Chequered Past

The eighteenth of June spans nearly ninety years of Le Mans history, and four races that couldn't be more different from each other. In 1927, a Bentley crippled in a multi-car crash raced through the night on one headlamp, chasing a lead it had no right to close. In 1966, Ford arrived with the most dominant team in the race's history — and still managed to deny their best driver the win...

The 17th of June has seen some of the most improbable results in the history of Le Mans. In 1933, Tazio Nuvolari and Raymond Sommer led the race in an Alfa Romeo — until the fuel tank started leaking. What followed involved makeshift repairs, borrowed chewing gum from a rival pit, and one of the most dramatic last laps the circuit had ever seen. In 1939, a single Bugatti Type 57C Tank — one car, e...

16th June is a date that has delivered some of motorsport's most extraordinary stories.  In 1984, Porsche made the remarkable decision to boycott their own sport's most prestigious race — and the privateers they left behind produced one of the great Le Mans comebacks.  In 2007, a technological watershed: the first time two diesel prototypes went head to head at La Sarthe, in a battle bet...

Five races. Ninety years. One date. The fifteenth of June has a habit of producing the unexpected at Le Mans. In 1929, Bentley arrived to collect what they’d already won twice before — and they did, but not without being made to work for it. In 1935, Alfa Romeo’s pursuit of a fifth consecutive win ended when their lead driver was given the wrong information by his own pit crew, and a Lagonda runni...

Four races. Four dates. All June the fourteenth. In 1924, a privately entered Bentley fought three works Lorraine-Dietrichs through brutal heat to give the British marque its first Le Mans victory. In 1952, a Frenchman named Pierre Levegh drove alone for nearly twenty-three hours — and came within one hour of winning the race by himself. In 1969, Jacky Ickx walked to his car in protest, started la...

Three races share the 13th of June. Three times, the result confounded expectations. In 1953, Tony Rolt and Duncan Hamilton spent the night in a French bar after being disqualified before the race had started. By Sunday afternoon they had won — at the first average speed of over 100 miles per hour in Le Mans history — in a Jaguar C-Type running disc brakes for the first time in competition. In 197...

On the twelfth of June, across seventy-three years of motorsport history, Le Mans produced four races that refused to deliver the winner anyone expected.  In 1926, Bentley ended up in a sandbank in the final half-hour while their competitor locked out the podium.  In 1954, Ferrari held on by less than five kilometres after an engine that wouldn't fire at a pit stop nearly handed the race to J...

The eleventh of June appears more than once in the history of the twenty-four hours of Le Mans — and the first of those appearances casts a shadow over everything that follows. In 1955, a crash in the third hour of the race killed more than eighty people and changed motorsport forever. This episode examines what happened, why the race continued, and what the disaster set in motion — in the regulat...

Before the races, the circuit. Before the results, the race itself. This opening episode of Chequered Past’s Le Mans series sets the scene for everything that follows — examining what the twenty-four hours of Le Mans actually is, what it has always been, and why it continues to matter in a way that no other race quite does. From its founding in 1923 as a test of reliability rather than outright sp...

On 31st May 1959, Jo Bonnier won BRM's first Grand Prix at Zandvoort in a car the team had already started replacing. In 1981, Gilles Villeneuve won at Monaco in a turbo that everyone agreed couldn't win there. In 1987, Ayrton Senna won Monaco's first active-suspension Grand Prix in a Lotus that was supposed to be outgunned. And in 1992, Nigel Mansell lost the race he had controlled...

The thirtieth of May has appeared on the Formula One World Championship calendar more times than almost any other date — and it has never produced a quiet afternoon. In this episode of Chequered Past, we follow four stories across seven decades. In Monaco in 1965, Graham Hill took to the escape road on lap twenty-five and came back to win his third consecutive Grand Prix at the principality, while...

On the twenty-ninth of May, Formula One has been decided in the pit lane more than once.  In 1960, Stirling Moss brought a Rob Walker Lotus to the pits in Monaco running on three cylinders — and went on to win, delivering Lotus their first World Championship victory through a private entry in the wrong colours.  In 2022, Charles Leclerc qualified on pole for his home race and lost it in two laps o...

