Tech Talk: The Time Ferrari Ran Two Rear Wings
Read More
Benetton B194: The car that launched the Michael Schumacher Legend
Read More
53 years ago, on this day in 1967 Ferrari scored a famous victory over Ford in the American team's backyard - the Daytona 24 Hours in Florida.
Chris Amon and Lorenzo Bandini in a Ferrari 330 P3/4 Spyder took victory with 666 laps on the mixed tri-oval and road-course. They led home their teammates Mike Parkes and Ludovico Scarfiotti sharing a Ferrari 330 P4 Coupé and third place going to the North American Racing Team (NART) Pedro Rodriguez and Jean Guichet in a Ferrari 412P.
Jacky Ickx and Dick Thompson were the best placed Ford GT, down in sixth and 65 laps down on the race winners; the humiliation completed when the trio of Ferrari's orchestrated a formation finish to celebrate the historic occasion.
In 1978, driving a Brumos Porsche 935/77A, Rolf Stommelen, Toine Hezemans and Peter Gregg won the Daytona 24-Hours, thirty laps ahead of the similar Dick Barbour entered Porsche with open-wheel star Johnny Rutherford, Manfred Schurti and Barbour himself sharing the cockpit.
It was a remarkable result for Porsche whose cars filled the top seven positions in the final standings. It was a big win for Brumos at a time when sportscar racing was at its height in popularity.
Eleven years later, in 1989, Derek Bell, Bob Wollek and local hero John Andretti powered the Jim Busby entered Porsche 962 to victory at Daytona, with the winners beating the second-placed Jaguar XJR-9D of Price Cobb, John Nielson, Jan Lammers, and Andy Wallace by a mere 90 seconds after a tense 24-hours duel.
The victory also marked the occasion of the mighty Porsche 962's 50th major victory on United States soil.
In 2001, Flavio Briatore confirmed that his protege Fernando Alonso - a Renault test driver at the time - would make his Formula 1 debut that year with Minardi starting at the season-opening Australian Grand Prix that year.
The Spaniard was fresh out of karting when he finished fourth in the hugely-competitive F3000 championship, the F1-feeder series of the time.
In retrospect, the announcement that day marked the start of Alonso's incredible career in F1 which saw him claim two titles and established himself as one of the greatest drivers of his era.
Happy Birthday to Héctor Rebaque who is 64-years-old today. The Mexican will always be remembered for his time as a privateer in F1, running a third Lotus in the seventies.
He contested 58 Grands Prix, scoring 13 points at a time when only the top six had the privilege of scoring. He briefly ran his own team with little success.
At the end of his career, Rebaque drove a March 82C Cosworth DFX in the 1982 CART season for Forsythe Racing. He finished 11th at that year's Indianapolis 500 despite a fire.
