Hall Of Fame
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Hall of Fame - World Champions
Formula One racing's all-time greats (This will be added regularly)
To start off, we will be going down the timeline, that is from the first man.
Nino Farina (ITA) World Champion - 1950
Grand Prix Starts: 33 Grand Prix Wins: 5 Pole Positions: 5
The first ever Formula One World Champion came from a privileged background and had a stylish driving technique that was adopted by many drivers. A hard and determined racer, Farina relied on a combination of profound self belief and raw courage to compensate for the superior skills possessed by many of his more naturally talented opponents. Yet he also drove recklessly and few Formula One drivers ever competed with such apparent disregard for their personal safety. Somehow surviving an accident-strewn racing career, he was eventually killed in a road accident.
Giuseppe Antonio 'Nino' Farina was always destined to be involved in the automotive world, though not necessarily as a driver. On the day of his sonÂ’s birth, October 30, 1906, Nino's father Giovanni established Stabilimente Farina, a bodywork shop in Turin, the industrial city where much of Italy's car manufacturing industry was located. Here also, Giovanni's brother founded the coachbuilding firm of Pininfarina, later famed for designing many sleek Italian sportscars. From an early age Nino was expected to join the family business but his first driving experience, at the age of nine in a small car on the grounds of his father's factory, whetted his appetite for the sporting side of motoring. When he was 16 Nino accompanied his favourite uncle Pinin as a passenger in a race. Three years later his first solo competition ended in an accident, establishing a worrying trend that continued throughout his crash-prone career.
Farina was both athletically and academically inclined. In his youth he was a fast runner and became skilled at soccer and skiing. At the University of Turin he received a doctorate in law and became Dottore Giuseppe Farina. While his academic title came easily his route to becoming World Champion was less straightforward. He began his military service as a cavalry officer, much enjoying the sensation of handling horses, then joined a tank regiment, in which he would serve during the war. Meanwhile, he continued to be obsessed by the lure of mechanical horsepower harnessed for competition purposes. In 1932 he bought an Alfa Romeo and quickly crashed it in a hillclimb, breaking a shoulder and badly cutting his face. Undeterred, he raced Maseratis for a couple of years, crashing frequently but also showing enough promise to impress Enzo Ferrari, who recruited him to drive for the Scuderia Ferrari Alfa Romeo team. There, Farina befriended the legendary Tazio Nuvolari, whose talent and tenacity were both instrucional and inspirational. Under Tazio's tutelage he began to mature as a driver and in 1938 he won enough races to become Italian champion.
After World War II Farina resumed racing and got married, to Elsa Giaretto, an elegant and stylish woman who ran an exclusive fashion emporium in Turin. In her opinion motor racing was a silly and dangerous activity and she tried to persuade her new husband to stop. But three days after their high society wedding he flew to a race in Argentina. In 1950 he was appointed leader of the three-car Alfa Romeo team that competed in the series of Grand Prix races that were now formally organized by the FIA into the first ever Formula One World Championship.
Given the supremacy of their all-powerful Tipo 158 cars the first world driving title was bound to go to one of the Alfa Romeo trio, known collectively as 'the three F's.' Indeed, the venerable team mates Farina (44 years old), Juan Manuel Fangio (39) and Luigi Fagioli (52) finished in that order in the standings. Farina won the first ever Formula One championship race, the 1950 British Grand Prix at Silverstone, and triumphed again in Switzerland and Italy. And while his team mate Fangio also won three races, for the fiercely proud Farina his being crowned World Champion only officially confirmed what he considered to be a fact.
Well-mannered, charming and gracious on most occasions, he could also be arrogant and aloof. He was accused of being unsentimental and a snob who disapproved of those members of his profession who did not have the right social pedigree. This should have put him at odds with Fangio, who came from a most humble background in Argentina. Yet when Fangio was nearly killed in the 1952 Italian Grand Prix, the first person to visit his hospital bedside was the race winner Farina, who presented his fallen comrade with the victory wreath.
His nickname 'the Gentleman of Turin' was a reference to Farina's privileged background and the natural dignity with which he carried himself, even in the driver's seat. Sitting bolt upright and well back in the cockpit, Farina grasped the steering wheel with both arms fully outstretched and guided his car with calm, sparing movements and deft applications of the throttle. His stylish technique (soon adopted by the likes of Fangio and Stirling Moss) belied Farina's tendency to punish his cars. Perhaps it was a lack of mechanical sympathy or understanding that also caused him to push them beyond the point of no return and have far more than his share of accidents, which he tended to blame on bad luck or fragile machinery - never himself. His survival, Farina felt, was due not to good luck but to his deep belief in God and after every accident he would give prayers of thanks to the Virgin Mary.
