On 20 February 1966, the Tasman Series reached Queensland for the Australian Grand Prix at Lakeside — Round 6 of an eight-race summer that had already delivered drama across New Zealand and Australia.

In this episode of Chequered Past, we trace the full arc of the 1966 Tasman campaign. From Graham Hill’s commanding opening win at Pukekohe, through Jackie Stewart’s back-to-back New Zealand victories, Jim Clark’s resurgence at Warwick Farm, and the tightening championship fight that followed.

At Lakeside, Hill delivered a composed and decisive performance in the BRM P261 to secure the Australian Grand Prix — but the title battle was far from settled. Stewart sealed the Tasman crown at Sandown before finishing the season in style at Longford, completing a campaign built not on spectacle, but on consistency and control.

We also mark the birthday of Roger Penske, born on this day in 1937 — a driver turned team owner whose disciplined, system-driven approach would help redefine what professionalism in motorsport looked like.

From revived 2.5-litre Grand Prix engines to the emergence of a new championship force, this is the story of a Tasman summer that changed hands — and showed how racing could be mastered through process as well as pace.

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On 19 February 1967, the world’s finest drivers gathered at Warwick Farm for the Australian Grand Prix — a race that did not count towards the Formula One World Championship, yet carried genuine international weight.

The Tasman Series was in full flow, running to 2.5-litre regulations at a time when Europe had already embraced the new 3-litre Formula One era. For a few weeks each year, elite drivers moved between two technical frameworks within the same season — lighter, well-integrated Tasman machinery in the southern summer, heavier and more powerful cars in Europe.

That afternoon in Sydney, the race became a distinctly Scottish affair.

Jackie Stewart mastered the flowing Warwick Farm circuit to take victory, with Jim Clark close behind. The dominance of the two Scots prompted the New South Wales Governor to suggest the race be renamed the “Scottish Grand Prix”.

But this was more than a national curiosity.

Clark would go on to secure his second Tasman title that season. Denny Hulme would claim the 1967 Formula One World Championship. And within a year, aerodynamic revolution and commercial change would begin reshaping the sport’s identity.

This episode explores a moment of overlap — when two formulas coexisted, when Stewart asserted control, when Clark demonstrated championship consistency, and when one Australian afternoon briefly felt unmistakably Scottish.

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On 18 February, we mark the birthday of Enzo Ferrari — the founder, the autocrat, and the figure whose name became inseparable from Formula One itself.

In this episode of Chequered Past, we explore a different side of Ferrari. Not the political operator. Not the disciplinarian. But the admirer.

Across half a century of racing, two drivers stood apart in his memory. The pre-war hero Tazio Nuvolari, whose 1935 Nürburgring victory defied machinery and nation alike. And the fearless Canadian Gilles Villeneuve, whose instinctive, uncompromising style rekindled Ferrari’s belief in racing as an act of courage.

Neither man defined Ferrari statistically.

Both defined him emotionally.

This episode examines what those choices reveal about Ferrari himself — and the kind of racing spirit he valued above calculation, politics, and even championships.

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On 17 February 1959, Mike Coughlan was born — an engineer whose career would become forever linked with one of the most explosive controversies in modern Formula One history.

In 2007, a confidential Ferrari technical dossier, a photocopy shop in Surrey, and a bitter intra-team rivalry at McLaren combined to ignite what became known as “Spygate.” What began as a dispute between individuals escalated into High Court action, an extraordinary FIA hearing in Paris, a record-breaking $100 million fine, and the exclusion of McLaren from the Constructors’ Championship.

As Lewis Hamilton, Fernando Alonso and Kimi Räikkönen battled for the Drivers’ title, the sport itself was fighting a parallel battle over governance, integrity and the limits of competitive ambition.

In this episode of Chequered Past, we revisit the scandal that reshaped compliance in Formula One, fractured a championship campaign, and forced the sport to confront where innovation ends and industrial espionage begins.

