Grand Prix Insider

4th of May – Didier Pironi scores the first of his three career Grand Prix wins at the Belgian circuit of Zolder at the wheel of his Ligier JS11/15. At this stage of the year 1980 the Frenchman and his fellow countryman Jacques Laffite seemed capable of fighting for the title but somehow the potential of French evaporated during the course of the season.

4/5/1928, Count Wolfgang Berghe VON TRIPS dies is born in Horrem, Germany.

Nicknamed “Taffy” by Mike Hawthorn, von Trips had a reputation for erratic driving early in his career however, hitting top form in1961, he won the Dutch and British Grands Prix and went into Italian GP at Monza on the verge of winning the World Championship. Tragically he collided with Jim Clark’s Lotus on the second lap of the race and was killed along with 14 spectators.

Born: 4th of May 1928 in Horrem, Germany;
Died: 10th of September 1961 in Monza, Italy, aged 33 years.

4/5/1946, John Marshall Watson is born in Belfast, Northern Ireland.

John Watson entered Formula 1 as a privateer after good performances in Formula 2, driving a Brabham in the 1973 British GP. The following year he drove for the Hexagon Brabham team and scored his first point at Monaco. In 1975 he drove briefly for Surtees before signing up with the Penske team to replace Mark Donohue, who had been killed at the Austrian GP. The following year in Austria Watson gave the team its first and only F1 victory. Penske quit F1 at the end of 1976 and Watson moved on to join Brabham, where he stayed for two seasons. For 1979 he joined McLaren and after the changeover of management with Ron Dennis in charge and John Barnard taking care of the technical side, Watson began to flourish. He won an emotional victory at the 1981 British GP and in 1982 added victories in Belgium and Detroit. John went to the final round in Las Vegas as one of the title contenders and finished the year equaling Dider Pironi’s points tally as runner-up to Keke Rosberg in the World Championship. He won again at Long Beach in 1983 but his F1 career was coming to an end. Besides doing some sportscar racing he became one of the os competent TV commentators around, whila also running a racing school at Silverstone.