Born On This Day

Thursday 25th February 1932

88 years ago

Born on this day, Tony Brooks, former Formula One driver from England who participated in 38 Grands Prix, debuting on July 14, 1956. He 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 Grand Prix 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 Grands Prix but finished third in the World Championship behind Mike Hawthorn and Stirling Moss. Switching to Ferrari for 1959 he won the French and German Grands Prix 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.