Drivers, designers, engineers, founders…The people who shaped motorsport ando those changing it now. No protocol.
Dante Giacosa: the man who fit Italy inside a three-metre car Someone at Top Gear should have made a documentary about him. Someone at Netflix. Someone at Amazon. Someone at any of the outlets that pumped out hagiographies of Alec Issigonis (the Mini) or Ferdinand Porsche (the Beetle) in the last twenty years. Because the … Read more
Tazio Nuvolari: The Italian Who Humiliated the Silver Arrows On Their Own Soil On 28 July 1935, in the rain-soaked German hell that was the Nürburgring of the Eifel mountains, a 42-year-old Italian called Tazio Nuvolari climbed into a Grand Prix car carrying 110 horsepower less than the competition and proceeded to win a race … Read more
Achille Varzi: The Anti-Nuvolari, the Morphine, and the Helmet He Wasn’t Wearing Drop Tazio Nuvolari and Achille Varzi into the same room and the only thing they share is the language they speak. Everything else divides them. Nuvolari came from a Lombard farm, the son of a cyclist. Varzi came from a Piedmontese textile factory, … Read more
Vincenzo Lancia: the racing driver who became a manufacturer and refused to let his cars race Here’s a paradox that almost never gets told and that defines this man better than anything else. Vincenzo Lancia, before he turned thirty, was arguably the fastest racing driver in Italy. He drove for Fiat. He racked up podiums … Read more
Jack Brabham: the quiet Australian who broke the front-engine church Every Formula One World Champion did something big. One of them, on top of it, pushed his own car four hundred yards under the Florida sun because he ran out of gasoline on the final lap. That was how he won his first world title. … Read more
Antonio Ascari: The European Champion the Sport Killed Before He Could Lift the Crown Let me start with the coincidence, because there isn’t another way to start. Two men dead at age 36. Both on the 26th day of the month. Both four days after surviving a serious accident. Both at the exit of a … Read more
Ugo Sivocci: The Missing Corner of the Quadrifoglio Next time you see an Alfa Romeo Quadrifoglio, lean in and look at the badge on the front wing. Forget for a second that the four-leaf clover is one of the most recognisable performance markers in motoring, alongside the M of BMW M Sport, the AMG of … Read more
Paolo Stanzani: “I’m Tired of Building Toys for Rich, Spoiled People” The Lamborghini Miura exists because two young Italian engineers were obsessed with a race car built in Dearborn, Michigan. That’s not a stretch. Ferruccio Lamborghini had explicitly forbidden his staff from building anything resembling a competition car — racing was an expense he had … Read more
Bob Wallace: The Hot Rodder Who Built Lamborghini’s Forbidden Car He started out building hot rods with his buddies. He finished up alone in a shop in Phoenix, Arizona, sorting out other people’s Ferraris. In between, he spent twelve years as the man who decided whether a Lamborghini was fit to sell to a human … Read more
Fangio: The Man Who Won With His Head When the BBC or Sky pundits reach for a yardstick of greatness, they tend to say a modern champion is “the best since Fangio.” Not since Senna, not since Clark. Since Fangio. The name has become the floor of the conversation, the bedrock figure every other great … Read more
Giuseppe Merosi: The Engineer Who Drew Alfa Before Jano, and Whom Nobody Mentions Ask any motoring enthusiast for the key engineer in Alfa Romeo’s history and they’ll say Vittorio Jano. Press them for the next generation and you’ll get Orazio Satta Puliga or Giuseppe Busso. Press harder, you might get Carlo Chiti of Autodelta. What … Read more
Stirling Moss: The Champion Who Chose Not to Be One Ask any British kid of a certain age what their dad said when a copper pulled him over for speeding, and you’ll get the same answer: “Who do you think you are, Stirling Moss?” Not Hawthorn. Not Fangio. Not Hamilton, decades later. Moss. The name … Read more
