Britain's first Formula 1 World Champion

John Michael Hawthorn became Britain's first Formula One World Champion driver in 1958, whereupon he announced his retirement, having been profoundly affected by the death of his team-mate and friend Peter Collins two months earlier in the 1958 German Grand Prix.

Hawthorn also won the 1955 24 Hours of Le Mans, but was haunted by his involvement in the disastrous crash that marred the race. Hawthorn died in a road accident six months after retiring; he was suffering from a terminal illness at the time.

"The first motor races I ever saw were at Brooklands. I was only a very small boy, but to me it was heaven to watch the cars thundering round those towering cliffs of concrete where the banking curved under the Members' Bridge, to wander along the lines of brightly coloured cars in their stalls in the paddock, to jump as an exhaust snarled suddenly and to sniff the aroma of castor oil."