The 28th of May appears four times in Formula One's history as a date that produced not just results, but questions — the kind that follow drivers and teams for years without ever reaching a clean answer. In Mexico City in 1989, Alain Prost finished fifth, lapped by his McLaren teammate Ayrton Senna, and left the circuit carrying a suspicion about his Honda engine that he would never fully le...

There are dates in the Formula One calendar that give you one story. And then there are dates that seem to have been waiting — accumulating history across decades, storing it up, until you can’t look at them without seeing everything at once. The 27th of May is one of those dates. This episode of Chequered Past takes three races — separated by nearly thirty years at their extremes — and asks what...

Monaco doesn’t simply produce the fastest driver — it produces the one who belongs there.  On the twenty-sixth of May, across 1963, 1968, 1974, 2002 and 2024, five races asked that question in five different ways.  Graham Hill won here twice on this date, carrying a broken team through grief in 1968.  Ronnie Peterson drove a four-year-old Lotus to victory over the finest cars of 1974.  David Coult...

On May the twenty-fifth, across four decades of Formula 1, the world championship changed hands. Four times. Four drivers. One date. In 1975, Niki Lauda drove a controlled, clinical race at Zolder and went to the top of a championship he would never relinquish — while a sport still reeling from the deaths at Montjuïc Park tried to look forward rather than back.  In 1986, Nigel Mansell won at Spa a...

On the 24th of May, three Monaco Grands Prix separated by seventeen years each asked the same question of the teams on the pit wall — and got three very different answers.  In 1998, Mika Häkkinen and McLaren answered it perfectly, delivering a grand chelem while the field destroyed itself around them. In 2009, Ross Brawn's improbable championship-leading team answered it with patience and pre...

The 23rd of May has a habit of producing extraordinary racing at Monaco. Three times across three different decades, the same date has delivered three completely different kinds of grand prix. In 1971, Jackie Stewart arrived already leading the championship and proceeded to give a clinic in perfection. He took pole by more than a second, led every one of the eighty laps, set the fastest lap, and w...

On 22 May 1955, Maurice Trintignant — a Provençal winegrower's son who had once been declared clinically dead and carried a stuffed teddy bear in the pocket of every racing car he ever drove — became the first Frenchman to win a World Championship Grand Prix. He did it because the Mercedes-Benz juggernaut collapsed, and because Alberto Ascari — the two-time world champion who had been about t...

On the 21st of May, Formula One has produced three races that looked, at the time, like any other Sunday — and only revealed their true significance long after the chequered flag. In 1950, at the second round of the very first World Championship, a freak wave of seawater soaked the road at Monaco's Tabac corner and wiped out half the field in an instant. Juan Manuel Fangio survived — not beca...

On 20th May, Formula 1 has a habit of making history.  In 1962, Jim Clark arrived at Zandvoort with a car that would change the sport forever — even though it didn't win.  In 1973, the drivers arrived at a brand new circuit with a surface that was falling apart, and said: we're not racing. Most of them meant it.  In 1984, Niki Lauda started ninth at Dijon and won — which was entirely typ...

On the nineteenth of May, three times across four decades, Monaco did what Monaco does. It destroyed the favourites and handed the race to someone else. Stirling Moss, Peter Collins and Mike Hawthorn — three of the fastest drivers in the world — eliminate each other at the same chicane on the same lap. Juan Manuel Fangio threads through the wreckage at low speed and wins by going slower than every...

On 18th May 1952, Piero Taruffi won the Swiss Grand Prix at Bremgarten after a former champion's Ferrari failed — twice.  On 18th May 1958, Maurice Trintignant won at Monaco after every faster car in the field broke before half distance.  On 18th May 1969, Graham Hill took his record fifth Monaco victory after the championship leader, his own teammate, and the second-place Ferrari all retired...

Three Formula One races share the date of May the seventeenth. Each one is a story in its own right. Together, they trace something larger. In 1981, the Belgian Grand Prix at Zolder was overshadowed before it began — a mechanic killed in practice, another seriously injured at the start, and a race that should never have been run.  In 1987, Spa-Francorchamps witnessed the most explosive flashpoint...

Three races. Three decades. Three drivers who were utterly, completely, unreachably dominant on the day — and yet somehow ended up as supporting characters in their own stories. On the sixteenth of May 1976, Niki Lauda produced one of the great forgotten masterclasses of his championship season, leading every lap at Zolder for his only career Grand Chelem.  On the sixteenth of May 1999, Michael Sc...