Chequered Past

Formula One is often remembered through championships, dominant seasons, and defining victories. But the sport rarely changes where it later becomes famous for doing so. In this milestone episode of Chequered Past , we step away from a single race result to explore the moments that quietly reshape Formula One instead — the first wins that did not yet look decisive, the final races that were not re...

The 1979 Formula One season began with an air of clarity.  Across the opening two races in Argentina and Brazil, Jacques Laffite and Ligier looked composed, coherent, and firmly in control. At Interlagos, Laffite delivered a commanding performance to secure his second consecutive victory, completing a rare grand slam and reinforcing the sense that a new order might already be forming. But Formula...

On 3 February 1920, Tony Gaze was born — a name rarely found in Formula One record books, but one that holds a unique place in its history. In 1952, Gaze became the first Australian to compete in a World Championship Grand Prix, quietly proving that participation from the far side of the world was possible. This episode uses Gaze’s birthday as a starting point to trace how that single step became...

On 2 February, Formula One’s history brings together two very different stories — and a revealing moment in the sport’s development. Roger Williamson’s career barely had time to begin, yet his rise through British Formula Three and his calm, assured approach marked him out as a driver Formula One believed it could rely on for the future. His arrival in 1973 came at a time when talent was advancing...

With no World Championship Grand Prix on 1 February, Chequered Past takes a step sideways to explore one of Formula One’s most enduring curiosities: why greatness forged on motorcycles has so rarely translated into success on four wheels. Anchored by Valentino Rossi’s Ferrari test in 2006 , this episode traces a lineage that stretches back well before Formula One itself. From Bernd Rosemeyer’s ins...

In Part 2 of our special look back at the 1996 Formula One season, thirty years on, Chequered Past turns from control established to control understood. While Williams executed a championship defined by clarity and composure, the rest of Formula One was being reshaped in response. Michael Schumacher won races for Ferrari without mounting a title challenge — and in doing so laid the foundations for...

With no Formula One World Championship Grand Prix falling on today’s date, Chequered Past turns to a season that quietly reshaped the sport. The 1996 Formula One season is often remembered as predictable — a year without sustained tension or open uncertainty. But that memory misses what made it significant. This was not a season without drama; it was a season in which drama struggled to change out...

On 29 January 1978, Formula One arrived in Brazil for Round 2 of the World Championship — and discovered how quickly early promise could be stripped away. At Jacarepaguá, a new circuit raced in oppressive heat, theory gave way to endurance. Tyres blistered, reliability faltered, and ambition was punished. In conditions that demanded restraint rather than bravado, Carlos Reutemann delivered a measu...

The 1973 World Championship did not begin with a declaration of dominance.  Instead, it began with a contest. At the Argentine Grand Prix, the opening race of the season revealed a championship already tightening at the front. Lotus took victory, Tyrrell filled the podium, and neither side was able to impose control. In brutal heat and over long distance, the margins remained narrow and the lead c...

The Brazilian Grand Prix has often revealed more than it has decided. In this episode of Chequered Past , we explore how races at Interlagos came to chart Formula One’s progress — not through domination, but through transition. We begin in 1974 , at a moment when the sport was still adjusting to the absence of its defining authority. Emerson Fittipaldi’s home victory did not impose a new order, bu...

The 1975 Brazilian Grand Prix arrived with a sense of inevitability. Formula One had only staged two World Championship races in Brazil before — and both had been won by Emerson Fittipaldi. Two weeks earlier, he had opened the new season with victory in Argentina. For the home crowd at Interlagos, the pattern felt settled. What followed instead was a race that dismantled expectation. Jean-Pierre J...

The 1976 Formula One season would become one of the sport’s most dramatic — but it did not begin that way. At Interlagos, the Brazilian Grand Prix opened the year not with confrontation, but with control. Niki Lauda’s measured victory showed how Formula One still functioned when races were shaped by reliability, judgement, and the gradual removal of alternatives rather than outright conflict. Only...

On 24 January 1971, Formula One returned to Buenos Aires for a race that did not count toward the World Championship — but still carried real significance. The 1971 Argentine Grand Prix was staged as a test case. Argentina was seeking a return to the championship calendar after more than a decade away, and the event was intended to demonstrate that the circuit, the organisation, and the appetite f...

