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

April 4

1940: Formula 1 podium finisher and World Sportscar Championship race winner Richard Attwood was born. The Midlander contested 16 GPs for Lotus, Cooper and BRM, with a best result of second in Monaco in 1968 aboard the V12 BRM P126. He also gave Porsche its first Le Mans 24 Hours win, in 1970, and took the last championship win for the German firm’s fabulous 917 – at the Osterreichring in 1971. He’s been a regular at Goodwood for many years, winning eight races (four Glover Trophy rear-engined F1 races, two Richmond Trophy front-engined F1 events and two RAC TT Celebration races) at the Revival meeting.

1971: Alfa Romeo scored its maiden World Sportscar Championship race win, when Andrea de Adamich and Henri Pescarolo took the 3-litre V8 T33/3 to victory in the Brands Hatch 1,000km ahead of the Ferrari 312PB of Jacky Ickx/Clay Regazzoni.

1982: Andrea de Cesaris gave Alfa Romeo only its second F1 pole in 31 years when he qualified the V12 182 up front for the US Grand Prix West at Long Beach in California. The race was won by Niki Lauda’s McLaren – his first victory since returning to the sport after a two-year lay-off.

1988: Miki Biasion gave Lancia its first Safari Rally win. The Italian took his Martini Delta Integrale to an almost 13-minute victory over the Nissan 200SX of local ace Mike Kirkland.

April 5

1992: Nigel Mansell made it a hat-trick of pole positions and victories for the season when he won the Brazilian GP at Interlagos for Williams. And the Briton’s team-mate Riccardo Patrese made it one-two for the third time on the bounce.

1999: Matt Neal scooped £250,000 at Donington Park by becoming the first privateer to win a British Touring Car Championship race outright. Neal, who has since won three drivers’ titles, took his family-run Nissan Primera to victory in race two and, like a lottery winner, was forced to pose with a giant cardboard cheque! Rumours that Matt and his entourage spent the winnings that night have never been substantiated…

2000: NASCAR prime-mover Lee Petty died, aged 66. Petty won 54 top-flight races between 1949 and 1961, including the inaugural Daytona 500 in 1959, and was crowned champion three times. His son, Richard, went on to become the sport’s greatest-ever driver, with a record 200 series wins and seven titles.

April 6

2003: The Jordan team scored its fourth and final Grand Prix win in a bizarre Brazilian GP. McLaren’s Kimi Raikkonen was declared the winner at Interlagos before officials later recognised that, on countback, Giancarlo Fisichella had been leading at the time of the race stoppage. Sadly for Fisichella, he didn’t get to celebrate his maiden win on the podium and was handed the trophy, by McLaren boss Ron Dennis, at Imola during the San Marino GP weekend two weeks later.

2003: Promising Japanese MotoGP rider Daijiro Katoh died, aged 26, as a result of an horrific accident in the early stages of the season-opening Japanese GP at Suzuka. The satellite Honda RC211V rider had twice finished second in 2002, his maiden season at the top level, and was considered a very bright prospect by all in his homeland, including Honda. Reigning champion and race winner Valentino Rossi described his victory as ‘very unimportant’ when he heard the news.

April 7

1968: Almost half a century on, April 7, 1968 remains one of the darkest days in motorsport history. Double World Champion Jim Clark, a man considered by many to be the best ever, was killed in a largely unexplained accident during a Formula 2 race at Hockenheim. The Scot had won 25 Grands Prix, in just 72 starts, for Lotus and taken the 1963 and ’65 world titles, as well as the ’65 Indianapolis 500. The feeling then, and for many years after, among his peers was: ‘if it can happen to Jim, what chance the rest of us…’

1980: British racer Brian Henton got his European Formula 2 campaign off to the perfect start by winning the season opener at Thruxton in the Toleman-Hart. Henton, who won at the Hampshire circuit in 1977 in the Boxer-Hart and took two wins for Toleman in ’79, beat the sister car of fellow Brit Derek Warwick, with the two Project Four March-BMWs of Andrea de Cesaris and Chico Serra next up.

1996: Damon Hill made it a hat-trick of wins in the opening three Grands Prix of the year thanks to victory in Argentina, where he led home Williams team-mate Jacques Villeneuve by 12 seconds to make it a perfect score aboard the Renault-powered FW18.

April 8

1966: Mark Blundell was born. The Hertfordshire driver competed in 61 Grands Prix for Brabham, Ligier, Tyrrell and McLaren, taking three third-place finishes. He also won the Le Mans 24 Hours for Peugeot in 1992 and took three CART IndyCar victories for PacWest in 1997. Now a successful sports-marketing agent and driver manger, he often dusts down his helmet to compete at Goodwood. Happy big Five-O Mark!

1979: Gilles Villeneuve secured his first world Championship F1 pole for Ferrari – on the streets of Long Beach. The French-Canadian went on to win the race by half a minute from team-mate Jody Scheckter.

1985: Flying Finn Juha Kankkunen took the first of 23 World Championship Rally wins thanks to victory in the Safari Rally. Kankkunen, who would become the first driver to win four world titles, guided his sturdy Toyota Celica Twin-Cam Turbo to a 34-minute win over team-mate and former World Champion Björn Waldegaard in the African marathon.

April 10

1929: Mike Hawthorn was born. The ‘Farnham Flyer’ made his Formula 1 debut in 1952 in a modest Cooper-Bristol before landing a Ferrari ride for 1953. He raced for the Scuderia until the end of 1958 – although he campaigned a Vanwall on three occasions and made two one-off appearances in a Maserati 250F and BRM P25 during that period, as well as winning the Sebring 12 Hours and Le Mans 24 Hours for Jaguar. He won three times for Ferrari and at the end of what would be his last season was crowned Britain’s first World Champion. He died, aged just 29, in a road accident in Surrey in January 1959.

1983: Jonathan Palmer took his maiden European Formula 2 Championship win, in the works Ralt-Honda at Hockenheim. The Briton would later secure five victories on the trot – at Donington, Misano, Enna, Zolder and Mugello – to make sure of the title and join Mike Hailwood (1972), Brian Henton (1980) and Geoff Lees (1981) as British champions in F2.