Fangio remarked that "because of the crazy way Farina drove only the Holy Virgin was capable of keeping him on the track, and we all thought one day she would get tired of helping him." Even Enzo Ferrari (not always noted for his compassion) feared for Farina's future: "A man of steel, inside and out. But I could never help feeling apprehensive about him. He was like a high strung thoroughbred, capable of committing the most astonishing follies. As a consequence he was a regular inmate of the hospital wards."
His mounting toll of injuries (including being seriously burned at Monza in 1954) meant Farina needed morphine and painkillers to continue tempting fate. Finally, pain overcame pride, and he retired from racing in 1955 and became a successful Alfa Romeo dealer. Farina's interest in Formula One continued, as did his confidence in his driving ability. On June 30, 1966, he set out from Turin in a Lotus-Cortina, bound for the French Grand Prix at Reims. In the Alps near Chambery his car skidded off a slippery bend and the first World Champion was killed. -
Hey, why'd this thread die out after the first post? Anyway, let's continue with the champion of 1951 (and '54-'57).
Grand Prix Starts: 51 Grand Prix Wins: 22 Pole Positions: 27
Juan Manuel fangio, affectionately known as "bandy legs" by his many fans, was born in Balcarce, Argentina the son of an Italian immigrant in 1911. After military service he opened his own garage and would race in local events. These "local" events were not the weekend meetings that occur all over England but long-distance races held over mostly dirt roads up and down South America. Fangio's first race at eighteen was in a Ford taxi. One particular race which he won in 1940, the Gran Premio del Norte was almost 10,000 kilometers long. This race between Buenos Aires, up through the Andes to Lima, Peru and back again took nearly two weeks with stages held each day. No mechanics were allowed and any repairs would have to be completed by either the driver or co-driver at the end of each stage. Following many successes driving all makes of American modified stock cars, Fangio was sponsored by the government and sent to Europe to continue his career after the end of World War II. It was not until 1949 at the age of 37 that he achieved regular success on the European circuit. In 1950 he was given a drive at Alfa Romeo. Battling with his teammate Nino Farina he ended up in second place but the die had been cast.
The next year Fangio won the first of his five titles. 1952 saw him suffer his first major accident, at Monza, when he broke his neck and had to miss the rest of the season. He had promised to race at Monza following a race in Belfast but due to missed connections he found himself driving all night from Paris only to arrive at the circuit one half hour prior to the race. Having to start from the back of the grid he made a rare mistake and the Maserati he was driving went into a big slide. Being extremely tired his reactions were not what they would normally have been and he could not regain control of the car before it hit a earthen bank and somersaulted in the air. Fangio was thrown out and would spend the next few hours hovering near death. The following year he returned at the wheel of a Maserati and finished the season in second place. Fangio always made it his policy to garner the loyalty of the team mechanics. He told them that they would receive ten percent of any winnings. During practice for the Italian Grand Prix he complained of a severe vibration but come race day the problem had completely disappeared. The mechanics had switched cars in the middle of the night and given Fangio's vibrating car to his teammate Bonetto.
In 1954 he moved to the Mercedes team and won his second World Championship. Fangio drove twelve Grands Prix for Mercedes winning eight times. This began a string of four straight titles. In 1957 Juan-Manuel Fangio won one of his most famous races at the German Grand Prix. Fangio both loved and was in awe of the Nurburgring circuit but driving an under powered Maserati he managed to come from behind and pass the two leading Ferraris. Passing Hawthorn by "straight lining" one of the final curves he amazed his rivals with his virtuosity. In 1958, driving his last race, the French Grand Prix he finished fourth and retired. His Maserati was not competitive that day and was about to be lapped by the race leader Mike Hawthorn. As a mark of respect for the great man known as "the maestro" by his peers Hawthorn braked and allowed Fangio to cross the line ahead of him. Getting out of the car after the race he said to his mechanic simply, "It is finished." Juan-Manuel Fangio was famous for winning a race at the slowest possible speed. His record of wins against starts will probably never be matched. -
Alberto Ascari (ITA) World Champion - 1952-1953
Grand Prix Starts: 32 Grand Prix Wins: 10 Pole Positions: 14
The son of one of Italy's great pre-war drivers, Alberto Ascari went on to become one of Formula One racing's most dominant and best-loved champions. Noted for the careful precision and finely-judged accuracy that made him one of the safest drivers in a most dangerous era, he was also notoriously superstitious and took great pains to avoid tempting fate. But his unexplained fatal accident - at exactly the same age as his fatherÂ’s, on the same day of the month and in eerily similar circumstances - remains one of Formula One racingÂ’s great unsolved mysteries.
