Justin Wilson

DOB: 31 July 1978

Birthplace: Sheffield, England

Justin Wilson, at 6'3 missed out on a place in Minardi in 2002 because he couldn't fit into the car! When his inclusion in the 2003 Minardi Team was announced there was quite a lot of speculation as to whether his height would prove to be a problem.

Justin shrugged off the idea of being 'too tall' for F1 and put in some solid performances for Minardi. Justin's unique 'Invest In Wilson' scheme where he sold shares in himself as a driver caused quite a stir and he easily filled his quota of £1.2m by 30th May 2003!

Justin was quickly rewarded with a transfer to Jaguar Racing in time for the German Grand Prix at Hockenheim.

Although his Height proved to be a real problem Wilson performed very well and we hope to see him in F1 again

Stirling Moss

Stirling Moss was born in London, England on the 17th of September 1929. He raced in 66 grand prix in total starting with Berne in 1951 and ending at Watkins Glen in 1961.

During his time racing in Formula 1 he achieved wins totaling more than 50 and came second in the World Championship four times in four consecutive years.

Moss drove a number of cars including Lotus, Cooper, Masserati, Vanwall, Mercedes-Benz and BRM.

Very unfortunately, his racing career ended after a terrible accident in 1962, which put him in a coma for a number of weeks.

Nigel Mansell

Nigel Mansell was born in Upton-on-Severn, England on the 8th of August 1953. He started life with an apprenticeship in Karts and then went on to race in Formula Ford in 1976. From there he went in to Formula 3 after selling his house to pay for it.

He was one of the most exciting drivers of his time and always provided his audience with gutsy performances. Lotus offered him a drive in 1980.

Mansell is statistically Britain's most successful driver with 31 wins, 482 points in 187 races and was World Champion in 1992. In 1985 he went to Williams and scored 28 wins in five years. He narrowly missed out on the World Championship in 1986 but in the last race of the season his tyre exploded so he had to settle for second place.

Grim news in '87 too as he had an accident at the penultimate race weekend and hurt his back so second place it was for him again. In 1988 Williams were dumped by Honda and didn't have a very good year. An offer from Ferrari was too good to refuse so off he went.

The Italians adored Nigel and he won his first race of the season and gained the nickname "The Lion." In 1990 Prost joined the team and tensions grew especially when Prost was doing better than he was so he announced that he would retire from the sport.

Frank Williams came along with the improved car and Mansell accepted a place in the team. That year Senna beat him to the championship and Mansell took a second place again.

1992 was to be his year of glory. He won the first five races of the season and four more throughout the year clinching the World Championship five races before the end of the season.

At the end of the season Mansell learned that Prost was joining Williams and so angrily quit F1 altogether. He went on to do CART. After Senna's death he returned to Williams to drive the last four races of the season, one of which he won. He signed for McLaren the year after and quit after two races. Nowadays he is a golf man and puts all of his energy in to his golf and health club in Exeter although he is starting to race again at teh 'Masters' races against other F1 greats.

Mike Hailwood

Mike Hailwood was born in Milton, England on the 4th of April 1940. He didn't have a particularly great success in F1 but he will probably be remembered most for racing motorbikes.

Hailwood studied at Pangbourne nautical college and was a fantastic pianist and clarinet player. It would probably be fair to say that Mike got in to racing bikes through his father who gained his wealth from the Kings of Oxford chain of motorcycle dealerships.

His father made sure that his son only rode the best bikes but lets not be fooled in to thinking that he had no talent, I believe that he had a considerable amount of talent but achieved his goals quicker through the help of his father.

At eighteen Mike was a quadruple British Champion and at twenty-one he was the 250cc World Champion. From 1962 until 1965 he was World Champion in 500cc and not only that he won the isle of man TT twelve times.

Hailwood dabbled in the world of four wheeled drives for a while but only started driving full time in 1969. Most would say that 1972 was his best year in F1 and in 1973 he was awarded the George medal for rescuing Clay Regazzoni from his car when it burst in to flames.

His F1 career came to an end in 1974 after an accident at the Nürburgring where he broke his leg. Hailwood was tragically killed in 1981 in a car accident whilst driving to a take away near his home.

