Motorsport People Profiles
The World's Greatest Drivers, Owners, Engineers & Personalities
Profiles of past and present automotive personalities. The drivers who risked their lives in the early days to the engineers who creatively changed the world of automobiles, this is a celebration of the people who played a major role in the world we love.
Pantheon of Speed: Legends of Motorsports
Dive into a captivating collection of profiles and exclusive interviews with the greatest names in motorsports history – the drivers who defied limits, the engineers who pushed boundaries, the designers who shaped iconic machines, and the visionaries who built racing empires. From the daredevils of early Grand Prix racing to the modern masters of Formula 1, we celebrate the men and women who have etched their names into the annals of motorsport legend.
Michael Schumacher Biography Michael Schumacher was born on the third of January 1969 to Rolf and Elisabeth Schumacher. The family move to the town of Kerpin-Manheim, a working class town near Cologne, Germany. It was there that the family became involved with karting. Michael, only four at the time was...
It was a word-of-mouth, invitation-only affair organized by his lovely wife Susie and a friend without Stirling Moss knowing a thing about it. No mean feat, considering about 400 people attended the celebration. How Susie kept the party from her husband I’ll never know, except that all the invitees were...
Jacky Ickx and the smoky Martini Porsche 936 just made it to the end to claim the win for himself, Hurley Haywood and Jürgen Barth at Le Mans in 1977. Photo: Ed McDonough Jacky Ickx’s motor racing CV is enough to make your head spin. Believe it or not, it all...
Rob Walker Biography On his passport, under occupation, it read simply Gentleman, a description, a description to his many friends, one never more fitting. Someone once described him as “self-unemployed.” but never idle. Robert Ramsay Campbell Walker was born on August 14 1917. His father Campbell Walker was an heir to...
Louis Delage may have been born to a humble assistant station master and his wife in Cognac, France, in 1874, but he rose to become a dominator of world motor sport. Yet he died in poverty, in 1947, at the age of 73, bankrupt, swamped by mountainous debts and destitute....
David Purley was a hero you have probably never even heard of, but a hero he most certainly was. If you remember him at all, it will be for his one-man attempt to rescue his friend and fellow F1 driver, Roger Williamson, from a burning car during the 1973 Grand...
Now here is a man of his word—and it cost him dearly. In 1961, Innes agreed to drive for Formula One team UDT-Laystall run by Ken Gregory and Alfred Moss, respectively Stirling’s manager and father. Literally a day later, Ireland was asked to become Graham Hill’s teammate at BRM but...
Some say Graham Hill was not a natural, but one who had to work hard at his motor racing. I say so what? Not many of us work so well at something that we equal Hill’s outstanding record of winning the 1962 and 1968 Formula One World Championships, 14 championship...
Damon Graham Devereux Hill is the only son of a Formula 1 World Champion to have also won the title. His father, Graham, won the 1962 and 1968 championships and Damon the 1996. Never has a World Champion’s biography been more aptly entitled, however, than Damon’s From Zero to Hero....
One of NASCAR’s earliest stars who was also named one of the organization’s Top 50 drivers of all time, Marvin Panch, has died at the age of 89. He was reportedly found unresponsive in his car New Year’s Eve day, and was pronounced dead of natural causes. Born in Menominee,...
All sports have heroes. But there are some individuals who transcend their sport: Muhammad Ali, Joe Montana, Wayne Gretzky, Michael Jordan. And few would dispute that Dan Gurney, who passed away a year ago, is entitled to be among those few. Usually, one characteristic for membership in this club is...
Rallying’s original Flying Finn, Timo Mäkinen, passed away last Thursday at the age of 79. Mäkinen is perhaps best known for his pair of “hat tricks” of consecutive wins in the 1000 Lakes Rally in Finland — in 1965, ’66 and ’67 — with a works Mini Cooper S, and...
Denny Hulme Biography Denny Hulme was born on June 18, 1936 in Motueka, on the South Island of New Zealand. His father Clive was a World War II hero who won the Victoria Cross for bravery as a sniper during the bloody battle on the island of Crete. His family...
