Tragic pic of the Ferrari 250TR that Erwin Bauer, born #OnThisDay in 1912, shared with Gotfrid Köchert in the ’58 #Nürburgring1000km. Why tragic? Well, Bauer didn’t see the chequered flag, carried on racing on what he didn’t realise should have been his slow-down lap, crashed, & was killed.

#OnThisDay 55 years ago, at Silverstone, Clay Regazzoni (Ferrari) led the #BritishGP from the pole, until on lap 4 Jackie Stewart (Tyrrell; pic) overtook him at Stowe & led the rest of the 68-lap race to score his 4th #F1 GP win of the ’71 season.

#OnThisDay in ’54 Froilán González (pic; taken by Geoff Goddard) won the #BritishGP for Ferrari, team-mate Mike Hawthorn 2nd. #AnorakFact: González, Hawthorn, Alberto Ascari, Jean Behra, Juan Manuel Fangio, Onofre Marimón & Stirling Moss set equal fastest lap, scoring ⅐ point each.

The #F1 #BritishGP has been held #OnThisDay - 16 July - 9 times, most recently in 2017, when Lewis Hamilton (Merc) delivered a perfect grand chelem: starting from pole position, leading every lap & setting fastest lap.

Of Carlos Reutemann’s 12 #F1 GP wins, which was his best? IMHO it was the ’78 #BritishGP, run #OnThisDay 48 years ago, in which he beat arch rival Niki Lauda in an epic battle, hurling his Ferrari 312T3 (pic) inside Lauda’s Brabham BT46 at Clark Curve, before my 15-year-old eyes.

#OnThisDay in ’90, at Silverstone, the #BritishGP was won for Ferrari by Alain Prost. Prost’s team-mate, local hero Nigel Mansell (pic), had taken the pole the day before, & he led the race before retiring with gearbox failure just 9 laps from the end.

#OnThisDay in ’72 was run the #BritishGP at Brands Hatch. Ickx (Ferrari) led the first 48 laps from the pole before an oil leak ended his fun. After Ickx’s retirement Fittipaldi (Lotus; pic) inherited the lead. Stewart (Tyrrell) mounted a fierce chase but he was unable to pass Fittipaldi.

#OnThisDay in ’67, at a baking-hot Silverstone, the #BritishGP was won by Lotus’s Jim Clark (pic), from his customary pole position. Clark’s Lotus team-mate Graham Hill had initially led the race until rear suspension failure on lap 54 allowed Clark to take the lead & score his 22nd #F1 GP win.

#HappyBirthday Jarno Trulli, 52. He raced 252 #F1 GPs, winning one, & was a quali maestro, bagging 4 poles & often achieving grid positions that flattered his cars, thereafter heading a ‘Trulli train’ in the early laps. Pic (taken by Rainer Schlegelmilch): 5th, Jordan EJ11, Brazil, 2001.

#OnThisDay in ’80 Williams’ soon-to-be #F1 world champion Alan Jones won the #BritishGP at Brands Hatch. Pic (taken by Martin Lee): it would be Patrick Depailler’s 95th & last F1 GP, for he was killed testing an Alfa 179 at Hockenheim 19 days later. 😔

Remembering Alberto Ascari, born #OnThisDay in 1918, underrated today IMHO. He raced 32 GPs, winning 13, plus 2 world championships (’52 & ’53). The pic I’ve selected shows in stark detail the to-our-modern-eyes extraordinarily skimpy protection afforded to the drivers of early-’50s GP cars.

But it’s as owner & boss of his eponymous #F1 team that Guy Ligier will always be remembered. Équipe Ligier won 9 F1 GPs between ’76 & ’96, & some of their cars were among the most beautiful of that era, such as the Ligier JS11 here being raced at Dijon in ’79 by Jacky Ickx. (2/2)

Remembering Guy Ligier, born #OnThisDay in ’30. A farmer’s son, he was orphaned at 7 then left school at 14 & found work as a butcher’s boy. He became a champion rower & an international rugby player, then raced bikes & cars. He started 12 #F1 GPs including Spa ’67 in a Cooper-Maserati (pic). (1/2)

#OnThisDay in ’64 Jim Clark won the #BritishGP, at Brands Hatch, from pole, with fastest lap, leading all the way: the 5th of his record 8 #F1 grands chelems. He practised the new Lotus 33 but won in the old Lotus 25. It was the first of 12 F1 British GPs to be held at Brands. Great promo poster! 👌

#HappyBirthday Clive Puzey, 85. He entered one #F1 GP, East London ’65, but he DNQ’d his Lotus 18. Pic: he raced in South African F1 until ’69, here shown in an LDS Mk3 in ’67. #AnorakFact: LDS stands for Louis Douglas Serrurier, aka Doug Serrurier, who built & raced the cars.