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On 16 February 1921, Jean Behra was born — a fiercely talented and uncompromising racer whose brief and explosive time at Ferrari revealed something deeper about the Scuderia’s identity.

In this episode of Chequered Past, we explore Ferrari’s complex relationship with its strongest personalities. From Behra’s dramatic dismissal in 1959 to former world champion John Surtees walking away mid-season in 1966, from Niki Lauda’s quiet but telling departure after sealing the 1977 title to Alain Prost’s public criticism and abrupt exit in 1991, a pattern emerges.

Ferrari has never lacked great drivers.

But managing greatness has often proved more difficult.

We examine how pride, authority and institutional identity shaped these relationships — and how, in the era of Michael Schumacher, Ferrari finally found a way to align structure with brilliance and build one of the most dominant partnerships in Formula One history.

This is the story of the drivers Ferrari could not contain — and what their departures reveal about the most mythologised team in motorsport.

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On 15 February 1929, Graham Hill was born in Hampstead. On 15 February 1998, George Russell was born in King’s Lynn. Nearly seven decades apart, two English drivers entered Formula One through entirely different pathways — yet both would become Grand Prix winners on the sport’s biggest stage.

In this episode of Chequered Past, we explore Hill’s rise from mechanic to double World Champion, his mastery of Monaco, his unique Triple Crown achievement, and his bold attempt to build his own Formula One team. We then turn to Russell’s journey through the modern academy system, his breakthrough in Sakhir, his first victory in Brazil, and his emergence as a leading figure in Mercedes’ next era.

From apprenticeship to analytics, from open-cockpit danger to hybrid precision, the sport evolved dramatically across those seven decades. But what connects these two English winners is not machinery or regulation — it is composure, preparation, and the ability to seize opportunity when it arrives.

Different eras. Same demand. Victory.

Cover image: By Lukas Raich - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, Link

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On 14 February 1944, Ronnie Peterson was born — a driver whose raw pace would make him one of the most visually spectacular figures of 1970s Formula One.

In this episode of Chequered Past, we revisit the season that established his reputation as the sport’s benchmark qualifier. In 1973, Peterson took nine pole positions with Team Lotus and claimed four victories, demonstrating car control and commitment that few could match — even if the championship ultimately slipped away.

We then move to 1978, when Peterson returned to Lotus and found himself in the fastest car on the grid — but not at the centre of the title campaign. As Mario Andretti built a championship charge in the revolutionary Lotus 79, Peterson’s role, position and legacy were shaped as much by structure as by speed.

Finally, we examine Monza 1978, when a championship reduced to an internal Lotus contest was never resolved on track. In reflecting on that weekend, we consider how Peterson’s reputation was fixed in Formula One history — not as a nearly man, but as a driver whose talent was never in question.

This is the story of speed, structure and the legacy of one of Formula One’s most instinctive racers.

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On 13 February 1997, Alain Prost formally completed his takeover of Ligier — transforming France’s historic Formula One entry into Prost Grand Prix.

It was a bold move. A four-time world champion stepping away from the cockpit to build a national team in his own image. The early signs were promising: podiums in Brazil and Spain in 1997, Olivier Panis third in the Drivers’ Championship, and renewed belief in a French Formula One revival.

But momentum proved fragile.

An ambitious switch to Peugeot engines in 1998 brought symbolism but not stability. A dramatic podium at the 1999 European Grand Prix masked deeper technical and financial strain. By 2000, the team failed to score a single point. A late switch to Ferrari customer engines in 2001 delivered only modest recovery before administration followed in early 2002.

Why do so few great drivers succeed as team owners?
Was Prost’s project undone by timing, strategy, scale — or the rapidly industrialising nature of late-1990s Formula One?

In this episode of Chequered Past, we explore ambition, national identity and the unforgiving economics of modern Grand Prix racing — and revisit the French dream that faded.

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