Motor Sport Magazine

DO THEY MAKE ’EM LIKE THEY used to? I was mulling this question while putting the finishing touches to a special issue of Motor Sport, which goes on sale later this summer and celebrates the life of Sir Jackie Stewart, who turns 83 on June 11. It takes us through a remarkable career from that famous Goodwood F3 test in March 1964 to his three world titles, embracing wonderful tales from his days in F2, Can-Am and the Tasman Series. We finish his competitive career with a look at Stewart Grand Prix, not perhaps his most illustrious period but it did give me an opportunity to relive our columnist Johnny Herbert’s day of days at the European Grand Prix of 1999, when he scored an unlikely victory for the team. The…

We profile John Piper on page 123, and his role in the development of the MG Metro 6R4, left. His memories reminded us of the tale of Austin Rover employees getting around homologation rules that required 200 road-going versions to be built. The story goes that the number was never reached and when officials came, cars were wheeled in one end of the building, out the other, and added back to the queue. Apocryphal probably, but indicative of the seat-of-pants nature of 1980s British car-making. Contact us: motorsportmagazine.com @Motor_Sport @motorsport1924 @MotorSport1924…

LAST OF THE ‘50s GREATS TONY BROOKS, WHO DIED ON MAY 3, aged 90, was one of the truly great F1 drivers. From his debut win in the 1955 nonchampionship Syracuse Grand Prix for Connaught and through his years with Vanwall (1957-58) and Ferrari (’59), he was a giant of a driver. On his day he could reduce everyone else to bit-parts, even the great Stirling Moss, his team-mate at Vanwall. “There are drivers with much greater reputations than Tony who couldn’t hold a candle to him, ” Moss said once when I was interviewing him about his greatest rivals. “He is the most underrated great driver of them all. In style he was very much like Jim Clark, very effortless. But he didn’t have that competitive need to be always running…

There’s a dissatisfaction brewing between Formula 1 and the FIA. And it is about money. And it is colouring everything. As always in such matters, personal dynamics assume huge significance and those between Mohammed bin Sulayem and Stefano Domenicali are key. Ross Brawn, John Elkann and Dietrich Matesitchz will play into this too. It’s difficult not to see the current petty stand off about drivers wearingjewellery with Lewis Hamilton as a proxy argument between FIA president bin Sulayem and F1, with Hamilton caught in the crossfire. It’s about establishing authority and control. Hamilton’s initial reaction was to text the president saying he wants to be a positive force and to work together – the subtext perhaps being, ‘don’t pick a fight with me’. If that particular spat escalates, one can imagine…

T HIS IS A BIG YEAR FOR THE ISLE of Man TT’s greatest living exponent. John McGuinness turned 50 in April and will make his 100th TT start during 2022 race week. And once he’s wiped the sweat from his brow and taken the first sup of a pint following the eventending Senior TT he may decide never to do it again. If McGuinness makes that decision it will be a momentous one, both for him and for the TT, because his whole life has revolved around racing motorcycles on the Isle of Man and he’s won 23 TTs, which is more than anyone apart from the late, great Joey Dunlop (26 wins). When McGuinness was a kid he used to bunk off school and stow away on the ferry to Douglas,…

A FORMER RACING DRIVER PAL remarked recently “Many of this new generation of F1 drivers seem to be quite good blokes”. He spoke in wonderment, but the likes of Charles Leclerc, Lando Norris, George Russell, Carlos Sainz and Esteban Ocon (amongst others) do indeed seem like –well –“quite good blokes”. Now on May 3 we sadly lost not just “a quite good bloke” from motor racing history, but one that I and my generation truly admired as being one of the very, very best – the epitome of the old-English schoolboy’s ideal of a sportsman whose enormous innate talent and racing success were matched by almost obsessive modesty, humility and self-effacing, approachable, good humour. This was the great Tony Brooks who passed away at the age of 90 – 61 years…