John Surtees

John Surtees was born in Tatsfield, England on the 11th of February 1934. Surtees started the racing life by riding motorbikes and had won almost 200 races by the time he reached 21. He became World Champion seven times in four years! He also won the Isle of Mann TT on six occasions.

Johns first year in F1 was with Lotus in 1960 and he had quite a successful year but in 1961 he signed with Yeoman credit cooper with whom he had a disappointing year.

Off he went then to Lola and had some success with a few points finishes. Enter Ferrari, it was with Ferrari that he would have his most productive drive. Being able to speak Italian must have been a great help because it was largely down to him that Ferrari were transformed.

He drove for Ferrari for three years and in 1964 he won the World Championship and the team won the constructors championship. In 1966 Surtees fell out with the director and walked out of the team and in to Cooper Masserati to get a second place in the World Championship.

Honda and Lola were the next stop where he managed a few podiums but after the death of Jo Shlesser Honda withdrew from racing in 1968. After a bad season with BRM, he created an organisation in 1970 and team Surtees was born. Although he had himself a good little team he never won the World Championship with it and his last win was in 1971 with the Oulton park gold cup.

Fans of John can see him strutting his stuff at the Goodwood festivals of speed.

Jim Clark

Jim Clark was born in Kilmary, Scotland on the 4th of March 1936. He went to public school until the age of sixteen and became interested in motorsports.

From the age of seventeen Clark found himself racing in rallies and club races. In 1960 he was given the chance to drive an F1 lotus in the Dutch grand prix. After that he drove a few more races in the season and achieved one podium place and received points in a further three races.

During his F1 career he only drove for lotus and between 1960 and 1968 he won 25 races two World Championships, once in 1963 and again in 1965. In 1968 he was the tile favourite but was tragically killed in Germany whilst driving in an F2 race.

James Hunt

James Hunt was born in Belmont, England on the 29th of August 1947. He will probably be best remembered for loving booze, drugs and women to the excess. He was also very boisterous and outspoken.

He made his own way in to racing making money to buy a mini and then a formula ford car and it was while he was racing these that he got himself noticed.

Hunt entered formula 1 in 1973 after Bubbles Horsley decided that with the pair of them they would try F1 as Hesketh. Such was the success, that James was awarded the Malcolm Campbell trophy for best performance by a British driver in a British car.

His first F1 win was in 1974 in the Silverstone International trophy and he had three more podiums in the same year. In 1975 he scored his first and Hesketh's only Grand Prix victory and came fourth in the World Championship.

In 1976 he moved to McLaren and won the World Championship with seven victories but in 1973 he only managed three wins because McLaren were not technologically advanced enough to be fiercely competitive.

In 1978 he scored his last points with his one and only podium finish of the season and after seven races in 1979 Hunt retired as he had lost the will to race. The year after he took up commentating alongside Murray Walker and continued the partnership until 1993 when he suffered a massive heart attack.

Jackie Stewart

Jackie Stewart was born in Milton, Scotland on the 11th of June 1939. He started life with cars from a young age in Dumbartonshire as a petrol attendant in a family garage. As well as this he became an exceptional clay pigeon shooter and did it for Scotland.

Jackie first drove for the national Scottish team Ecurie Ecosse and was spotted by Ken Tyrrell who offered him a seat with his cooper formula three team in 1964. He went on to win every race but two.

In 1965, his first year in F1, he drove for BRM with Graham Hill and came third in the World Championship. In 1966 Jackie was involved in a really bad accident which had a massive effect in the sport. He vowed to find ways of making the sport safer and by doing this he became quite unpopular amongst the teams and drivers.

In 1968 Ken Tyrrell arrived with his F1 team and Stewart joined him. He came second in the championship and his greatest victory was in Germany where in bad weather he won the race four minutes ahead of everyone else! In 1969 Jackie won his first championship and led a revolution in racing safety by campaigning for safer circuits. In 1970 Ken Tyrell build his own car but it proved to be very uncompetitive but in 1971 with the improved car Jackie won the World Championship again after winning six grands prix.

