He came closest to winning in Germany in 1999, as a stand-in for the injured Michael Schumacher. Leading at Hockenheim, he was ordered to let team-mate Eddie Irvine past. After F1 he moved to GT racing, winning races for Ferrari and Maserati.

December 1

1985: Malaysia’s only round of the World Sportscar Championship took place at Shah Alam. The 800km race was the final round of that year’s championship and was won by the works Rothmans Porsche 962C of Jacky Ickx and Jochen Mass. Second place went to the TWR Jaguar XJR-6 of Mike Thackwell, John Nielsen and Jan Lammers, with the second works Porsche of Vern Schuppan and James Weaver taking third.

December 2

1930: British veteran privateer sportscar racer David Piper was born. He tackled many of the classic World Championship races in self-run Ferrari and Porsche machinery during the 1960s and ’70s. He was recruited by Steve McQueen for his ‘Le Mans’ film in 1970 and lost part of a leg in a crash during filming. He also remains one of the few drivers to have raced at Goodwood in both its eras.

1947: Touring car legend Andy Rouse was born. Second only to Jason Plato in terms of British Touring Car Championship race wins, the Warwickshire engineer took 60 victories and won the title four times in four different machines – Triumph Dolomite Sprint, Alfa Romeo GTV6, Rover Vitesse and Ford Sierra XR4Ti.  

1973: The final round of the inaugural World Rally Championship season, the Tour de Corse, was won by Jean-Pierre Nicolas and Michel Vial in the Renault-Alpine A110. They led home the sister cars of Jean-Francois Piot and Jean-Luc Thérier for a marque 1-2-3, which was also its last WRC win.

1984: Australians Jack Brabham, Paul Hawkins, Tim Schenken and Vern Schuppan had won races in the World Sportscar Championship, but it wasn’t until 1984 that the country first hosted a round. Sandown Park in Melbourne was the venue and the 1000km race was won by the factory Rothmans Porsche 956 of Derek Bell and Stefan Bellof, ahead of the sister car of Jacky Ickx and Jochen Mass. It would be the ninth and last win for mercurial German Bellof, who was killed at Spa the following year. 

December 3

1951: American racing legend Rick Mears was born. One of only three men to win the Indianapolis 500 four times, he also holds the record for the most Indy 500 poles, with six. Mears racked up four USAC IndyCar wins and 26 CART Champ Car victories, as well as three titles in the latter series.

2006: Marcus Grönholm took his second Rally GB win, in an M-Sport Ford Focus RS WRC. Co-driven by Timo Rautianen, he defeated the Peugeot 307 WRC of Manfred Stohl and the Subaru Impreza WRC of four-time winner Petter Solberg.

December 4

1957: Brazilian Raul Boesel was born. He raced in 23 Grands Prix – for March in 1982 and Ligier in ’83, taking a best result of seventh at Long Beach in the latter season. He moved to IndyCars and sportscars after his F1 stint, famously winning the 1987 World Sportscar Championship and the Daytona 24 Hours in 1988 for Jaguar. His best result in IndyCar was five second places across 1992, ’93 and ’94.