On 23 January, Formula One history offers a revealing study in how authority operates — how it is challenged, exercised, and ultimately earned. The episode opens in South Africa in 1982, where the season began under extraordinary tension. Against the backdrop of a driver strike and political confrontation, the 1982 South African Grand Prix exposed deep fractures within the sport. A dramatic race a...

The 1956 Argentine Grand Prix was an unusual way to open a Formula One season. Held in the wake of Mercedes’ withdrawal, it was a race shaped not by dominance, but by improvisation — shared drives, mechanical fragility, late reversals, and a result that defied modern expectations. At its centre was Juan Manuel Fangio , returning to Ferrari and eventually winning on home soil — but only by sharing...

The opening race of a Formula One season rarely tells the whole story — but sometimes it offers a glimpse of what might be changing. On 21 January 1979, the new season began in Argentina with a performance that appeared to signal a shift in the competitive order. A dominant, controlled victory suggested that the ground-effect era was entering a new phase, and that the balance of power forged the y...

On 20 January, two drivers were born into Formula One conversations long before their careers were complete: Jolyon Palmer and Jack Doohan . Different generations, different outcomes — but shaped by the same force: expectation. In this episode of Chequered Past , we explore drivers who followed famous parents into Formula One and the unique pressures that came with it. From Damon Hill and Nico Ros...

On 19 January 1958, Formula One found itself at a quiet crossroads. At the 1958 Argentine Grand Prix , a change in the regulations reduced the minimum race distance — and, in the oppressive heat of Buenos Aires, that flexibility allowed a different kind of race to be won. What followed was a victory that did more than open a season: it offered an early glimpse of Formula One’s future, arriving bef...

On 18 January, Formula One’s history reveals itself not through triumph, but through consequence. This episode begins with the 1953 Argentine Grand Prix , the first World Championship race held in the country — and one of the darkest days the sport has ever known. In front of a vast crowd, tragedy unfolded, lives were lost, and the race continued. It is a moment that forces us to confront how Form...

On 17 January , Formula One revealed one of its defining truths: success belongs to those who can interpret change. We begin in Buenos Aires in 1954 , as the World Championship returned to full Formula One regulations in a race shaped by sudden rain, shifting grip, and fragile certainty. In front of his home crowd, Juan Manuel Fangio delivered a masterclass in adaptation — not through dominance, b...

On 16 January 1955, Formula One staged one of the most physically punishing races in its history. In searing heat at the Argentine Grand Prix, drivers collapsed, cars were shared out of necessity, and survival became more important than speed. At the centre of it all was Juan Manuel Fangio , who endured extreme pain and lasting injury to claim one of the most demanding victories of his career. But...

The 1978 Argentine Grand Prix did not announce a revolution — but it quietly showed who was ready. In the opening race of the season, Mario Andretti delivered a dominant, disciplined victory for Lotus, setting a tone that would soon define both the championship and an era. Along the way, the race offered early signals: Williams appeared for the first time with its own car, Gilles Villeneuve set a...

Dan Gurney’s legacy in motor racing cannot be captured by statistics alone. He was never defined by a single category — not just a Formula One driver, not just an engineer, not just a team owner — but by the rare ability to move between all three. On the anniversary of his death, this episode explores how Gurney earned respect in a European-dominated Formula One world, delivered landmark victories...

January the 13th offers a revealing look at Formula One in moments of uncertainty — when authority is tested, careers are shaped by circumstance, and change arrives without announcement. In 1980, the World Championship began in Buenos Aires under serious doubt. Safety concerns, a deteriorating circuit, and talk of a boycott threatened the race itself. What followed was not chaos, but control — as...

The 1975 Argentine Grand Prix opened the Formula One season in chaotic fashion. A pole-sitter who never made the start, early promise undone by spins and retirements, and a race shaped less by domination than by survival. Amid the disorder, Emerson Fittipaldi avoided the mistakes that caught out his rivals and began his title defence with a victory built on control rather than speed. From Buenos A...