Pietro Bordino Biography Bordino was born in Turin, November 22, 1887. The son of a Fiat caretaker he would spend his early years around the factory before he was given a job as a mechanic. In 1904 he would become a racing mechanic to the works drivers, Vincenzo Lancia and...
Former Maserati Grand Prix driver Roberto Mieres has died at the age of 87. Mieres, who started 17 World Championship Grands Prix during the early 1950s, passed away in Uruguay, where he had lived for a number of years. Born in Argentina in 1924, Mieres began racing at the age...
The public address announcer at a racetrack may be the single most important aspect for enticing new fans into the sport. For spectators making their initial foray into a racing facility, the public address system is their first real connection to what is going on, their first step toward understanding...
Les Leston was born in 1920 named Alfred Lazarus Fingleston. He worked in the motor accessory business and was an accomplished drummer in the Clay Pigeons jazz band that included Belgian racer Johnny Claes. Leston’s racing career began in the late 1940s driving a Jaguar SS100, but he soon turned...
Racing has lost a great friend with the passing of Academy Award–winning actor Paul Newman. Brought into the sport by his acting career, Newman discovered his attraction for it while making the motion picture Winning, in 1968, where he played all-rounder Frank Capua. The fire may have been lit during...
Mark Neary Donohue, Jr. (March 18, 1937 – August 19, 1975) was an American racecar driver known for his ability to set up his own race car and drive it consistently on the absolute limit. Donohue’s wins include multiple SCCA National championships, 1968, 1969 and 1971 SCCA Trans Am, 1972...
Ron Grable did not fit the normal profile of a race driver. Not only did he begin his racing after graduating from college, he raced sports cars, stock cars, formula cars, production cars, IMSA Prototypes, Trans-Am and Can-Am cars. He raced at tracks all over the United States, at Le...
French racing driver Henri Greder, who focused his career around the 24 Hours of Le Mans, has died at the age of 83. Greder first attended the 24 Hours in 1952 and rejoined the festivities each year as a spectator until racing there for the first time in 1967, when...
Story by Stephen Mitchell I spent a lot of time in a showroom at the corner of Wilshire Boulevard and 26th Street in Santa Monica. It belonged to Otto Zipper and featured Ferraris that held me spellbound for hours at a time. On the occasion of my first visit, there...
Edwin Barton, or “Dick” as he was affectionately known, in deference to the popular 1940s British radio series and the Hammer films fictitious hero “Dick Barton — Special Agent.” While not a special agent, Dick Barton became a very close friend and right hand man of Brian Lister. Barton had...
Take something for granted, and we risk having it ripped away. For me, foolish me, Peter Bryant was always going to be there. An interesting guy, a very human guy, fun, warm, witty—often scandalously so—bright and innovative, astoundingly energetic. A ball o’ fire whose boisterousness could be alarming, but mostly...
Jim Hall Biography Jim Hall was born on the 23rd of July, 1935 in Abilene, Texas, the 2nd of three sons. Hall spent his early years growing up in New Mexico where he first caught the four-wheel bug. While still only fourteen he acquired a 1929 Model A Ford which...
It was recently announced in the Queen’s Birthday Honor List that Jackie Stewart will receive a knighthood this coming January. Stewart joins Sir Frank Williams and VRJ’s own Sir Stirling Moss as being one of the very few motorsport personalities to be bestowed this high honor. According to Stewart, “It’s...
Clemente Biondetti Describing Clemente Biondetti as colorful is like saying the Sears Tower in Chicago is tall. Unpredictable, imaginative, irascible, gentle, gruff, fascinating, stubborn, generous, outspoken, he was all of those things. He was also the only man to win the Mille Miglia four times, an extraordinary feat of skill,...
Mauro Forghieri Biography In 1961, following an internal upraising, the infamous Laura Affair, Enzo Ferrari fired the entire management team of his company, including top engineers Carlo Chiti and Giotto Bizzarrini who promptly set up what they hoped to be a rival teo Ferrari, Automobili Turismo e Sport (ATS). They build not only...
In remembering and memorializing John Fitch upon the occasion of his death, Vintage Racecar has produced this brief photographic summary of his racing career. Before, after and during that career, however, John Fitch was much more than a racing driver. He served as pilot of both Light Bombers and P-51...
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