GRAND PRIX GREATS
TONY BROOKS Club racer to Grand Prix winner
Nigel Roebuck on Tony Brooks
WHEN GIANCARLO BAGHETTI SPUN OFF in the 1961 British Grand Prix, a spell was broken, for this, the fourth Formula 1 race of his career, was the first he hadn’t won. A fortnight earlier he had taken his Ferrari to victory at Reims, thus becoming the first – and only – man to win a grand prix at the first attempt. Prior to that, he had won nonchampionship races at Naples and – on his F1 debut – Syracuse.
Six years earlier another rookie triumphed in the Syracuse Grand Prix, but whereas Baghetti fizzled as quickly as he had flared, the victory of Tony Brooks heralded the beginning of a great career. Before travelling to Sicily, he had never so much as sat in an F1 car.
Come to that, nor had he ever entertained thoughts of racing professionally. For three years he had been successful in British club racing, leading to a drive with Aston Martin at Le Mans in 1955, but at 23 Brooks’s focus was on studying dentistry at Manchester University, and coming up were his ‘Finals’.
“There I was, swotting away, when a call came through from Connaught: would I like to drive for them at Syracuse? Frankly, they couldn’t find anyone else! I rather absent-mindedly said yes, and put the phone down.”
Perhaps it was fortunate that Brooks was preoccupied with his exams, for on the flight to Sicily he worked away, and didn’t give much thought to the race. “When I got there, the transporter hadn’t arrived, so we missed the first practice day, and I hired a Vespa to learn the circuit in the evening…”
Clear favourites for the race were the factory Maserati 250Fs, but soon Brooks was lapping as fast as they. “The Connaught handled well, but was short of power – and also the team’s reliability record was awful. ‘Don’t do too much practice,’ they said, because they were terrified of not getting the starting money. Come race day, I’d done no more than a dozen laps.”
Although Luigi Musso led initially, after 10 laps Brooks was in front, and at the flag led Musso by 51 seconds. If the spectators were stunned, so also was the winner.
“Obviously I was very pleased, but it didn’t really sink in – quite honestly, all I could think about was my exams! I swotted all the way back, too...”
While not in a world championship race, Brooks’s victory was the first for a British car in half a century, and the young man was on his way: although he duly got his degree, he was never to practise as a dentist.
After a wasted season with BRM, for 1957 Brooks signed as number two to Stirling Moss in the Vanwall team, and if there were no outright wins, he nevertheless shared victory with Moss in the British Grand Prix.
A month before, Tony had been injured at Le Mans, and only came out of hospital the day before practice began at Aintree: “I didn’t break anything, but there was a hole in the side of my thigh I could have put my fist into…”
Remarkably Brooks qualified third, but he was still weak, and it was agreed that if Moss should need his car – back in the day drivers could take over other cars if their own had retired – he would willingly give it up. In the event, after retiring from the lead, Stirling indeed took over Tony’s Vanwall, and put in a fabled drive to come through the field and win.
For 1958 they stayed with Vanwall, Moss winning four times, and Brooks three, yet such was the points system that both were beaten to the world championship by Mike Hawthorn, who won but once. Never did seem right.
Appropriately Brooks’s victories came at classic circuits – Spa, the Nürburgring, Monza – and it may be that the driving of a Formula 1 car never came easier to any man. Quietly spoken, physically slight, he was always a fingertip driver: to lap the old Spa-francorchamps at well over 130mph, in a front-engined car on skinny tyres, brought no sweat to his brow. He was, in every sense, a ‘natural’.
“I particularly loved Spa. It seemed to me the essence of a true grand prix circuit, very quick and calling for great precision, with absolutely no margin for error at all – if you went off, you might get away with it, you might not. It’s one thing knowing a mistake might mean going into a run-off area: walls and trees and ditches instilled a discipline, believe me…”
Following the death of Vanwall’s third driver, Stuart Lewis-evans, Tony Vandervell withdrew his team, and for 1959 Brooks moved to Ferrari. By now front-engined F1
cars were in their death throes, but he won at Reims and Avus, and went to the final race, at Sebring, in contention – along with Moss and Jack Brabham – for the world championship.
Brooks’s two biggest accidents – in the BRM at Silverstone and in the Aston at Le Mans – had both been caused by mechanical problems of which he was aware, and they had a profound effect on his thinking. A devout Catholic, he vowed never again to risk his life in a car that was in less than sound condition.
“As it was, that philosophy may well have cost me the championship. On the first lap at Sebring, I was hit by Taffy von Trips, and my natural inclination was to press on – that would have been the easiest thing to do – but I made myself come in to have the car checked over. I lost half a lap doing that, and still finished third – on a day when Stirling retired and Jack ran out of fuel! Still, in my own mind, I think I did the right thing.”
Thereafter, Brooks raced for two more years, but his thoughts were increasingly on the future: now married, with children, he had never envisaged a long career in racing, and at 29 retired to his thriving garage business, taking with him one of the greatest talents the sport has known.
Moss has said that if he were running a grand prix team, and could choose any two drivers, they would be Jimmy Clark and Tony Brooks.