In 1972 he was beaten to a third championship but in '73 he got his third with five wins and eight podiums it was to be his final year in F1. When he stopped racing there were plenty of other things to do with his time and he took on a number of jobs such as, Senior executive of Ford and Goodyear, TV commentator, President of the Springfield boys club and President of the British racing drivers club.

In 1995 Jackie announced that he was going to start a team called Stewart grand prix and along with Ford he got some sponsors. His son became managing director and he became the chairman. It took three seasons to get a race win. In 1999 he sold the team to ford and it became Jaguar.

Ralph Firman

DOB: 20th May 1975

Birthplace: Norwich, Norfolk, England

Ralph's father, Ralph Snr is the owner of the Van Diemen Formula Ford racing team (who have Senna amongst their past drivers list) so it was perhaps inevitable that he would go into racing!

Ralph Started his F1 career in 2003 and soon had to adjust his driving style to a much less aggressive technique as he was struggling with handling his Jordan. As the season went on he started getting the hang of it a lot better.

Damon Hill

Damon Hill was born in London, England on the 17th of September 1960. Damon Hills famous father died when he was fourteen but not letting it shatter his whole life he put lots of hard work and determination in to motorbikes.

He went to the Winfield racing school in France. In 1984 he was the 350cc Clubmans Champion. Hill gained a seat in Formula Ford and went from there to Formula 3 and 3000. Frank Williams spotted Damon and grabbed his chance to offer him a seat at Williams as a test driver in 1991. In 1993 he was to become the number two driver in the team where he won three races.

In 1994 Senna joined Williams and of course as we all know had the fatal accident at Imola. Hill was now the number one driver and won the Spanish and then the British grand prix. He continued to win four more races. This meant that the last race of the year would determine whether Damon or Michael Schumacher would win the World Championship. At the race they had a coming together and both cars retired. Schumacher had won the title by one point. In the same year Damon won the BBC sports personality of the year award. In 1995 with car problems and a few coming togethers with Michael Schumacher he managed four wins and another second place in the World Championship. In 1996 Damon won eight races and finally bagged himself the Championship (the only son of a World Champion to do so.)

Frank Williams controversially decided to replace Hill at the end of the season and so he went to Arrows. Against all the odds he got a second place - a very memorable race. For Damon's last two years he drove Jordan to their first ever win, again a race that will be remembered by Hill fans everywhere.

In 1999 Damon decided that he wanted the family life and his racing career ended right there.

Martin Brundle

Martin Brundle was born in Kings Lynn, England on the 1st of June 1959. He never won a grand prix but he definitely deserved to!

Martin started off in Formula three where in Eddie Jordan's team he nearly beat Senna to win the World Championship, but Senna drove the last race perfectly and pipped him to the post.

In 1984 he started life off in Tyrrell and had one podium finish before breaking both ankles and recovering for the rest of the year. He spent two more seasons with Tyrrell and only managed to score a handful of points. In 1987 he joined Zacspeed and didn't get on so well so he changed to Jaguar sports car racing and became World sports car champion. Not only did he achieve this he also won the Daytona 24 hours with Jaguar. He then returned to F1 to drive for Brabham. It wasn't a brilliant car but he still managed to qualify fourth at Monaco and scored three more points for the rest of the season.

In 1990 he returned to Jaguar sports car and won LeMans 24 hours. Martin did another unsuccessful year with Brabham but in 1994 secured a place with Benneton. He achieved a sixth place in the championship with 11 top six finishes and got five podiums. In 1993 he moved to Ligier and made seven finishes in the points with one podium finish but in 1994 he moved to McLaren but in their bad year which saw him get two podium finishes. Martin had one more with Ligier in 1995. In his last year Brundle went to Jordan but they were struggling. He gained two points finishes and it was also the year that Martin had "that" spectacular crash that saw him cartwheel over the barrier at Adelaide. He emerged completely unharmed, ran to the pits and jumped in the spare car for the restart.

In 1997 he joined Murray Walker to become his co-commentator and did a fantastic job with his vast knowledge of the sport and he still does but now with James Allen. As well as this Martin is David Couthard's business affairs manager and he also runs successful car businesses. He also holds two sports pundit of the year awards.