#OnThisDay in ’65 Mike Spence (Lotus) won the non-championship #F1 #RaceOfChampions at Brands Hatch. What a mega start-line front-row pic this is, showing a puzzled Graham Hill (BRM) between the Lotuses of Spence (car #6) & pole man Jim Clark. Spence had a cool helmet, didn’t he?
Vic Elford died #OnThisDay 4 years ago, aged 86, one of racing’s all-time unsung heroes, a man who mastered the mighty Porsche 917 like almost no-one else & said of his first Le Mans outing in it, “I could go through the Mulsanne kink at 250mph [402km/h].” Pic by Bernard Cahier.
Can it really be 5 years since we lost the great Murray Walker? Yes, he died #OnThisDay in 2021, aged 97. On 10 October 2023, which would have been his 100th birthday, I wrote a #MotorSport column in his honour. ICYMI then, click below to read it now.
www.motorsportmagazine.com/articles/sin...
Remembering Joe Kelly, car dealer, property developer & sometime racing driver, born #OnThisDay in 1913. He raced 2 #F1 GPs, in ’50 & ’51, both at Silverstone, both in his own Alta, which was the last built - #AnorakFact. Pic: chasing Geoffrey Crossley’s Alta, Silverstone, ’50.
Thanks & agreed. 🙏
#OnThisDay 20 years ago Fernando Alonso brilliantly won the #BahrainGP, the first GP of the 2006 #F1 season. For Alonso the contrast provided by last Sunday’s #AusGP could hardly have been starker. Click the link below to read my latest #MotorSport column.
www.motorsportmagazine.com/articles/sin...
Can it really be 26 years since Jenson Button made his #F1 GP debut? Yes, it can be & indeed it is, for it took place in Melbourne #OnThisDay in 2000. Pretty car, Button’s Williams FW22. #AusGP
Lovely pic of Dan Gurney & his beautiful Eagle T1G after victory in the non-championship #F1 #RaceOfChampions at Brands Hatch #OnThisDay in ’67. #AnorakFact: it was run over two 10-lap heats & one 40-lap final; Gurney & his Eagle won all 3 races.👏
Yes.
James Hunt was the other. I don’t know of any others but I could be wrong.
#OnThisDay in ’90, at Phoenix, Tyrrell’s Jean Alesi drove a race that has since passed into #F1 folklore, dicing wheel to wheel with Ayrton Senna in his mighty McLaren. In the end Senna prevailed, but Alesi was 2nd & he’d made his mark in only his 9th GP: F1 at its best.
#HappyBirthday Derek Daly, 73. He raced 49 #F1 GPs for Hesketh, Ensign, Tyrrell, March, Theodore & Williams, a brace of 4th places his best results. He then raced in #IndyCar & at Le Mans, well enough if again sans wins. But he’d been mega in #F2 (pic) & #F3.
#HappyBirthday Arturo Merzario, 83. ‘Little Art’ drove 57 #F1 GPs in the ’70s but he was better in sports cars, winning the #Spa1000km & #TargaFlorio. He always wore a stetson, he still does, & he was one of the drivers who stopped to save Niki Lauda’s life at Nürburgring in ’76.
Tomorrow, March 11, at 17:00 GMT, Diagonal client Claire Williams will be conducting an ‘Ask Me Anything’ session on the Formula 1 Reddit page 📢
Make sure you submit your questions below to connect directly with the former Williams Racing Deputy Team Principal ⬇️
www.reddit.com/r/formula1/c...
Bless you & thank you. 🙏
Thank you for “lovely writing”! 🙏
What a lovely thing to say - thank you mate! 🙏
Thank you. 🙏
Many thanks. 🙏
My brand-new #MotorSport column looks at Fernando Alonso’s now sadly compromised career endgame. Click below to read it.
www.motorsportmagazine.com/articles/sin...
A futile end to a frustrating career?
Fernando Alonso looked set to rule #F1 for years in 2006, writes @thebishf1.bsky.social
20 years on, he's still razor sharp but saddled with a car that's farcically uncompetitive
go.motorsportmagazine.com/4u...
We at Diagonal Comms are proud to be working with physician and performance coach Dr. Elina Haukipuro 👩⚕️🏎️
We will be supporting Elina, who has worked for a variety of current Formula 1 drivers and the Mercedes and Williams teams, with comms, PR, and social media management services.
#OnThisDay 30 years ago an #F1 #AusGP was run in Melbourne for the very first time. Last week I wrote a #MotorSport column about that race, comparing & contrasting ‘F1 then’ with ‘F1 now’. ‘F1 then’ came out the winner, sadly. Click below to read it.
www.motorsportmagazine.com/articles/sin...
#OnThisDay in ’91 Ayrton Senna won at Phoenix in the new McLaren MP4/6, one of my favourite #F1 cars: high-revving 3.5-litre non-turbo V12; 6-speed manual ’box; big front & rear wings but no other wings; fat slicks; brilliant, iconic but simple livery; oh... & it sounded awesome!
Yup.
#OnThisDay in 2003, in Melbourne, David Coulthard won an #F1 GP for the 13th & last time. Pic: his winning McLaren MP4-17D was a very pretty car, wasn’t it (grooved tyres notwithstanding)? #AusGP
#OnThisDay in ’97 David Coulthard won the #AusGP - McLaren’s first #F1 GP win since Ayrton Senna had won the #AusGP 4 years before, a dry spell of 1219 days - #AnorakFact. Great Kodachrome pic taken by Paul-Henri Cahier.
Pablo Birger died in a road car crash on Ruta Nacional 7 between Luján & General Rodríguez, near his native Buenos Aires, #OnThisDay 60 years ago, aged 42. He started 2 GPs, in Argentina, in Gordinis, in ’53 (pic) & ’55. He’s buried at Cementerio San José de Flores, Buenos Aires.
Maldonado’s win wasn’t the end of the drama, for a fire then broke out in the Williams garage. No-one was killed - thank god - but 16 suffered burns &/or smoke inhalation. Maldonado himself lifted his 12-year-old cousin out of the flames, since his right leg was in a cast. (2/2)
#HappyBirthday Pastor Maldonado, 41. He started 95 #F1 GPs, shunted enough to earn a reputation for it, but famously won for Williams in Barcelona in 2012. #AnorakFact: his shock #SpanishGP victory remains the only F1 GP win by a Venezuelan driver. (1/2)
