That Was The Week That Was: Anniversaries and Milestones from Motorsport’s Past

July 18

1970: Jochen Rindt won the British Grand Prix for Lotus at Brands Hatch, after leader Jack Brabham slowed to conserve fuel. It was the Austrian’s third straight win in the 72C and his fourth of the year. The race also marked the first for John Surtees as a team owner. His TS7 qualified 19^th but retired with oil-pressure trouble after 51 of the 80 laps.

1976: Forty years ago today, James Hunt won his home Grand Prix at Brands Hatch for McLaren, only to be disqualified for using the spare car at the restart. Title nemesis Niki Lauda inherited victory for Ferrari to increase his large points lead.

1981: John Watson ended a four-year win drought for McLaren when he won the British Grand Prix at Silverstone. It was the first victory for the team since Ron Dennis had taken control and marked its 25^th World Championship GP win.

1989: Swede Ingvar Carlsson gave Mazda its third and final World Rally Championship win, taking his 323 4WD to victory in New Zealand. He led local hero Rod Millen to a Mazda one-two.

2004: WRC King Carlos Sainz took his 25^th and final career win in Argentina. The Spanish double World Champion’s Citroen Xsara WRC defeated the sister car of Sébastien Loeb by 1m32s.

July 19

1958: Silverstone’s British Grand Prix produced a Ferrari one-two, with Peter Collins beating Mike Hawthorn by 24s. Sadly, 26-year-old Collins would be killed in the next race at the Nürburgring. Formula 1 tsar Bernie Ecclestone was a non-starter in a Connaught-Alta that day at Silverstone – his final attempt to make it on to an F1 grid as a driver.

1975: The British GP at Silverstone was stopped after 56 of the 67 laps thanks to a sudden hailstorm. World Champion Emerson Fittipaldi won the race for McLaren, ahead of Carlos Pace’s Brabham. Welshman Tom Pryce had started from his maiden pole position for Shadow, but he crashed the DN5 after 20 laps. 

1983: Ayrton Senna got his first taste of Formula 1 power when he tested the FW08C of the team’s lead driver Keke Rosberg at Donington Park. Eleven years, 41 GP wins and three world titles later the Brazilian would make the ill-fated move to race for the British team…

1992: The final World Sportscar Championship race on British soil took place at Donington Park. The 500km race produced a one-two for the Peugeot team, Philippe Alliot and Mauro Baldi heading Yannick Dalmas and Derek Warwick.

2009: Multiple World Champion John Surtees’ son Henry was killed, aged just 18, in a freak accident in the second FIA Formula 2 race at Brands Hatch. He was struck on the head by a detached wheel from a fellow competitor’s car. The tragedy came the day after he’d scored his maiden podium finish in race one.

July 20

1943: Happy 73^rd birthday to Kiwi legend Chris Amon. Dubbed the unluckiest man in Formula 1, he raced in 96 Grands Prix for Lola, Lotus, Cooper, Ferrari, March, Matra, Tecno, Tyrrell, Amon, BRM and Ensign, leading seven of them but never winning. Amon, about whom Mario Andretti once joked ‘if he became an undertaker, people would stop dying’, had more luck in sportscar racing, winning the Le Mans 24 Hours for Ford in 1966 and the Daytona 24 Hours and Monza 1000km for Ferrari in ’67. He also won the Tasman Series for Ferrari in 1969.   

1957: History was made in the British Grand Prix at Aintree when Stirling Moss and Tony Brooks won their home race in a British car – the first time this had happened in the World Championship. Moss took over Brooks’ car after his own had failed and Brooks had slowed while suffering from the effects of his accident at Le Mans. The duo defeated a trio of Ferraris driven by Luigi Musso, Mike Hawthorn and the shared car of Peter Collins/Maurice Trintignant.  

1959: Finnish rally co-driver Ilka Kivimäki was born. Best known for sitting alongside countryman Markku Alén, he contested 126 WRC events – all bar one with Alén – and won 19 times for Fiat and Lancia between 1975 and 1988.

