Chequered Past

On 2nd March 2024, the Formula One season began under the floodlights of Bahrain — and under intense scrutiny. After a winter overshadowed by internal investigation and paddock tension at Red Bull, many wondered whether the competitive order might finally shift. Bahrain, with its abrasive asphalt and traction-heavy layout, has long served as a proving ground. If there were weaknesses, this circuit...

On the 1st of March, the South African Grand Prix has repeatedly marked moments when Formula One stood on the brink of change. In 1969, Jackie Stewart’s victory at Kyalami signalled the beginning of a new professional era — one that would culminate in his first World Championship. In 1975, Jody Scheckter thrilled a home crowd with a calm and disciplined performance under sustained pressure. In 198...

On 28th February, we mark the birthdays of Mario Andretti and Sébastien Bourdais — two champions separated by generations, united by a shared ambition. Both conquered American open-wheel racing. Both crossed the Atlantic to test themselves in Formula One. Only one became World Champion. In this episode of Chequered Past , we explore what happens when greatness travels — and why it does not always...

In 2006, Formula One staged a duel between its past and its future. In Part One of this two-part season review, Martin Elliot revisits the opening half of a championship that would come to define a turning point in modern Formula One history. Reigning world champion Fernando Alonso began the season as the standard everyone else had to beat — but already committed to leave Renault F1 Team at the en...

In 2006, Formula One’s championship fight reached its decisive phase — and history turned on a single plume of smoke. In Part Two of our season review, Martin Elliot follows the final chapter of the duel between Fernando Alonso and Michael Schumacher — a battle that would close one era and confirm another. From the controversy of Monaco to the strategic turning point in Shanghai, the title fight t...

On 25th February 1968, the Tasman Series arrived at Sandown Park for the Australian Grand Prix — Round 7 of a championship that had become a summer proving ground for the world’s best drivers. At its centre stood Jim Clark. Already a multiple Tasman champion and just weeks removed from victory at the 1968 South African Grand Prix, Clark was locked in a fierce battle with Chris Amon for supremacy i...

On 24 February, we celebrate the birthday of one of Formula One’s most analytical and accomplished champions: Alain Prost. Known simply as The Professor , Prost built his legacy not on spectacle, but on calculation. From losing the 1984 championship to Niki Lauda by half a point, to defeating the faster Williams cars in 1986, to winning the 1989 title despite fewer victories than Ayrton Senna, Pro...

On February 23rd, 1958, the reigning World Drivers’ Champion Juan Manuel Fangio was approached in the lobby of Havana’s Hotel Lincoln and calmly informed that he was being taken by revolutionaries. The Cuban Grand Prix was meant to showcase glamour, modernity, and control under Fulgencio Batista’s regime. Instead, it became one of the most extraordinary political moments in motorsport history. In...

Born in Vienna on 22nd February 1949 into Austria’s industrial elite, Niki Lauda was never supposed to become a racing driver — let alone a three-time World Champion. Yet from the moment he financed his own path into Formula One, Lauda built a career defined not by romance or recklessness, but by judgement. In this episode of Chequered Past , we trace Lauda’s journey from indebted outsider to Ferr...

On 21 February, we mark the birthday of Peter Gethin — a driver whose name is forever linked to one of the closest finishes in Formula One history. His victory at Monza in 1971, decided by just 0.01 seconds, would be the only World Championship Grand Prix win of his career. But Gethin was not alone. Between 1971 and 1975, six drivers stood on the top step for the first time — and never again. It w...

On 20 February 1966, the Tasman Series reached Queensland for the Australian Grand Prix at Lakeside — Round 6 of an eight-race summer that had already delivered drama across New Zealand and Australia. In this episode of Chequered Past , we trace the full arc of the 1966 Tasman campaign. From Graham Hill’s commanding opening win at Pukekohe, through Jackie Stewart’s back-to-back New Zealand victori...

On 19 February 1967, the world’s finest drivers gathered at Warwick Farm for the Australian Grand Prix — a race that did not count towards the Formula One World Championship, yet carried genuine international weight. The Tasman Series was in full flow, running to 2.5-litre regulations at a time when Europe had already embraced the new 3-litre Formula One era. For a few weeks each year, elite drive...