Alberto Ascari, born in Milan on July 13, 1918, was just seven years old when his famous father Antonio, the reigning European champion, was killed while leading the French Grand Prix at Montlhery. By that time little Alberto was already immersed in his father's milieu, having met the many big names in racing, including Antonio's close friend Enzo Ferrari, who frequented the thriving Ascari Fiat dealership in Milan. Despite the tragic loss of his beloved father Alberto succumbed to the lure of racing. His famous name helped get him started, though it was on two wheels, not four, when, as a 19-year-old he was hired to ride for the Bianchi motorcycle team. His first four-wheel foray came in the 1940 Mille Miglia, where Enzo Ferrari gave him a ride in a Tipo 815 Spyder. When Italy entered World War II the Ascari garage in Milan, now run by Alberto, was conscripted to service and maintain military vehicles. During the war years he also established a transport business, supplying fuel to Italian army depots in Noth Africa. His partner in this enterprise was Luigi Villoresi, a racing driver with whom he developed a father-son relationship. By the end of the war Alberto was a family man, having married Mietta and become the father of Patrizia and Antonio, who was named after his celebrated grandfather.
Given his family responsibilities Alberto was prepared not to race again, but Villoresi persuaded him to continue. In 1949 they became team mates in Enzo Ferrari's team, where Ascari's dominance would make him Formula One racingÂ’s first back-to-back champion. In 1952 he drove his Ferrari 500 to victory in six of the seven championship races. In 1953 he again overpowered the opposition, winning five times and cruising to a second successive driving title. A great driver admired by his peers, Ascari was also a charming man idolised by a legion of admirers.
His illustrious heritage helped, as did his superlative driving skill, but his winning persona also contributed to his huge popularity. It was easy to like a hero who was so obviously no prima donna, the driver with the plump physique whom the Italian fans nicknamed 'Ciccio' (chubby), and whose open and friendly disposition was apparent from his genial smile. Even his idiosyncratic superstitions were endearing, an entirely human response to the dangers of racing. He avoided black cats like the plague, had a horror of unlucky numbers and never allowed anyone else to handle the briefcase that contained his racing apparel: the lucky blue helmet and T-shirt, the goggles and gloves.
But perhaps he also had inner demons, for he was a chronic insomniac and prone to stomach ulcers. Enzo Ferrari, who knew Ascari was deeply devoted to his family, once asked him why he didn't demonstrate his affection. "I prefer to treat them the hard way," Alberto said. "I don't want them to love me too much. Because they will suffer less if one of these days I am killed."
Such an eventuality seemed most unlikely for a driver who always strictly observed self-imposed safety margins, who studiously avoided exceeding the limits of his car or himself, and whose relaxed and smooth style looked so effortless as to suggest he would have plenty of skill in reserve to correct any rare mistake.
Following his runaway championships he moved to Lancia for, he admitted, more money than Ferrari was prepared to pay him. Having been sidelined for most of 1954 because the Lancias were not yet raceworthy he embarked on an ill-fated 1955 campaign. In the Monaco Grand Prix Ascari's leading Lancia D50 suddenly swerved out of control in the harbour chicane, flew into the Mediterranean and sank, its disappearance marked only by a stream of bubbles and an oil slick. Half a minute later, the familiar light blue helmet bobbed to the surface and Ascari was hauled aboard a rescue launch manned by frogmen. In the Monaco hospital, where he was treated for a broken nose, bruises and shock, Ascari seemed as embarrassed as he was thankful for his miraculous escape.
Four days later he unexpectedly appeared at Monza to watch a practice session in which Eugenio Castellotti was testing a Ferrari sports car they were scheduled to share in a forthcoming endurance race. Ascari surprised everyone by announcing he wanted to do a few laps to make sure he had not lost his nerve. He was wearing a jacket and tie and had left his lucky blue helmet at home, so he borrowed Castellotti's white helmet and set off around Monza. On the third lap the Ferrari crashed inexplicably and Alberto Ascari was killed.
Had he suffered a blackout, a legacy of his Monaco accident? Was there a sudden gust of wind, had his flapping tie momentarily obscured his vision? Had he swerved suddenly to avoid a wandering track worker, or an animal, perhaps a black cat?
