3 April: Today in Racing

Mario Andretti thrilled his home crowd when he won 1977 United States Grand Prix West in his Lotus 78 — it was the first time that a 'wing car’ won a GP, while Mario’s Long Beach feat remains the only Formula 1 victory by an American on home soil.  

The 1988 Brazilian Grand Prix was marked by Nelson Piquet’s controversial public outburst damning Ayrton Senna, Nigel Mansell and their wives and families in the pre-race build-up. Pole man Senna’s car got stuck in first gear on the parade lap, but he switched to his reserve car, started from the pit lane and fought back into second before being black flagged for changing cars, leaving McLaren teammate Alain Prost to win the race.

Fernando Alonso won the 2005 Bahrain Grand Prix for Renault on the day after Pope John Paul II died as several teams and drivers offered tokens of respect, notably Ferrari, which raced with blackened nose cones. It was not a good day for the red cars either as Michael Schumacher was forced to quit after a spin in his first retirement in 59 grand prix dating back to 2001. Also in Bahrain, Nico Rosberg beat Kimi Räikkönen’s Ferrari and Mercedes teammate Lewis Hamilton to the 2016 win.

Sticking with F1, McLaren in 1998 announced the signing of a 13-year-old karting whizz kid, Lewis Hamilton, while Bernie Ecclestone set a decade of Silverstone Grand Prix uncertainty into motion in 1999 by telling the British Racing Drivers Club, “You can do all the restructuring you like, but I might not sign another contract — shares in nothing are worth nothing…”

In other top-line racing over the years, Achille Varzi won the 1932 Tunis Grand Prix at Carthage in his Bugatti T51 and Juan Manuel Fangio drove a Maserati 4CLT to win the 1949 San Remo Grand Prix. Jim Clark took his Lotus 18 to his first F1 win in the non-championship '61 Pau Grand Prix in France, the same day that John Surtees took the Goodwood Glover Trophy in a Cooper T53.

Nigel Mansell's first Indycar outing on an oval track ended in the wall in Phoenix in 1993 — the F1 world champion was knocked unconscious in the 280km/h crash and flown to hospital but was released with concussion and bruises. Mansell had already won the first IndyCar race of the season at Surfers' Paradise in Australia. Also in Indycars on 3 April, Dan Wheldon won the 2005 St. Petersburg GP.  

There was only one World Rally Championship round on this day as Sébastien Loeb drove his Citroën to win the 2010 Jordan Rally from Jari-Matti Latvala’s Ford Focus and Petter Solberg in another Citroën.

In sportscar racing, Carrol Shelby’s Birdcage Maserati won the 1960 Los Angeles Grand Prix at Riverside in California, while Luis Diaz and Scott Pruett took Grand-Am honours in 2005. Buck Baker, John Rostek, Rex White, David Pearson and Bobby Isaac all won NASCAR Grand Nationals on this day, while Darrell Waltrip, Kevin Harvick and Kyle Busch took Cup wins and in Australia, Ian Geoghegan took Aussie Touring Car win in 1972 and Will Davison in 2016.

In other racing, lady daredevil Jacqueline de Creed broke a rather interesting record in 1980 by ramp jumping a Ford Mustang 71m, landing on its wheels and driving on at the Bedfordshire UK Santa Pod Raceway, while NASCAR legend Buddy Baker, retired from racing and car design legend  Battista ‘Pinin' Farina passed aged 72 in 1966. (Photo: Bridgestone)