Remembering Pedro Rodríguez, who lost his life at Norisring #OnThisDay 55 years ago. He drove 54 #F1 GPs, won 2, & was one of the finest sports car racers of all time, winning prolifically for Ferrari & Porsche. Pic: his first F1 GP win, Kyalami, ’67, Cooper-Maserati T81.

Remembering Rolf Stommelen, born #OnThisDay in ’43. He started 54 #F1 GPs, best 3rd (Österreichring ’70), scored 3 class wins at Le Mans, won the #TargaFlorio, & won the #Daytona24Hours 4 times. Pic: in a 3rd Brabham-Alfa BT45, Nürburgring, ’76, with Carloses Pace & Reutemann.

Remembering Fritz Riess, born #OnThisDay in 1922. He started one GP, Nürburgring ’52, in a privateer Veritas, finishing 7th, & his day of days came earlier that summer, at Le Mans, where he & the great pre-WW2 ace Hermann Lang drove a Merc 300SL to victory (pic).

Yes, at Österreichring & Monza in ’75 Shadow ran a Cosworth V8-engined DN5 for Pryce & a Matra V12-engined DN7 for Jarier (pictured in the car at Monza).

The #F1 #BritishGP has been run #OnThisDay 6 times, including #OnThisDay in ’65, at Silverstone, in which race the first 5 finishers were all British. #AnorakFact

The Scirocco-Powell #F1 team was a failure, Tony Settember entering 5 F1 GPs in ’63, DNF-ing 4 times & DNQ-ing once (pic: Nürburgring ’63; DNF). He & Hugh Powell Jr quarrelled & Settember returned to the US where he raced on until the mid-’70s. He died in 2014, aged 87. (2/2)

Remembering Tony Settember (pic), born #OnThisDay 100 years ago. A good racer in California & Arizona in the ’50s, he flew to London in ’62 to set up the Scirocco-Powell #F1 team with millionaire mate Hugh Powell Jr behind the Seven Stars tavern (now the Oak pub) on Goldhawk Road. (1/2)

The ’50 non-championship #F1 #GranPremioDiBari was run #OnThisDay 76 years ago, at Lungomare, a seaside street circuit in Bari, Italy. It was won by Giuseppe Farina ahead of his Alfa Romeo team-mate Juan Manuel Fangio (2nd) & a 20-year-old in an HWM-Alta (3rd), Stirling Moss (pic).

#OnThisDay in ’39, at a rainy Reims, HP Müller won the #FrenchGP for Auto Union. #AnorakFact & pic: in ’55, aged 46, he won the 250cc GP motorcycle world championship, riding an NSU Sportmax, thereby becoming the oldest ever winner of a GP motorcycle world championship.

#OnThisDay in 2007 Lewis Hamilton led the #BritishGP from pole but Kimi Räikkönen had him in his gun-sights all along, &, after a botched McLaren pit stop, he won the race for Ferrari. I loved the almost Gothic, baroque, aero-extravaganza styling of the 2007 #F1 cars.

#OnThisDay in ’84, in Dallas heat so searing that the track crumbled so badly that it had to be resurfaced on race morning, Keke Rosberg wore a water-cooled skull-cap beneath his helmet & remained chilled enough to hurl his Williams FW09 to a famous victory.

“I’ve got a doggone cold,” said Dan Gurney as he climbed into his Porsche 804 on the Rouen grid #OnThisDay in ’62. What did he do next? He raced it to his maiden #F1 GP win, that’s what. Lovely pic taken by Louis Klemantaski.

Carlos Reutemann, an enigmatic #F1 ace & my childhood hero, died #OnThisDay 5 years ago, aged 79. Here he is using all the road, but no more, in a Porsche 928 S4, which he was road-testing for #QuattroRuote magazine. He described it as the best-handling road car he’d ever driven.

The #FrenchGP has been run #OnThisDay 5 times. So here’s Ronnie Peterson, in a Lotus 72E, en route to victory, at Dijon, #OnThisDay in ’74: an archetypal image of what made ’70s #F1 so utterly magical. #DabOfOppo

We’re all Belgian today. Well played, lads! 🇧🇪👏