The eerie certainties were that Alberto Ascari died on May 26, 1955, at the age of 36. Antonio Ascari was also 36 when he died, on July 26, 1925. Both father and son had won 13 championship Grands Prix. Both were killed four days after surviving serious accidents. Both had crashed fatally at the exit of fast but easy left-hand corners and both left behind a wife and two children. A distraught Mietta Ascari told Enzo Ferrari that were it not for their children she would gladly have joined her beloved Alberto in heaven.
All of Italy mourned the loss and on the day of the funeral in Milan the whole city fell silent, as a solemn procession carrying the fallen hero moved slowly through the streets lined with an estimated one million silent mourners dressed in black. It required 15 carriages to carry the profusion of wreaths and flowers, and in the hearse, drawn by a team of plumed black horses, his familiar light blue helmet lay on top of the black coffin. And in the Milan cemetery Alberto Ascari was laid to rest next the grave of his father. -
Mike Hawthorn (GBR) World Champion - 1958
Grand Prix Starts: 45 Grand Prix Wins: 3 Pole Positions: 4
Mike Hawthorn loved life, drove fast and died young. Big, blond and boisterous, he often raced wearing a broad grin and a bow tie. He regarded motorsport as a quick way to further the fun he constantly pursued. When his pastime became a profession he partied as hard as he drove, though his career was also tinged by tragedy, scandal and personal misfortune. Near the end he found Formula One racing no fun at all, but he went out a winner. Other champions were greater drivers but none was a more colourful personality.
Had he been born a decade earlier John Michael Hawthorn might have been a heroic Spitfire pilot in the Battle of Britain. Instead, the circumstances in his formative years led him into motorsport and he became Britain's first world driving champion. Two year's after Mike's birth on April 10, 1929, his racing enthusiast father Leslie bought a garage near the Brooklands circuit in
Farnham, Surrey, where he had raced motorcycles prior to World War II. Inspired by the proximity of Brooklands, and by the atmosphere in the Hawthorn garage where cars and motorcycles were prepared for competition, Mike was only nine years old when he decided he wanted to become a racer.
His education, at a prominent Public School followed by studies at Chelsea technical college and an apprenticeship with a commercial vehicle manufacturer, was intended to prepare him for a career at the Farnham garage. Meanwhile, his father also encouraged Mike's interest in motorsport, providing him with motorcycles, then cars for local competitions. Mike also sped around the countryside as the ringleader of a group of hell-raising friends searching for girls and pints of beer in pubs. In 1950 he began winning races in a small Riley sportscar bought for him by his father. Three years later the 'Farnham Flyer' was driving a Formula One car for Enzo Ferrari.
Mike's meteoric rise from club racer to Grand Prix driver took place within on one momentous afternoon at the 1952 Easter Meeting at the Goodwood circuit. It was his first competition in a single seater, a Formula Two Cooper-Bristol provided for him by a family friend, and the opposition included the famous Argentine drivers Juan Manuel Fangio and Froilan Gonzalez. Mike won the F2 race from pole position, then also finished first in the Formula Libre race and was a sensational second in the main event, for Formula One cars.
Impressive results aside, the Farnham Flyer was a commanding figure in the spindly little Cooper, with the top half of his 6 foot 2 inch (188 centimetre) frame towering above the cramped cockpit, elbows flailing in the wind, head thrust forward, chin first. Prior to Goodwood he had always raced in his everyday clothes, usually a sports jacket and a tie, which at speed tended to flap in his face. For his single-seater debut Mike bought white overalls and wore the bow tie that became his trademark.
Inspired by his splendid showing at Goodwood, Mike and his father decided to enter the Cooper in the remaining races of a 1952 Formula One season that was being dominated by Alberto Ascari in a Ferrari. A fourth place in Belgium, a third in Britain and another fourth in Holland left Mike an astonishing fourth overall in the standings. Enzo Ferrari was impressed and hired him for 1953.
His only championship victory in his first Formula One season was a singular feat that became the highlight of Mike's career. In a classic 1953 French Grand Prix at Reims his Ferrari crossed the finish line a hair's breadth ahead of the Maserati driven by the great Fangio. On the podium, when he heard God Save The Queen being played Mike burst into tears and was warmly embraced by the ever-gallant Fangio, who thought him: "a nice young fellow, always in a good mood."
To the French, the Englishman who raced with a bow tie became known as 'Le Papillon' (The Butterfly), though some purists despaired at the dilettante driver with a penchant for partying and chasing women. At home, Britain's flamboyant new racing hero was subjected to close scrutiny and flaws were sought by sensation-seeking tabloid newspapers. He was accused of evading compulsory military service, though in fact, he had been rejected because of a chronic kidney ailment. But his reputation suffered, and fate also conspired against him. Early in 1954 his arms and legs were badly burned in a crash in a non-championship race in Sicily. Then his father was killed in a road accident.
