Today in Racing: 27 April

Lella Lombardi became the only woman ever to score world championship points in Formula 1 on the day that 1 Jochen Mass won his only Grand Prix in a McLaren M23 Cosworth at a tragic 1975 GP de España from Jacky Ickx in a Lotus 72E and Carlos Reutemann’s Brabham BT44B after third-placed Jean-Pierre Jarier was penalised at Montjuich Park.

Only half points were awarded after the race was shortened following a crash where Rolf Stommelen’s Hill GH1 ended up in the crowd and killing five spectators, prompting officials to stop the  incident-strewn race early. That meant that sixth-placed Lombardi scored half a point.

Eleven years later, Alain Prost powered his McLaren MP4/2C TAG-Porsche to another  San Marino Grand Prix that was more of a fuel economy run at Imola 1986. Like the previous year, a dominant Prost was out of fuel and forced to weave to pick up the last remnants of his tank as he stole a lucky victory from the rapidly closing Nelson Piquet’s Williams-Honda and Gerhard Berger in a Benetton-BMW.

Another eleven years on, Hans-Harald Frentzen took his Williams FW19 Renault to a close 1997 San Marino win over Michael Schumacher and his Ferrari teammate Eddie Irvine, who had a had a good run from 9th to finish third. Kimi Raikkonen then drove his Ferrari F2008 to 2008 Spanish Grand Prix from teammate Felipe Massa and Lewis Hamilton’s McLaren another eleven years on at Barcelona.  

Looking further back to 1887, the only competitor, Compte de Dion ‘won’ the first ever motor car race in history on his steam tricycle! Moving on, Jimmy Murphy averaged 102.8 mph as he stormed to win the 1922 US Raisin Day Classic in his Miller, Christian Werner’s Mercedes M 7294 won the 1924 Targa Florio in Sicily and Jean De Maleplane won the 1930 Grand Prix d'Oranie in Algeria in a Bugatti 35C.  

Post WWII, 1947 Eugene Chaboud won the Grand Prix du Rousillon, France in a Talbot 26 and Graham Hill’s BRM P57 won the 1963 Aintree 200, the last F1 race with a driver change after third-placed Jim Clark took over teammate Trevor Taylor’s Lotus 25.

In US racing, Jimmy Vasser won in 1998 and Bruno Junqueira’s Lola-Toyota the 2002 Motegi Indy Car race, Dan Wheldon won the 2008 Indy 300 and Ryan Hunter-Reay the 2014 Grand Prix of Alabama. 27 April was a good day for the ladies – Desire Wilson and Alain De Cadenet’s De Cadenet-Cosworth won the 1980 Monza 1000 World Endurance round on this day, a feat that Pedro Lamy and Stephane Sarrazin repeated in a Peugeot 908 in ’97. Mikko Hirvonen meanwhile won the World Rally Jordan in Ford Focus RS in 2008  

On the day that former F1 driver, Le Mans winner and Red Bull team boss Helmut Marko was born, Tommy Milton, drove his 16-cylinder Duesenberg-Milton Special to a new 156mph land speed record, which stood precisely six years until also broken on this day by John Godfrey Parry-Thomas’ 340 kW Liberty V12 aero engined Higham-Thomas Babs Special at Pendine Sands 1926. Also on this day 1973, Argentine Carlos Alberto Menditeguy, who scored nine points in his eleven F1 starts, passed away at 58.