14 Jul Tony Brooks

Tony Brooks was a British F1 driver who raced in the Formula 1 World Championship between 1956 and 1961. He won 6 Grands Prix and claimed 3 pole positions during his career and finished runner up in the Drivers World Championship for Ferrari in 1959 behind Sir Jack Brabham. Driving a Connaught, he served notice of his talent by brilliantly winning the first F1 race he ever contested, the non-championship 1955 Syracuse Grand Prix. His first F1 championship victory came in 1957 when he famously won the British Grand Prix at Aintree, sharing a Vanwall with his fellow countryman Sir Stirling Moss. He was a double winner of the German Grand Prix. He died on the 4th May 2022.

During an interview with Beyond The Grid – The F1® Podcast released on 28 August 2019, Tony Brooks reminisced about his first victory for Ferrari in the 1959 French Grand Prix and the incident with team-mate Wolfgang von Trips in the 1959 United States Grand Prix that almost certainly cost him the 1959 drivers’ title. He also revealed that he considered his greatest race to have been the 1958 German Grand Prix at the Nürburgring which he won imperiously for Vanwall at the Nordschleife.