Mike salvaged the sad year somewhat with a win in the Spanish Grand Prix, but there followed two lost Formula One seasons when he left Ferrari and raced for the then uncompetitive Vanwall and BRM teams. During that period his only major victory came in the ill-fated 1955 Le Mans 24 hour sportscar race where a Mercedes crashed into the crowd, killing over 80 people in motorsport's worst disaster. Mike, co-driving the Jaguar that eventually won, was at first accused of triggering the accident and, though he was later exonerated, the deadly side of motorsport badly bothered him.
His racing life improved in 1957 when he returned to Ferrari, where he also found a kindred spirit in a fun-loving team mate. Peter Collins was an equally handsome carouser who enjoyed wine, women and song. They became fast friends, calling each other "Mon Ami Mate" and engaging in such pranks as marooning people in hotel elevators and staging raucous bun fights in restaurants. They raced as hard as they played, facing the ever-present danger with a fatalistic nonchalance and flogging their Ferraris as if there was no tomorrow.
Mike's championship year of 1958 was blighted at Germany's notorious Nurburgring where he saw his team mate's Ferrari Dino 246 crash with fatal results. The death of Collins left him devastated and disillusioned and Mike only reluctantly completed the season. He finished one point ahead of Vanwall's Stirling Moss (who had won four races to Mike's single victory, in France) to become the first British World Champion.
By now engaged to Jean Howarth, a beautiful fashion model, Mike had lost the heart for racing and at the end of the year he announced his retirement. He continued to drive fast on public roads and on January 22, 1959, near his Farnham home, his Jaguar skidded off a wet corner and 29-year-old Mike Hawthorn was killed.
Text - Gerald Donaldson
Photo - © Sutton -
Jack Brabham (AUS) World Champion - 1959-1960, 1966
Grand Prix Starts: 125 Grand Prix Wins: 14 Pole Positions: 13
Jack Brabham's three world championships were the product of both his engineering expertise and driving skill. His first two titles, in rear-engined Coopers he helped develop, confirmed the obsolescence of front-engined Formula One cars. His third title, in a Brabham, made him the only driver to become champion in a car of his own make. For his lifetime achievements, which also included nurturing the talents of other notable drivers and pioneering the business side of the sport, he became the first Formula One driver to receive a knighthood.
John Arthur 'Jack' Brabham, was born on April 2, 1926, in Hurstville, an Australian town near Sydney where his father was a greengrocer. From an early age Jack was far less interested in fruit and vegetables than in the Brabham shop's delivery vehicles. He learned to drive them long before he was eligible for a licence and by his early teens he was equally adept at keeping them roadworthy. His mechanical aptitude led him to a technical college where he studied practical engineering. Not academically-inclined, he left school at 15 and went to work in an engineering shop, then a garage. At 18 he joined the Royal Australian Air Force in Adelaide, where he wanted to learn to fly but was instead trained to fill a wartime shortage of flight mechanics. Upon his discharge, in 1946, an uncle in the construction business built him a workshop in Sydney, where Jack opened his own engineering establishment.
In 1951 he married Betty, who became the mother of their three sons, Geoffrey, Gary and David, all of whom would race, though not nearly as successfully as their father. Jack's introduction to motorsport came through a friend who raced midgets on dirt track ovals. Jack helped him build a new car and when his friend decided to stop driving Jack took over and became a regular winner. In self-prepared midgets he won four successive Australian championships and was the 1953 hillclimb champion in a British-built Cooper-Bristol. Two years later his growing ambition to expand his motorsport horizons brought Jack to England. A meeting with John and Charles Cooper, constructors of his successful Australian car, led to a friendship and partnership that would propel the tiny Cooper Car Company and 'Black Jack' Brabham into the forefront of Formula One history.
With Brabham providing the inspiration (he helped persuade the Coopers to take the rear-engine route into Formula One racing) and the perspiration (he built up his first chassis in Cooper's workshop) the tiny British cars with the engines in the back sped to the front in an era previously dominated by big, front-engined Italian and German roadsters. In the Brabham-led team's first full championship season of 1958 the debut win for a Cooper came courtesy of Stirling Moss, who drove Rob Walker's private entry to victory in Argentina. In 1959 Moss won twice, but Brabham's victories in Monaco and Britain together with his consistently high placings resulted in the Australian winning a driversÂ’ title that some thought owed more to stealth than skill, an opinion at least partly based on Brabham's low-key presence.
