Age is a troublesome subject with some racing drivers. The oldest Formula 1 driver today is Kimi Raikkonen at 37 years of age. Felipe Massa and Fernando Alonso are both 35 and Lewis Hamilton is 32. The only other current driver over 30 is Romain Grosjean. In recent times we have seen older drivers, Michael Schumacher retired at 43, Pedro de la Rosa at 41 and Rubens Barrichello at 39, but in the old days of F1, the drivers were able to go on much longer than they do today. In fact, the oldest ever driver in a World Championship event was Monaco’s Louis Chiron who was 55 years old when he started the Monaco Grand Prix in 1955. Three years later he tried again, but that time failed to qualify at Monaco (as did one B Ecclestone on the particular occasion). Obviously 58 was just too old…

In fact, Chiron’s achievement was not that much more than the previous record holder, France’s Philippe Etancelin, who raced in the French GP in 1952, when he was 55. At that point he had already established the record for being the oldest driver to score a point, having finished fifth at Monza in 1950 in a Talbot, at the age of 53. The oldest race winner was Luigi Fagioli, who won the 1951 French GP at 53 years of age, and the oldest World Champion was Juan Manuel Fangio in 1957, at the age of 46.

In the modern era we have seen Damon Hill win the title at 36, Mario Andretti and Alain Prost at 38, and Nigel Mansell and Graham Hill at 39. The only man to win the title over 40 since the 1950s was Jack Brabham in 1966.

Jack celebrated his 40th birthday in April that year, before the World Championship began. He won the International Trophy at Silverstone but his first World Championship victory did not come until the French GP in July. He then won the British GP a few days later and was suddenly in the running for the title. Some newspapers made a fuss about his age and so at the Dutch Grand Prix in late July at Zandvoort Jack thought he would take the mickey out of the media by appearing on the grid, wearing a false beard and hobbling to his car with a walking stick, pretending to be old. He then proceeded to lead the race. When he began lapping backmarkers he was badly baulked and Jim Clark managed to catch and pass him, but then the Lotus-Climax began to have engine vibration problems which led to a water pump failure. That put Jack back in the lead and by the end of the race the old man had lapped the entire field…