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

May 30

1911: The inaugural Indianapolis 500 was won by Ray Harroun’s six-cylinder Marmon Wasp, entered by the Nordyke & Marmon Company. He averaged 74.6mph and retired from racing immediately afterwards.

1955: Bill Vukovich was killed while leading the Indy 500 at quarter distance. He was set to take a record third consecutive win in the Kurtis Kraft-Offenhauser.

1971: Porsche took a clean-sweep of the podium in the Nürburgring 1,000km. Vic Elford and Gérard Larrousse took their Martini 908/3 to victory ahead of the Gulf car of Pedro Rodriguez and Jo Siffert, with the second Martini machine of Gijs van Lennep and Helmut Marko finishing third.

1976: Niki Lauda made it two in a row in Monaco. The polesitting Ferrari ace led all 78 laps to beat the six-wheeled Tyrrell P34s of Jody Scheckter and Patrick Depailler.

May 31

1959: BRM’s first World Championship Grand Prix win came in the Dutch GP at Zandvoort when Jo Bonnier steered his P25 to victory ahead of the Cooper-Climax of points leader Jack Brabham. The Swede started from his and BRM’s first pole and joined his British paymaster as a first-time winner.

1975: Walter Röhrl took his maiden World Rally Championship win in the Acropolis Rally. Co-driven by Jochen Berger, he took a Group 2 Opel Ascona to victory by more than 30 minutes over the Alpine A110 of local driver Tassos Livieratos.  

1981/1987: Two F1 greats took their first Monaco GP wins. Gilles Villeneuve triumphed in 1981, keeping his unfancied Ferrari 126CK ahead of World Champion Alan Jones’ superior Williams, while Lotus ace Ayrton Senna racked up win number one of six with a half-minute win over Nelson Piquet’s Williams.

June 1

1958: Jack Brabham took his only World Sportscar Championship victory. The Australian partnered Stirling Moss in an Aston Martin DBR1 and won the Nürburgring 1,000km ahead of a quartet of works Ferrari 250 Testa Rossas, driven by Mike Hawthorn/Peter Collins, Wolfgang von Trips/Olivier Gendebien, Luigi Musso/Phil Hill and Wolfgang Seidel/Gino Munaron/Luigi Musso.

1959: Happy birthday to Grand Prix racer, World Sportscar Champion, Le Mans 24 Hours winner and Sky Sports F1 commentator Martin Brundle, who’s 57 today.

1993: Italian double World Rally Champion Miki Biasion scored his 17th and last WRC win, with victory in the Acropolis Rally in a Ford Escort RS Cosworth.

June 2

1956: Dutch all-rounder Jan Lammers was born. He raced in 23 Grands Prix for Shadow, ATS, Ensign, Theodore and March between 1979 and 1992. He also won five World Sportscar Championship races, including the 1988 Le Mans 24 Hours. 

1970: Bruce McLaren was killed testing a Can-Am McLaren M8 at Goodwood, aged just 32. He won four Grands Prix – three for Cooper and one for his eponymous McLaren team, at Spa in 1968 – and was twice Can-Am champion.

1991: Nelson Piquet’s 23^rd and final Grand Prix win came in Canada for Benetton after Nigel Mansell’s Williams failed on the final lap. Other notable achievements that day included Stefano Modena taking second for Tyrrell and the Jordan 191s of Andrea de Cesaris and Bertrand Gachot finishing fourth and fifth – the team’s first points.

June 3

1956: Peter Collins became the third Englishman, joining Mike Hawthorn and Stirling Moss, to win a World Championship Grand Prix when he triumphed for Ferrari in the Belgian GP at Spa. He beat team-mate and Belgian journalist Paul Frère by almost two minutes.

1984: Alain Prost won the Monaco Grand Prix for McLaren, which was controversially stopped after 31 laps due to adverse weather. Ayrton Senna and Stefan Bellof had been flying for Toleman and Tyrrell respectively, finishing second and third despite catching Prost – much to fans’ chagrin.

1990: Jochen Mass and Karl Wendlinger won the Spa 480km, round four of that year’s World Sports-Prototype Championship. Veteran German Mass had been paired with Mercedes junior driver Wendlinger in a team-mate/coach role and the pair’s Sauber-Mercedes C11 defeated the Jaguar XJR-11 of Jan Lammers and Andy Wallace. 

June 4

1967: The Ford-funded, Cosworth-built Double Four Valve engine took a debut win in the Dutch Grand Prix in the back of Jim Clark’s Lotus 49. Clark’s team-mate Graham Hill had taken pole position, but his engine failed after just 11 laps. Clark’s win signalled the start of a dominant period in F1 for the DFV. Over the next 16 seasons it would win 155 races.

1981: Ari Vatanen and David Richards won the Acropolis Rally for the second successive year in the David Sutton-run, Rothmans-liveried Ford Escort RS1800. They headed the Fiat 131 Abarth of Markku Alén and Ilkka Kivimäki by 4m35s to give their championship chances a big boost.

1989: The Arizona city of Phoenix hosted its first World Championship Grand Prix. The race on the uninspiring street circuit was won by Alain Prost’s McLaren, ahead of Riccardo Patrese’s Williams and Eddie Cheever’s Arrows. The tiny Rial team scored its only points when Christian Danner finished fourth.

1996: Colin McRae’s first win as World Rally Champion came in Greece, the Subaru star winning the Acropolis Rally from title nemesis Tommi Mäkinen’s Mitsubishi Lancer by 50s.

June 5

1946: One of Formula 1’s most celebrated designers, Patrick Head, was born. His Williams chassis scored numerous Grand Prix wins and world titles. He was knighted for services to motorsport in 2015.

1966: The Chevrolet-engined Chaparral 2D of Jo Bonnier and Phil Hill won the Nürburgring 1,000km, defeating the two Ferrari Dino 206 S cars of Lorenzo Bandini/Ludovico Scarfiotti and Pedro Rodriguez/Richie Ginther.

1977: Swedish racer Gunnar Nilsson took his only F1 win – in the Belgian GP at Zolder. He took his JPS Lotus 78 to victory over the Ferrari 312T2 of Niki Lauda and Ronnie Peterson’s Tyrrell P34. 

1983: Michele Alboreto won the Detroit GP for Tyrrell, the iconic British team’s 23rd and last win. Alboreto finished 7.7s ahead of World Champion Keke Rosberg’s Williams and the McLaren of John Watson, who’d started 21^st on the grid. The victory was the 155^th and last for the Cosworth DFV engine.