Always a man of few words - his nickname 'Black Jack' referred to both his dark hair and his propensity for maintaining a shadowy silence - he avoided small talk and was undemonstrative in the extreme. But behind the wheel he was anything but shy and retiring. He put his head down and drove exceedingly forcefully, opposite-locking his car dirt-track style, and was not averse to deliberately showering gravel in the face of a too closely following pursuer. His aversion for the limelight became more of a problem in 1960, when he completely dominated the nine-race series, winning consecutively in Holland, Belgium, France, Britain and Portugal, en route to his second successive championship.
Following an unproductive 1961 season, when the Ferraris were all powerful, Brabham left Cooper to form Motor Racing Developments, in partnership with the talented Australian designer Ron Tauranac. The MRD Brabhams were quickly successful in several categories of racing, particularly Formula Two where for several years they dominated, affording the opportunity for many drivers to advance their careers. The Brabham Formula One car, which first appeared late in 1962, became steadily more competitive as the team leader personally perfected the chassis set-up and fine-tuned the Climax engines. In 1964 Brabham had the satisfaction of seeing his team mate Dan Gurney win in France and Mexico.
For 1966, when the new 3-litre formula came into effect, Brabham persuaded an Australian company Repco (a manufacturer of automotive components) to produce a Formula One engine from a venerable Oldsmobile V8 design. Equally ancient was Brabham himself, or so it seemed to the media and his much younger rivals who used to kid him about his age. Prior to the 1966 Dutch Grand Prix, his first race after his 40th birthday, 'Geriatric Jack' Brabham hobbled onto the starting grid at Zandvoort, wearing a long false beard and leaning on a cane. Sportingly, several of his laughing opponents helped him into the cockpit of his Brabham-Repco, which happened to be on pole position. Tossing aside his beard and cane Brabham proceeded to win that race, a feat he also accomplished in France, in Britain and in Germany - on the notoriously difficult and dangerous Nurburgring - a victory he felt was the most satisfying of his career. Thus in 1966 Brabham became the first (and still only) driver, to win the championship in a car of his own make.
Brabham also established the precedent for Formula One drivers to become pilots of their own planes. Though such transport at the time was exotic, Brabham's tastes remained simple. Distrustful of foreign fare, he flew his own steaks to the races. His passengers over the years included a succession of his Brabham team mates – Bruce McLaren, Dan Gurney, Denny Hulme, Jochen Rindt, Jacky Ickx – all of whom benefited from his tutelage and made their mark in Formula One racing.
Jack Brabham, whose final victory came in the 1970 South African Grand Prix when he was 44, chose that season to retire as a driver. The Brabham team was sold to Bernie Ecclestone and Jack returned home to Australia, where he busied himself running a farm, a car dealership and an aviation company, and helped his sons with their racing careers. His contribution to British motorsport was officially recognised in 1985 and he became Sir Jack Brabham.
Text - Gerald Donaldson
Photo - © Schlegelmilch -
Niki Lauda (AUT) World Champion - 1975, 1977, 1984
Grand Prix Starts: 170 Grand Prix Wins: 25 Pole Positions: 24
He bought his way into Formula One racing and very nearly paid for it with his life. Given up for dead after an appalling accident he recovered by what the medical profession called sheer force of will. His astonishingly quick return to the cockpit was called the most courageous comeback in sporting history. After winning two championships he got bored and left the sport, only to return again and win another. During his remarkable career he was called both a hero and a villain. The battle-scarred champion who defied both the odds and convention remains a living legend.
On February 22, 1949, Nicholas Andreas Lauda was born in Vienna into a prominent Austrian business and banking dynasty. Paper manufacturing was how Niki's father made his fortune, though none of it would be made available for a contrary son who would surely bring the respected Lauda name into disrepute by playing at being a racing driver. To further educate himself in this field Niki forsook university and enrolled himself in racing's school of hard knocks, paying for it with money borrowed from Austrian banks. Starting in a Mini in 1968, he crashed his way through Formula Vee and Formula Three and in 1972 he bought his way into the March Formula Two and Formula One teams with another bank loan secured by his life insurance policy. The uncompetitive Marches meant Niki was unable to prove his worth as a driver, let alone stave off pending bankruptcy. With no qualifications in any other line of work he had no choice but to keep on racing.
For 1973 he talked his way into a complicated rent-a-ride deal with BRM. During that season his ever-improving results paid dividends in the form of a new contract that would forgive his debts in exchange for Niki staying with BRM for a further two years. Instead, he bought his way out of BRM with money from his new employer Enzo Ferrari, for whom he went to work in 1974.
