1959 Monaco Grand Prix
Jack Brabham claimed his first F1 victory for Cooper after Stirling Moss retired with fewer than 20 laps to go and early leader Jean Behra was hit with engine troubles. Tony Brooks finished second for Ferrari, with Maurice Trintignant third.
1964 Monaco Grand Prix
Graham Hill’s BRM outlasted Jim Clark’s Lotus and Dan Gurney’s Brabham to allow the moustachioed Mr Monaco to take the second of his five wins in the Principality, a lap ahead of teammate Richie Ginther and three laps in front of third-placed Pete Arundell.
1970 Monaco Grand Prix
11 years after his first, Jack Brabham denied himself a 15th grand prix victory after making a costly mistake on the last corner of the last lap. Brabham had led most of the race following Jackie Stewart’s retirement but came under increasing pressure from Jochen Rindt – who was driving an ancient Lotus 49 – in the closing stages. On the final lap. Rindt was close, but in no position to attempt a pass. Brabham looked safe. Then, heading into the final corner at the Gasworks hairpin, Brabham locked his brakes and slid into the hay bales.
Rindt slipped through to grab the win as a frustrated Brabham recovered to second ahead of Henri Pescarolo, who scored what would be his only F1 podium.
1998 Spanish Grand Prix
Mika Hakkinen took an easy victory, crushing teammate David Coulthard in qualifying and the race on a weekend where McLaren was dominant. Michael Schumacher was a distant third ahead of Alex Wurz, with every other driver finishing a lap down.
2009 Spanish Grand Prix
Despite losing the lead to teammate Rubens Barrichello at the start, Jenson Button made it four wins from five for Brawn GP after making his two-stop strategy work better than Barrichello’s three-stopper. In fact, Barrichello only just held off third-placed Mark Webber and after the race accused the team of favouring Button – something he’d seen enough of with Michael Schumacher at Ferrari. However, it turned out that he’d had a small issue with one of his tyres during a stint which likely cost him the win, while Button had only been converted into a two-stopper to prevent him from running in traffic.
2015 Spanish Grand Prix
Nico Rosberg won his first race of the season from pole after teammate Lewis Hamilton spoiled his chances with a bad start, which meant he spent much of the race stuck behind Sebastian Vettel and unable to run the optimum strategy. He eventually made it up to second as Vettel dropped back to third, unable to really fight against the sheer speed of the Mercedes.
Birthdays
John James (born 1914) started just one race, the 1951 British GP, but retired after 17 laps when his Maserati broke down.
Surely one of the best drivers to have never won a race, Nick Heidfeld (born 1977) finished on the podium 13 times without ever standing on the top step – an F1 record. A McLaren junior driver early in his career, the team passed him over for a seat in 2002 in favour of then-Sauber teammate Kimi Raikkonen, despite Heidfeld outscoring him during the 2001 season. In fact, Raikkonen was one of many top drivers Heidfeld ‘beat’ during their time as teammates – Felipe Massa, Mark Webber, Jacques Villeneuve and Robert Kubica were all outscored by ‘Quick Nick’.
An instinctive and talented overtaker with a great feel in wet conditions, his lack of a win was largely down to not being in the right car at quite the right time. And during probably his best chance – the 2008 Canadian GP – he opted to play the team game as Kubica ended up winning BMW Sauber’s only race. His F1 career fizzled out in 2011 when Renault replaced him with Bruno Senna mid-season.
