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

June 6

1939: World Rally Championship co-driver Arne Hertz was born. The Swede won 18 rallies alongside Stig Blomqvist, Ove Andersson, Hannu Mikkola and Armin Schwarz in a top-level career that lasted from 1973 to 1999.

1960: Jim Clark made his Formula 1 World Championship debut in the Dutch GP at Zandvoort. He retired with transmission trouble in the Lotus 18, having qualified 11^th. The race was won by World Champion Jack Brabham in the Cooper-Climax.

1982: The first of seven Grands Prix on the streets of Detroit was won by John Watson’s McLaren MP4-1B. The Irishman started 17^th on the grid but fought up to the front to lead home Eddie Cheever’s Ligier-Matra by 15 seconds. 

June 7

1970: The last Grand Prix on Belgium’s original, eight-mile Spa-Francorchamps circuit was won by Pedro Rodriguez and BRM. The Mexican’s V12 P153 averaged a whisker under 150mph during his victorious drive, while March ace Chris Amon’s fastest lap, a 3m27.4s, equated to 152mph!

June 8

1968: Italian F1 and sportscar star Ludovico Scarfiotti was killed in a hillclimb in Germany, aged 34. He raced in 10 GPs, winning his home race for Ferrari at Monza in 1966, having done the Sebring 12 Hours/Le Mans 24 hours double for the Scuderia in ’63.

2008: Robert Kubica’s only F1 win came in the Canadian GP at Montreal for BMW-Sauber. He beat team-mate Nick Heidfeld by 16 seconds, with David Coulthard taking his final career podium with third for Red Bull Racing.  

June 9

1939: Happy 77^th birthday to veteran British all-rounder David Hobbs, a winner in the World Sportscar Championship, Trans-Am, IMSA and Tasman Series, the European and American F5000 Championships and the BTCC.

1968: McLaren’s first World Championship win was scored by the boss, Bruce McLaren, in the Belgian GP. His M7A defeated Pedro Rodriguez’s BRM by 12 seconds.

1999: Richard Burns’ third career WRC win – and his first in a Prodrive Subaru – came in Greece. The Englishman, who had taken his first two victories for Mitsubishi the year before, won the Acropolis Rally in the Impreza WRC99 by a minute from the Toyota Corolla WRC of Carlos Sainz, co-driven as ever by Scot Robert Reid.   

June 10

1935: ‘Quick Vic’ Elford was born. The British driver was best known for his sportscar exploits, thanks to his wins in World Sportscars, the Daytona 24 Hours, Sebring 12 Hours and Targa Florio, but he also won the 1968 Monte Carlo Rally in a Porsche 911 and finished fourth on his F1 debut in the ’68 French GP at Rouen in a Cooper-BRM.

2007: Lewis Hamilton took his first F1 win in the Canadian GP during his maiden season for McLaren. Thanks to his recent victory in Monaco, his 44th in F1, he’s now won at least one race in each of the 10 seasons in which he’s competed.

June 11

1939: Happy 77^th birthday to Sir Jackie Stewart, three-time F1 World Champion and winner of 27 Grands Prix from 99 starts between 1965 and 1973.

1949: Welshman Tom Pryce was born. He raced in 42 GPs, all bar one of them for Shadow, with a best result of third – in Austria in 1975 and Brazil in ’76. He died, aged just 27, after colliding with a marshal during the 1977 South African GP at Kyalami.

1972: The Le Mans 24 Hours was marred by the death of Swedish star Jo Bonnier. The Grand Prix winner was killed when his Lola T280 left track after colliding with a Ferrari Daytona.

1995: Jean Alesi became only the second driver to win a World Championship GP on his birthday when he took his Ferrari to victory in Canada in 1995, the occasion of his 31^st. The other? James Hunt in the Dutch GP in 1976.

June 12

1966: John Surtees won his last Grand Prix for Ferrari – the Belgian race at Spa. The 1964 World Champion left the team after disagreements with the management and would be in a Cooper-Maserati for the next race in France.  

1953: Englishman Les Graham, who won the inaugural 500cc World Motorcycle Championship in 1949, was killed during the Isle of Man TT, aged 41. His son, Stuart, went on to win on the island – in the 1967 50cc race – and take two Tourist Trophy wins on four wheels. He’s still a regular racer at the Goodwood Members’ and Revival Meetings.

1988: Jaguar’s sixth win in the Le Mans 24 Hours came 31 years after its fifth. The Tom Walkinshaw Racing-run, Silk Cut-liveried XJR-9LM driven by Jan Lammers, Johnny Dumfries and Andy Wallace won the French endurance classic by just two-and-a-half minutes from the works Porsche of Derek Bell, Hans Stück and Klaus Ludwig, despite a late-race gearbox scare.