Wednesday,

25th of February - Today he late François Cevert would be commemorating his 65th birthday and, although the Frenchman was a Grand Prix winner in the early 1970s, I found this picture of François speeding the works Tecno Formula 2 race car around the Nürburgring far more interesting. Do you spot what caught my attention in this shot, taken at the 1969 Eifelrennen?

25/2/1932, Charles Anthony Standish Brooks is born in Dukinfield, UK.

Tony Brooks was the first British driver to win a Formula 1 race in a British car by winning the non-championship 1955 Syracuse Grand Prix in Sicily in a Connaught. In his World Championship debut at Silverstone with BRM he suffered a huge crash the following year fracturing his jaw. Racing for Vanwall he finished 2nd at the 1957 Monaco GP and sharing the victorious car at the British GP at Aintree with Stirling Moss, who’s machine had broken down earlier on, he scored his first official win. In 1958, his best season, Brooks won the Belgian, German, and Italian GPs but finished third in the World Championship behind Mike Hawthorn and Stirling Moss. Switching to Ferrari for 1959 he won the French and German GPs and finished runner-up to World Champion Jack Brabham. The Australian had dominated with the revolutionary rear-engined Cooper, so Brooks was anxious to get his hands on the little wonder himself and signed with the Yeoman Credit Cooper team. But 1960 remained below expectations, only finishing in the points on three occasions and he finally called it quits after another disappointing year with BRM in 1961 to look after his garage business in Weybridge. Nowadays Tony enjoys retirement and keeps doing a bit of media work as wel as making special appearances in historic festivals.

25/2/1944, François Albert Cevert is born in Paris, France.

A French F3 champion, Cevert made his Grand Prix debut in the F2 class of the 1969 German GP and went on to replace Johnny Servoz-Gavin in Ken Tyrrell’s Formula 1 team alongside Jackie Stewart as of the 1970 Dutch GP. At the French and Gernan GP the following year Stewart and Cevert scored the first ones of a series of Tyrrell 1-2 finishes over the coming years and Francois scored his first victory in the final round of 1971, the US GP at Watkins Glen. With Jackie Stewart’s imminent retirement, Francois Cevert was being groomed thoughout 1972 and 1973 to take over as Tyrrell team leader as of 1974. But a tragic accident during qualifying for the 1973 US Grand Prix when his car flipped at the fast Esses at Watkins Glen and skidded along on the barriers killed on of the most colourful and promissing drivers of the early 1970s.

Born: 25th of February 1944 in Paris, France.
Died: 6th of October 1973 in Watkins Glen, USA, aged 29.