Ferrari, who hadn't had a champion since John Surtees in 1964, was impressed by the skinny, buck-toothed Austrian's self-confidence and no-nonsense work ethic, though rather taken aback by his brutal honesty. After his first test in the 1974 Ferrari 312 Niki informed Enzo that the car was "a piece of sh|t," but promised him he could make it raceworthy. Now in the spotlight as a possible Ferrari saviour, the media noted Lauda's cool, calculating clinical approach and nicknamed him 'The Computer.' However, The Computer's driving still had some glitches and he made several costly errors in 1974. Niki said that learning from mistakes was the fastest way to improve, corroborating this theory with a first Formula One victory in Spain, then another in Holland.
In his 1975 Ferrari 312/T Niki stormed to victories in Monaco, Belgium, Sweden, France and the USA to become World Champion. All of Italy rejoiced at Ferrari's first driving title in over a decade, though the glory meant little to the unsentimental new hero. Claiming that his mounting collection of "useless" trophies was cluttering up his home in Austria, he gave them to the local garage in exchange for free car washes.
By mid-summer 1976 he had won five races and seemed a shoo-in to repeat as champion. Then came the German Grand Prix at the desperately dangerous Nurburgring. On the second lap Lauda's Ferrari inexplicably crashed and burst into flames. Four brave drivers and a marshal plunged into the towering inferno and hauled out the smouldering body. In hospital, with first to third degree burns on his head and wrists, several broken bones and lungs scorched from inhaling toxic fumes, Niki Lauda was given up for dead and administered the last rites by a priest.
Six weeks later, with blood seeping from the bandages on his head, he finished fourth in the Italian Grand Prix. Astonished doctors said he had recovered by sheer force of will. Jackie Stewart said it was the most courageous comeback in the history of sport. Niki said the loss of half an ear made it easier to use the telephone. In consideration of those who found his facial disfigurement unsightly he thereafter wore a red baseball cap, hiring it out to a sponsor for a hefty fee.
The 1976 championship ended in a showdown between Niki and McLaren's James Hunt at Japan's Fuji circuit in torrential rain. Niki decided it was too dangerous to race and pulled out, handing the title to his friend Hunt, who said Niki's withdrawal was an act of bravery. In Italy some called him a coward. Even Enzo Ferrari had doubts and made plans to replace him, a reaction that angered Niki and made his winning the 1977 driving title a form of revenge. Having clinched the championship with two races remaining, Niki decided to skip them and told Ferrari he was leaving. Enzo called him a traitor for moving to Bernie Ecclestone's Brabham team.
In his 1978 season with Brabham Niki won twice and finished fourth in the championship. The next year, in an uncompetitive car, he had scored only four points prior to the penultimate race, in Canada. There, after the first practice session, he walked away from Formula One racing, saying he was "tired of driving around in circles" and would now start his own airline.
Lauda Air, with its proprietor serving as one of the pilots, grew to the point that further progress would require more capital, in pursuit of which Niki returned to his previous profession. In 1982 he signed with McLaren for a reported US$5 million, the most lucrative contract in Formula One history. In his negotiations Niki told the McLaren money men he was only charging one dollar for his services as a driver - all the rest was for his personality. In 1984 he won his third driving title, albeit by the slimmest of margins from his brilliant young McLaren team mate Alain Prost. Niki won a final Grand Prix in 1985 then retired from the sport for good as a driver, though he never really left the paddock.
He worked as an adviser for Ferrari, served as a Jaguar team principal and became a television commentator - a role for which he was uniquely qualified to provide insights into the highs and lows of the sport he was lucky to survive and brilliant enough to conquer. -
Ayrton Senna (BRA) World Champion - 1988, 1990-1991
Grand Prix Starts: 161 Grand Prix Wins: 41 Pole Positions: 65
He streaked through the sport like a comet, an other-worldly superstar whose brilliance as a driver was matched by a dazzling intellect and coruscating charisma that illuminated Formula One racing as never before. No one tried harder or pushed himself further, nor did anyone shed so much light on the extremes to which only the greatest drivers go. Intensely introspective and passionate in the extreme, Ayrton Senna endlessly sought to extend his limits, to go faster than himself, a quest that ultimately made him a martyr but did not diminish his mystique.