On 18 February, we mark the birthday of Enzo Ferrari — the founder, the autocrat, and the figure whose name became inseparable from Formula One itself. In this episode of Chequered Past , we explore a different side of Ferrari. Not the political operator. Not the disciplinarian. But the admirer. Across half a century of racing, two drivers stood apart in his memory. The pre-war hero Tazio Nuvolari...

On 17 February 1959, Mike Coughlan was born — an engineer whose career would become forever linked with one of the most explosive controversies in modern Formula One history. In 2007, a confidential Ferrari technical dossier, a photocopy shop in Surrey, and a bitter intra-team rivalry at McLaren combined to ignite what became known as “Spygate.” What began as a dispute between individuals escalate...

On 16 February 1921, Jean Behra was born — a fiercely talented and uncompromising racer whose brief and explosive time at Ferrari revealed something deeper about the Scuderia’s identity. In this episode of Chequered Past, we explore Ferrari’s complex relationship with its strongest personalities. From Behra’s dramatic dismissal in 1959 to former world champion John Surtees walking away mid-season...

On 15 February 1929, Graham Hill was born in Hampstead. On 15 February 1998, George Russell was born in King’s Lynn. Nearly seven decades apart, two English drivers entered Formula One through entirely different pathways — yet both would become Grand Prix winners on the sport’s biggest stage. In this episode of Chequered Past , we explore Hill’s rise from mechanic to double World Champion, his mas...

On 14 February 1944, Ronnie Peterson was born — a driver whose raw pace would make him one of the most visually spectacular figures of 1970s Formula One. In this episode of Chequered Past , we revisit the season that established his reputation as the sport’s benchmark qualifier. In 1973, Peterson took nine pole positions with Team Lotus and claimed four victories, demonstrating car control and com...

On 13 February 1997, Alain Prost formally completed his takeover of Ligier — transforming France’s historic Formula One entry into Prost Grand Prix. It was a bold move. A four-time world champion stepping away from the cockpit to build a national team in his own image. The early signs were promising: podiums in Brazil and Spain in 1997, Olivier Panis third in the Drivers’ Championship, and renewed...

On 12 February 1877, Louis Renault was born in Paris — an engineer whose company would go on to alter the course of Grand Prix history. From victory in the very first French Grand Prix in 1906… to pioneering turbocharged power in 1977… to defining the V10 era of the 1990s… to ending Ferrari’s modern dominance in 2005… Renault’s impact on Formula One has not been constant, but it has been decisive....

On 11 February 1973 , Formula One arrived in Brazil as a World Championship event for the first time — and the result was more than just a home victory. The 1973 Brazilian Grand Prix became a statement of intent, as Emerson Fittipaldi and Lotus delivered a controlled, authoritative performance that revealed where early-season power truly lay. That race provides the starting point for a wider refle...

On 10 February 1993, McLaren announced its driver line-up for the new Formula One season — and left out the name that had defined the team for half a decade. This episode explores how Ayrton Senna entered one of the most unusual seasons of his career without a full contract, racing instead on a deal negotiated one weekend at a time. Sparked by Honda’s withdrawal from Formula One, Senna’s race-by-r...

On 9 February, the Formula One World Championship calendar falls silent. But in the early 1960s, elite racing didn’t stop simply because the World Championship did. This episode looks at the Tasman Series , a southern-hemisphere championship that drew Formula One’s leading drivers to Australia and New Zealand during the European winter — and treated winter success as something that genuinely matte...

On 8 February 1932, Cliff Allison was born — a driver whose Formula One career was brief, interrupted, and largely overshadowed, but whose time at Ferrari reveals a forgotten chapter in the sport’s history. This episode uses Allison’s story as a way into a wider question: why British drivers were once so common at Ferrari — and why that relationship quietly disappeared . In the 1950s, Ferrari recr...

The Argentine Grand Prix That Fell to McLaren revisits the opening race of the 1960 World Championship — a season-starter defined not by domination, but by attrition, judgement, and survival. In the searing heat of Buenos Aires, early pace from Moss, Bonnier and BRM gave way to mechanical failure and exhaustion, leaving a young Bruce McLaren to seize his moment with a drive of restraint and contro...

On 6 February 1981, Formula One arrived at Kyalami with a peace agreement already signed — yet the sport was anything but united. Just weeks earlier, the first Concorde Agreement had been concluded, designed to bring an end to the bitter FISA–FOCA war and to define how Formula One would be governed and commercialised. On paper, authority had been settled. In reality, trust had not. As the South Af...