Tony Brooks: Formula 1 pioneer dies aged 90
Tony Brooks, one of the defining Formula 1 drivers of the 1950s, has died aged 90, his daughter Giulia announced on Tuesday.After Juan Manuel Fangio, Alberto Ascari and Stirling Moss, Brooks was the most successful driver of his era.Moss, who died two years ago, also aged 90, said of his former team-mate and friend: "Brooks was a tremendous driver, the greatest - if he'll forgive me saying this - 'unknown' racing driver there's ever been.
Brooks famously won his first ever F1 race, the Syracuse Grand Prix of 1955, in which he competed as a last-minute entry for the Connaught team while studying for his dentistry finals at Manchester University. He entered F1 in 1956 with BRM, but he raced only twice in a car that was not a success - and Brooks was lucky to escape without serious injury from a crash when its throttle stuck open during the 1956 British Grand Prix.
Brooks - as befitted his talent - always shone brightest on the most demanding circuits, and in 1958 underlined his skills with impressive victories on the daunting Spa-Francorchamps and Nurburgring Nordschleife circuits in the Belgian and German Grands Prix. "I always felt it was morally wrong to take unnecessary risks with one's life," he told the veteran F1 journalist Nigel Roebuck in the 1980s, "because I believe that life is a gift from God and that suicide is morally unacceptable.
"My natural inclination was to carry on," he said. "Believe me, that would have been the easiest thing to do, but I made myself come in to have the car checked over.
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