Jackie Stewart completed the 1972 World Championship with one of the most convincing wins of his career. Driving the Derek Gardner-designed Tyrrell he was in a class of his own and led from start to finish.
François Cevert finished second in the sister Tyrrell 006, while Denny Hulme rounded out the podium in the McLaren M19A.
The Belgian Grand Prix returned to the Formula 1 calendar after being taken off the year previous, and the 8.7 mile Spa circuit had been slightly modified. The pits had been rebuilt, the pit straight had been widened and straightened and the entire track had been resurfaced. The race distance had been shortened from 36 to 24 laps.
The race was won by British driver Tony Brooks in a Vanwall. It was Brooks first solo Grand Prix victory after his car won the 1957 British GP in a shared drive with Stirling Moss. Brooks finished 20 seconds ahead of Mike Hawthorn driving a Ferrari 246 F1. Brooks' Vanwall team mate Stuart Lewis-Evans finished third in a career-best finish, the first of just two podium finishes to his short Grand Prix career. The race also marked the first World Championship race start (and finish) by a woman, Maria Teresa de Filippis driving her privately entered Maserati 250F. She finished tenth and last, two laps behind Brooks' Vanwall.
As an aside, on the last lap, Brooks came out of La Source to end the race, and his gearbox seized as he crossed the line. When Hawthorn was coming out of the same corner to end his race in second, his engine failed as he was coming to the finish line. Lewis-Evans's suspension collapsed on the way into La Source, and he crawled to the line in third.
Also, in ’58, a constructor was only awarded points for its highest-placed car and at season’s close, only the best six results counted. Vanwall scored six victories throughout the year thanks to Brooks and Stirling Moss while second-placed Ferrari only managed two.
Ferrari became the first team to launch their 2011 challenger on Friday, as Fernando Alonso and Felipe Massa took the wraps of the F150. Ferrari hope the new car - named to mark the 150th anniversary of Italy’s unification - will return the Scuderia to championship glory after they missed out on both 2010 titles. We'll of course see a lot more of this car once the F1 season starts.
Full story here.
A few years ago, Ferrari and Shell celebrated 60 years of collaboration by producing probably the best commercial to ever hit TV. Crews shot in Hong Kong, Monaco, New York, Rio, Rome, Sydney and London using F1 Ferraris from progressing generations. At the time, it was rumoured to be the most expensive commercial ever made.
Sure, the two companies are trying to sell you something in the two-minute spot (at £1.30+ a litre at the moment...), but this video is more than that. It’s art. To a petrolhead and a Tifosi like myself, it's beautiful.
As the cars jump from generation to generation, (OK there's a gap as Ferrari used Agip fuel from '74 to '95, so no cars from those years) the revs get higher and higher… BUT, somehow the tradition of speed isn’t lost from one to another.
I haven't seen this for ages, but with the new F150 out, now's the time for a revisit.