1968: Jo Siffert took his maiden F1 win in the British GP at Brands Hatch in a Rob Walker-run Lotus 49. The Swiss ace defeated the Ferrari 312s of Chris Amon and Jacky Ickx.

1986: The Brands Hatch 1000km World Sportscar Championship qualifier was won by the Richard Lloyd Racing-run Porsche 956 GTi of Mauro Baldi and Bob Wollek. They beat the Reinhold Joest 956B of Derek Bell, Klaus Ludwig and Hans Stuck by four laps. The Brun Motorsport 956 of Thierry Boutsen and Frank Jelinski completed the podium.

2003: The British GP at Silverstone was won by Rubens Barrichello’s Ferrari, but not until a marshal had rugby tackled and removed track invader Neil Horan during his 11th-lap demonstration.

July 21

1962: Liverpool’s Aintree circuit hosted its fifth and last British Grand Prix. The race was won by Jim Clark, his Lotus starting from pole position and defeating the Lola of John Surtees by 49s.

1985: Alain Prost won the British GP for McLaren, the Frenchman beating Michele Alboreto’s Ferrari to record his second win at Silverstone – to add to his 1983 victory for Renault. 

1991: Paul Warwick, younger brother of Grand Prix driver Derek, was killed while leading the fifth round of the British Formula 3000 Championship at Oulton Park. The 22-year-old crashed his Reynard 90D at Knickerbrook. He went on to win the title posthumously having won all five races he contested.   

July 22

1972: Mario Andretti and Jacky Ickx won the final round of the World Sportscar Championship at Watkins Glen. Their Ferrari 312PB beat the sister car of Ronnie Peterson and Tim Schenken, the pair of works Maranello machines 14 laps clear of the third-placed Mirage M6 of Derek Bell and Carlos Pace.

1980: IndyCar ace Scott Dixon was born. The Kiwi has won 38 races in America’s top single-seater series and taken four drivers’ titles.

1984: Niki Lauda won the British Grand Prix at Brands Hatch, the Austrian taking his second straight win at the Kent venue. Home hero Derek Warwick finished second for Renault, with Ayrton Senna completing the podium for Toleman.

July 23

1935: Texan racer and innovator Jim Hall was born. He won the 1965 Sebring 12 Hours alongside fellow American Hap Sharp in his self-built Chaparral 2A. Before creating the first of the sophisticated, Chevrolet-powered prototypes, he contested 12 Grands Prix for Lotus, with a best finish of fifth in the 1963 German GP.

1937: Veteran Swedish WRC co-driver Björn Cederberg was born. He won 10 events – one alongside Per Eklund and nine with Stig Blömqvist. He helped the original Stig to the 1984 Drivers’ World Championship title with Audi.

1989: Mauro Baldi took his second Brands Hatch World Sportscar Championship win, this time alongside Kenny Acheson in the Sauber-Mercedes C9/88. The Italo-Irish duo defeated the Joest Porsche 962C of Frank Jelinski and Bob Wollek.

July 24

1971: The last World Sportscar Championship race of the 5-litre formula was won by the 3-litre Alfa Romeo T33/3 of Andrea de Adamich and Ronnie Peterson, ahead of the two J.W. Automotive Porsche 917s of Jo Siffert/Gijs van Lennep and Richard Attwood/Derek Bell.

1972: London-born American Lawrence Graf von Haugwitz-Hardenberg-Reventlow, more commonly known in racing circles as Lance Reventlow, died in a plane crash aged 36. Heir to the Woolworths retail fortune, he raced in just one Grand Prix, at Spa in 1960, retiring his Scarab with engine failure.

1976: Former Grand Prix driver-turned World Touring Car championship race winner Tiago Monteiro was born. The Portuguese contested 37 GPs for Jordan in 2005 and Midland in ’06, taking third in the controversial, six-car US GP at Indianapolis in 2005.

1988: Jaguar’s superb World Sportscar Championship season continued, the British team adding victory in the Brands Hatch 1000km to its Silverstone and Le Mans wins. Martin Brundle, John Nielsen and Andy Wallace took the Silk Cut XJR-9 to a one-lap triumph over the Joest Porsche 962C of Klaus Ludwig and Bob Wollek.