This Week in Racing: A time of F1 upsets and records

In  a week of upsets and records, Formula 1 also celebrated 70th birthday this week. Nino Farina led an Alfa Romeo 158 rout to win the first ever F1 Grand Prix off pole position from Luigi Fagioli and local hero Reg Parnell. at Silverstone on 13 May 1950.

Since then, Piero Taruffi won the 1952 Swiss Grand Prix of for Ferrari, Stirling Moss the 1956 Monaco GP driving a Maserati 250F from Juan Manuel Fangio, who took over teammate Peter Collins’ Ferrari. Fangio went on to win for Maserati in the streets the following year, before Maurice Trintignant took a significant mid-engined Monaco win in ’58.

Stirling Moss’ Lotus Climax beat the Ferraris to the first ever all-mid-engined 1500cc F1 GP win at Monaco ’61 and Graham Hill took his 14th and final GP win for Lotus-Cosworth in the 1969 Monaco GP. Jean-Pierre Beltoise pulled off a memorable surprise wet Monaco win in 1972 – his only and BRM’s final F1 victory.

Niki Lauda won the 1977 Belgan Grand Prix en route to becoming world champion for the second time in Ferrari 312T2, a feat Jody Scheckter repeated two years later driving a Ferrari 312 T4 en route to his only title in 79.

Carlos Reutemann won two races for Williams Cosworth in this week – in Monaco 1980 and Belgium ’81, while Keke Rosberg’s ’83 Monaco win in a Williams-Cosworth’s would be made more significant when son Nico repeated the feat 30 years down the line.

Alain Prost won the 1985 Monaco Grand Prix in a McLaren Porsche and Belgium ’87 in a McLaren Honda, but his ‘88 Monaco victory will be remembered more for teammate Ayrton Senna so spectacularly crashing out of the lead with the race win all but won.

Riccardo Patrese took his first GP victory in seven years for Williams Renault in San Marino 1990, where Nigel Mansell also won for Williams Renault in 1992.

Michael Schumacher took his fourth win in four races for Benetton-Cosworth at Monaco ’94, before leading teammate Johnny Herbert to a Benetton-Renault 1-2 in the ’95  Spanish Grand Prix, after which race Nigel Mansell quit F1.

Olivier Panis was another surprise winner of his only grand prix after a perfectly-timed switch to dry tyres at Monaco 1996, but it was the exact converse three years later when Michael Schumacher became Ferrari’s most successful driver by breaking Niki Lauda’s 15-win record at the ‘99 Monaco Grand Prix.

David Coulthard’s McLaren Mercedes held off Schumacher’s Ferraris to win the 2001 Austrian Grand Prix, but Michael was back in charge for Ferrari in Austria in 2003, while Felipe Massa’s Ferrari beat McLaren-Mercedes duo Lewis Hamilton and Fernando Alonso in Spain ’07. Alonso’s Renault held Michael Schumacher’s Ferrari off in Spain ‘06, while Mark Webber delivered a memorable win for Red Bull-Renault at Monaco in 2010.

In one of modern F1’s biggest upsets, Venezuelan underdog Pastor Maldonado took Williams’ most recent grand prix win at the 2012 Spanish, while Spain 2016  will be remembered for Max Verstappen becoming the youngest ever GP winner at just 18. That only after Mercedes teammates Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg took each other out.

Hamilton however made no such mistakes when he drove his Mercedes to defeat Sebastian Vettel’s Ferrari in Spain 2017 and again in 2018, when he led teammate Valtteri Bottas to a 2018 Spanish Mercedes 1-2, once again over Vettel’s Ferrari.

Before Formula 1, Giuseppe Farina won the 1948  Monaco Grand Prix and Emmanuel de Graffenried’s the ‘49 British Grand Prix, both driving Maserati 4CLTs. Non-championship F1 action this week included Chico Landi’s Ferrari 125C winning the ’51 Saõ Paulo Grand Prix at Interlagos and F1 rookie Giancarlo Baghetti winning his second race in a row off just two starts in a Ferrari 156 at the 1961 Naples Grand Prix.

Silverstone International Trophy F1 winners this week included Froilan Gonzalez’ Ferrari 625 in 1954, Innes Ireland‘s Lotus 18 Climax in ’60, Jackie Stewart in his BRM P61 in ‘65 and Jack Brabham’s Brabham BT19 Repco in ’66. Dave Charlton won the South African F1 championship Bulawayo 100 in Rhodesia twice on this day – driving a Lotus 49C Cosworth in  ’71 and in a 72D in ’72.

In sportscar action, Ernesto Ceirano’s SCAT won the  1911 Targa Florio, 56 years before Paul Hawkins and Rolf Stommelen did the same in a Porsche 906 in ‘67, while Nino Vaccarella and Tonie Hezemanz won in ’71 in an Alfa Romeo T33/3 and Herbert Muller and Gijs van Lennep’s Porsche 911 Carrera RSR took that great Sicilian road race win in 1973.

Alan Jones’s Lola T333CS-Chevrolet won the 78 Road Atlanta Can Am, the same day that Jacky Ickx and Jochen Mass won their first of three Silverstone 6-hours over this week in race history, in a Porsche 935 in ‘77 and ‘78  and a 956 in 83. Ickx and Derek Bell’s 956 was however beaten by Michele Alboreto and Riccardo Patrese’s Lancia LC1 in the 1982 race.

World Rally winners on this day include Bernard Darniche in an Alpine Renault A110 in Morocco 1973, Richard Burns’ Subaru Impreza in Argentina 2000 and Sebastien Loeb twice in Cyprus driving a Citroen Xsara in 2004 and ’05.

Motorsport bade farewell to American driver Harry Schell (38), who died in a practice accident for the 1960 Silverstone International Trophy, while 1953 Le Mans winner and a handy occasional F1 amateur, Duncan Hamilton passed aged 74 in 1994.

Formula 1 star and its ‘last gentleman’, Elio de Angelis died following a testing crash at Paul Ricard in France aged 28 on this day 1986. (Photo: F1 Archives)