Ayrton Senna da Silva was born on March 21, 1960, into a wealthy Brazilian family where, with his brother and sister, he enjoyed a privileged upbringing. He never needed to race for money but his deep need for racing began with an infatuation for a miniature go-kart his father gave him when he was four years old. As a boy the highlights of Ayrton's life were Grand Prix mornings when he awoke trembling with anticipation at the prospect of watching his Formula One heroes in action on television. At 13 he raced a kart for the first time and immediately won. Eight years later he went single-seater racing in Britain, where in three years he won five championships, by which time he had divorced his young wife and forsaken a future in his father's businesses in favour of pursuing success in Formula One racing, where he made his debut with Toleman in 1984. At Monaco (a race he would win six times), his sensational second to Alain Prost's McLaren - in torrential rain - was confirmation of the phenomenal talent that would take the sport by storm.
Deciding Toleman's limited resources were inadequate for his towering ambition, Senna bought out his contract and in 1985 moved to Lotus, where in three seasons he started from pole 16 times (he eventually won a record 65) and won six races. Having reached the limits of Lotus he decided the fastest way forward would be with McLaren, where he went in 1988 and stayed for six seasons, winning 35 races and three world championships.
In 1988, when McLaren-Honda won 15 of the 16 races, Senna beat his team mate Alain Prost eight wins to seven to take his first driving title. Thereafter two of the greatest drivers became protagonists in one of the most infamous feuds. In 1989 Prost took the title by taking Senna out at the Suzuka chicane. In 1990 Senna extracted revenge at Suzuka's first corner, winning his second championship by taking out Prost's Ferrari at Suzuka's first corner. Senna's third title, in 1991, was straightforward as his domination as a driver became even more pronounced, as did his obsession with becoming better still. Some of his greatest performances came in his final year with McLaren, following which he moved to Williams for the ill-fated 1994 season.
Beyond his driving genius Senna was one of the sport's most compelling personalities. Though slight in stature he possessed a powerful physical presence, and when he spoke, with his warm brown eyes sparkling and his voice quavering with intensity, his eloquence was spellbinding. Even the most jaded members of the Formula One fraternity were mesmerised by his passionate soliloquies and in his press conferences you could hear a pin drop as he spoke with such hypnotic effect. His command performances were captured by the media and the world at large became aware of Senna's magnetic appeal.
Everyone marvelled at how he put so much of himself, his very soul, into everything he did, not just his driving but into life itself. Behind the wheel the depth of his commitment was there for all to see and the thrilling spectacle of Senna on an all-out qualifying lap or a relentless charge through the field evoked an uneasy combination of both admiration for his superlative skill and fear for his future.
He drove like a man possessed - some thought by demons. His ruthless ambition provoked condemnation from critics, among them Prost who accused him of caring more about winning than living. When Senna revealed he had discovered religion Prost and others suggested he was a dangerous madman who thought God was his co-pilot. "Senna is a genius," Martin Brundle said. "I define genius as just the right side of imbalance. He is so highly developed to the point that he's almost over the edge. It's a close call."
Even Senna confessed he occasionally went too far, as was the case in qualifying for the 1988 Monaco Grand Prix, where he became a passenger on a surreal ride into the unknown. Already on pole, he went faster and faster and was eventually over two seconds quicker than Prost in an identical McLaren. "Suddenly, it frightened me," Ayrton said, "because I realised I was well beyond my conscious understanding. I drove back slowly to the pits and did not go out anymore that day."
He said he was acutely aware of his own mortality and used fear to control the extent of the boundaries he felt compelled to explore. Indeed, he regarded racing as a metaphor for life and he used driving as a means of self-discovery. "For me, this research is fascinating. Every time I push, I find something more, again and again. But there is a contradiction. The same moment that you become the fastest, you are enormously fragile. Because in a split-second, it can be gone. All of it. These two extremes contribute to knowing yourself, deeper and deeper."
His self-absorption did not preclude deep feelings for humanity and he despaired over the world's ills. He loved children and gave millions of his personal fortune (estimated at $400 million when he died) to help provide a better future for the underprivileged in Brazil. Early in 1994 he spoke about his own future. "I want to live fully, very intensely. I would never want to live partially, suffering from illness or injury. If I ever happen to have an accident that eventually costs my life, I hope it happens in one instant."
And so it did, on May 1, 1994, in the San Marino Grand Prix, where his race-leading Williams inexplicably speared off the Imola track and hit the concrete wall at Tamburello corner. Millions saw it happen on television, the world mourned his passing and his state funeral in Sao Paulo was attended by many members of the shocked Formula One community. Among the several drivers escorting the coffin was Alain Prost. Among the sad mourners was Frank Williams, who said: "Ayrton was no ordinary person. He was actually a greater man out of the car than in it."