Matt Bishop: F1 Flashbacks

As the British Grand Prix celebrates its centenary, Matt Bishop recounts another GP held 100 years ago, which failed to deliver much excitement, but featured an extraordinary array of characters Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Barcelona has been the scene of great Formula 1 victories for both Fernando and Alonso. But this year's result may have pushed both further towards the exit Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

On June 13, 2026, it will be exactly 50 years since Formula 1 staged one of its most eccentric and therefore most memorable races. Eccentric? Memorable? Yes and yes, unquestionably so, for the 1976 Swedish Grand Prix was, is, and always will be the only F1 grand prix won in a six-wheeled car, and that alone guarantees its place in motor sport folklore. But F1’s six-wheeled odyssey does not end the...

Let us flash back to Sunday, June 2, 1996; exactly 30 years ago today; a time travel of three decades during which an entire generation of Formula 1 fans has been born, grown up, studied, discovered love, bought cars, paid rent, arranged mortgages, gained weight, dieted, joined gyms, even acquired reading glasses, and learned to mutter darkly about tyre degradation, track limits, and now power uni...

Motor sport has always attracted romantics, rogues, and rebels, and Johnny Servoz-Gavin managed to embody all three archetypes simultaneously. He looked less like a racing driver than the bassist of a psychedelic rock band.  He was a French F3 champion, a European F2 champion, a multiple Le Mans entrant, and a Matra works driver. Already, before his F1 story had properly begun, his CV was for...

Sixty years ago, Formula 1 entered the finest era in the history of the world championship: that of the naturally aspirated 3.0-litre engine formula. No other F1 engine formula has endured remotely as long, and there was good reason for its longevity, says Matt Bishop. Engines could be V8s, V12s, or flat-12s, or occasionally even stranger configurations. They could be narrow or wide, or torquey or...

Forty years ago, Italian F1 driver, Elio de Angelis, died in a Marseille hospital following a testing accident at Paul Ricard the previous day. Matt Bishop looks back on one of F1's great might-have-beens: a man of serious ability, extraordinary charm, and uncommon grace, born in Rome to wealthy parents but the very opposite of arrogant. He won only two F1 grands prix, but there are some drivers w...

Matt Bishop's F1 flashback: 1971 International Trophy Graham Hill's final Formula 1 victory came in the 1971 International Trophy at Silverstone when the veteran driver, almost two decades older than the young and thrusting Emerson Fittipaldi, won at the wheel of a Brabham nicknamed 'lobster claw' for its challenging looks. It was a vignette of an era when our sport was more anarchic, more inventi...

Matt Bishop's F1 flashback: 1976 Spanish Grand Prix The controversial FIA decision that changed the course of the Formula 1 world championship. 2021's Abu Dhabi season finale wasn't the first time that the title race was decided by an official error. In 1976, James Hunt was disqualified from the Spanish Grand Prix after winning it when his McLaren was found to be too wide. It was a decision that w...