20 March: Today in Racing

Fernando Alonso was on a roll as he raced to a second dominant 2005 Grand Prix win on the trot in Malaysia – Alonso started from pole and went on to win the race from Toyota's Jarno Trulli by a handy 24 seconds. Eleven years later, Nico Rosberg and Lewis Hamilton took advantage of a race stoppage - to repair the Melbourne tyre wall after a massive crash between Fernando Alonso and Esteban Gutiérrez - to change tyres and overcome Ferrari's Sebastian Vettel in yet another Mercedes 1-2.

Earlier in the 20th century, Barney Oldfield won the 1915 Tucson Champ Car Race in his Maxwell and already a motorcycle legend, Tazio Nuvolari took his first car race win in the 250km Verona Cup in an Ansaldo. Jim McElreath won in 1966 USAC  and Michael Andretti the ’94 Australian Indy GP.

In sportscar racing, Rolf Stommelen and Manfred Schurti's Porsche 935 won the 1977 Mugello 6-hour, while no less than nine Sebring 12-hour races happened over the years on this day, starting in 1971 when Vic Elford and Gérard Larrousse won in a Porsche 917K. Porsches also won in 1977 with George Dyer and Brad Frisselle in a Carrera RSR, in 1982 when John Paul Sr, and John Paul Jr won in a 935 and again when Klaus Ludwig and Hans-Joachim Stuck took the 1988 win in a 962

Fermín Vélez, Andy Evans and Eric van de Poele took the 1997 Sebring 12-hour in a  Ferrari 333 SP, Tom Kristensen, JJ Lehto and Jorg Muller’s BMW won in ’99, Frank Biela, Pierre Kaffer and Allan McNish took it for Audi in 2004, Anthony Davidson, Marc Gene and Alexander Wurz drove a Peugeot to victory in 2010 and Ed Brown, Pipo Derani, Scott Sharp and Johannes van Overbeek's Ligier won in 2016.

NASCAR winners on this day include Dick Hutcherson in 1966, Richard Petty in ’77 and Dale Earnhardt in ’88, while Morgan Shepherd won in 1993 Kyle Busch in 2011 and Jimmie Johnson in ’16. Meanwhile in Australia Allan Moffat won in Touring Cars in 1977, Marcos Ambrose in 2004 and ‘5 Jamie Whincup in 2011 and Shane van Gisbergen in 2017.

In other related news, Porsche officially submitted the 917 to the FIA for homologation, six years before Penske trotted out its mighty Can-Am 917/10. Sportscar racers Giampiero Moretti and Geoff Brabham and F1 racer Pedro Lamy share a birthday on 20 March, while once-off F1 starter in the 1954 Indy 500, American driver Larry Crockett died in a crash at the Langhorne speedway aged 28 in 1955.