Mike Hawthorn

John Michael Hawthorn was a Yorkshire lad of 24 with hardly any top-level motor racing experience when he drove the race of his life and beat the 1950, 1951 and 1952 Formula One World Champions, Giuseppe Farina, Juan Manuel Fangio and Alberto Ascari in the 1953 Grand Prix of France.

Just 11 months earlier, Mike, his father Leslie and their mechanic Hughie Sewell were in Holland for the Dutch GP and were staying at the same hotel as Ferrari’s chief designer Aurelio Lampredi and team manager Nello Ugolini. They all had a few drinks together, but Mike had to race his Cooper T20-Bristol at Zandvoort the next day, so he went to bed early and left the others to drink on well into the night. During that rather alcoholic tête-à-tête, the two Italians said Mike had impressed them and they would have a word with Enzo Ferrari when they got back to Maranello. By this point in his career, Hawthorn had finished 3rd in the British Grand Prix and 4th in the Belgian, driving the Cooper-Bristol. Sure enough, after the Italian GP at Monza three weeks later, Hawthorn was invited to the Modena Aerautodromo to sample a Ferrari 500 which, not to put too fine a point on it, he liked a lot.