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

September 26

1938: Top World Rally Championship co-driver Terry Harryman was born. The Irishman is best known for sitting alongside Ari Vatanen at Opel in 1982/’83 and Peugeot in 1984/’85, winning six rallies with the Finn.

1987: Kenneth Eriksson gave Volkswagen its first WRC win with victory in Africa’s Ivory Coast Rally aboard a Group A Golf GTi. He defeated the Nissan 200SX of Shekhar Mehta by 20 minutes. It would be another 25 years before VW took its second win…

1993: Michael Schumacher and Benetton got one over the dominant Williams-Renaults of Alain Prost and Damon Hill. The German outfoxed the Frenchman in the pitstop cycle and emerged ahead to take his second career win. Second place for Prost was enough to give him his fourth world title, while Hill fought back to third from the back after stalling on the startline.

1999: Jackie Stewart’s eponymous team scored its only F1 win when Johnny Herbert emerged victorious in the European GP at the Nürburgring. The Briton came home ahead of Jarno Trulli’s Prost and the second Stewart-Ford of Rubens Barrichello.

2008: Hollywood heartthrob and racer/team owner Paul Newman died, aged 83. As a driver, he finished second in the Le Mans 24 Hours in 1979, aboard a Porsche 935, and as team co-owner of Newman-Haas in IndyCar he oversaw numerous wins and drivers’ titles.

September 27

1952: Happy birthday to touring car legend Steve Soper! ‘Soperman’ won countless races in the British, German, European and World Touring Car Championships and later enjoyed success in American sportscars in a BMW-engined McLaren F1 GTR. Now a full-time convert to historic racing, he won the Alan Mann Trophy Ford GT40 race at Goodwood’s 74^th Members’ Meeting.

1981: The Ligier-Matra of Jacques Laffite won the Canadian GP in Montreal, heading the McLaren-Ford of John Watson and the Ferrari of Gilles Villeneuve. It would be the French team’s last win for 15 years.

1987: Jan Lammers and John Watson led a Jaguar XJR-8 one-two in the Fuji 1,000km, final round of the World Sportscar Championship. Second place, sharing with Johnny Dumfries, confirmed Brazilian Raul Boesel as World Champion.

1992: Nigel Mansell claimed a record-breaking ninth win of the season in the Portuguese GP at Estoril. The Williams driver, who’d already clinched the World Championship, led home the McLaren-Hondas of Gerhard Berger and Ayrton Senna to break a record held by Senna from 1988.

2010: Former Lotus F1 driver Trevor Taylor died, aged 73. The Yorkshireman contested 27 races, mostly for Lotus, and took a best result of second in the 1962 Dutch GP at Zandvoort, behind first-time winner Graham Hill’s BRM.

September 28

1943: Touring car champion and sportscar racer Win Percy was born. Three times a British Touring Car Champion, he also won the Bathurst 1,000km classic in Australia. He took two wins in the Spa 24 Hours – one for TWR Jaguar and one for Eggenberger Ford. He also raced for the TWR Jaguar Group C squad. In recent years he acted as Driving Standards Advisor at the Goodwood Revival.

1959: Pre-war Grand Prix hero Rudolf Caracciola died, aged 58. He won the European Drivers’ Championship a record three times for the dominant Mercedes Silver Arrows team and also took three European Hillclimb Championship crowns.

1968: Mika Häkkinen was born. The Finn raced in 161 GPs for Lotus and McLaren, winning 20 races between 1997 and 2001. He took two Drivers’ World Titles – in 1998 and 1999 – and retired at the end of 2001. He made a winning comeback in the DTM for 2005, racing in the German tin-top series until the end of 2007.

1990: F1 driver Martin Donnelly suffered his infamous crash in first qualifying for the Spanish GP at Jerez. The Irishman was gravely injured after his Lotus 102-Lamborghini went off behind the pits at high speed. Donnelly survived the accident but would never race professionally again, although he was reunited with the Lotus 102 at the Goodwood Festival of Speed in 2011. These days, he has replaced Win Percy as the Driving Standards Advisor at the Goodwood Revival.

2008: Fernando Alonso won the Singapore GP for Renault as a result of what later transpired as a race-fixing scandal involving team boss Flavio Briatore, technical chief Pat Symonds and Nelson Piquet Jr in the second Renault. The Brazilian was instructed to crash on purpose to trigger a safety car that would help Alonso’s cause.

September 29

1968: Ford took a third straight Le Mans 24 Hours win in a race delayed from its traditional June slot by student riots in Paris. The JWA Gulf GT40 of Pedro Rodriguez and Lucien Bianchi came home five laps ahead of the Porsche 907 LH of Swiss pair Rico Steinemann and Dieter Spoerry.

1972: British sportscar ace Oliver Gavin was born. The former British F3 Champion and F1 test driver moved to endurance racing in the late-1990s. He’s been part of the factory Chevrolet GT programme for 15 years and has won the Le Mans 24 Hours and Sebring 12 Hours on multiple occasions.

September 30

1946: Happy 70^th birthday to Jochen Mass. The German won the Spanish GP for McLaren in 1975 and the Le Mans 24 Hours for Sauber-Mercedes in 1989, as well as countless Group 5, 6 and C races for Porsche during the 1970s and ’80s. He’s been a keen supporter of the Goodwood Festival of Speed and Revival since their inception and is one of the Members' Meeting house captains.

1984: Peter Brock and Larry Perkins won the Bathurst 1,000km touring car race in Australia, the last race run to the ‘big banger’ Group C regulations. Their Marlboro Holden Commodore VK finished two laps ahead of the sister car of John Harvey and David Parsons.  

1988: US sportscar ace Al Holbert died after crashing his private plane on take off during the Columbus, Ohio IMSA meeting.

1997: Max Verstappen was born. The Dutchman this season became the youngest winner of a World Championship Grand Prix when he took victory in the Spanish Grand Prix for Red Bull.

2001: Mika Hakkinen won his penultimate F1 race, the US GP at Indianapolis. The race also marked the final time that veteran broadcaster and the voice of F1, Murray Walker, led the live commentary team for television.

2009: Finnish rally veteran Pentti Airikkala died, aged 64. He contested 37 WRC events in a variety of machines. His moment of glory came in a Mitsubishi Gallant on the 1989 Lombard RAC Rally, when he took his only WRC win.

October 1

1930: Australian motorsport hero Frank Gardner was born. He won three British Touring Car titles, two for Ford, one for Chevrolet. He also contested eight GPs for Brabham in the mid-1960s with a best result of eighth in the British GP at Silverstone in 1965. He died in August 2009, aged 78.

1942: Jean-Pierre Jabouille was born. The Frenchman won the 1976 European F2 Championship and made his F1 debut, in a one-off with Tyrrell, the same year. He won two races for Renault during a career that spanned 49 starts between 1975 and ’81.

2000: Gilles Panizzi took his maiden WRC win in the Tour de Corse. The Frenchman led home Peugeot team-mate François Delecour, their 206 WRCs pushing Carlos Sainz’s Ford Focus WRC into third.

October 2

1966: BRM’s unloved H16 engine took its only F1 win thanks to Jim Clark and Lotus in the US GP at Watkins Glen. The Scot beat a trio of Cooper-Maseratis driven by Jochen Rindt, John Surtees and Jo Siffert.

1998: Four-time Le Mans 24-Hour winner Olivier Gendebien died, aged 74. The Belgian won the great race in 1958, 1960, 1961 and ’62 for Ferrari. He also contested 13 GPs for Ferrari and Cooper, taking a best result of second in the 1960 French GP in a Cooper-Climax.