MY TOP 20 BRITISH F1 DRIVERS - Number 10

MIKE HAWTHORN
WORLD CHAMPION - 1958
GRANDS PRIX - 47
WINS - 3
POLE POSITIONS - 4
POINTS SCORED - 127.64
--- F1 CAREER ---
1952 - Cooper - Equal 4th - 10pts
1953 - Ferrari - 4th - 19pts
1954 - Ferrari - 3rd - 24.64pts
1955 - Ferrari / Vanwall - 0pts
1956 - Maserati - 12th - 4pts
1957 - Lancia /Ferrari - 4th - 13pts
1958 - Ferrari - 1st - 42pts

OK the top 10 British drivers, now were getting towards some real legends of the sport starting at number 10 with tha man who became one of Britain's first motorsport household names and his name is written in history as the man of many firsts. The first British driver to win a world championship Grand Prix and also of course, the first British driver to win a Formula 1 World Championship, that man being the late Mike Hawthorn from Mexborough in South Yorkshire.

Unlike nearly all British drivers back in those dys, Hawthorn came from a less wealthy background. After leaving school, he got a job working at a power station in Doncaster before his obsession with cars and racing got the better of him and he started competing in local races, to further his progression, Mike's dad relocated the family to Farnham in Surrey, just a stones throw from the legendary Brooklands track where Hawthorn began his career full time, not on 4 wheels but 2. He started off racing motorbikes, on a 350cc BSA trial bike, he won "best novice" in his very first race in the category in 1947. Primarialy, Mike had wanted to follow his dad and become an engineer so he combined his racing on bikes with his engineering studies, but the problem here was that despite showing promise on the track, he struggled in the classroom, so he and his dad Leslie took the difficult and risky decision to go motor racing full time the following year.

Even very early on it seemed that the gamble they took had already paid off as Mike continued his rapid progression through the ranks right up to his first proper race car, Leslie had managed to buy an F2 Cooper T20 in which he would make his Formula 1 debut in Belgium in 1952, he finished a stunning 4th behind Alberto Ascari (1st), Giuseppe Farina (2nd) and Robert Manzon (3rd), the best non Ferrari in the 22 car field. He went one better at Silverstone finishing in 3rd before repeating his Belgium performance at Zandvoort, overall, this meant Hawthorn earned in his first season a top 5 championship finish and by far the best non Ferrari, also Hawthorn was now the new rising star. Promise enough for the young Mike to part company with the privateer team his dad began and signed a big money deal with Ferrari for 2 years, he didnt let down his new employers with a series of solid drives, the highlight being that historic 1st win at Reims after edging an epic battle with Juan Manuel Fangio's Maserati.

Meanwhile, Hawthorn doubled up his F1 exploits for a now annual crack at the Le Mans 24 Hours for Jaguar which culminated in victory while driving one of the legendary D-Type's in the tragic 1955 race where Mercedes driver Pierre Levegh crashed violently on the pit straight killing him and 82 spectators, an accident which prompted Mercedes to quit Formula 1 until their return in 1993. Hawthorn went on to win the race with his teammate Ivor Bueb, beating the Aston Martin of Peter Collins and the Belgian driver Paul Frere by 5 laps, but the tragedy surrounding Levegh marred what was supposed to be a glorious day for British Motorsport.

Hawthorn kept racing a bit part program in F1 while racing for Le Mans and he returned full time with Lancia in 1957, his season though was put into limbo when the Lancia team were declared Bankrupt and then swallowed up by Ferrari so a hastily arranged switch to Ferrari's 801 machine was made and Hawthorn recovered to take 4th in the standings, and with Fangio pretty much announcing his retirement after his legendary herculean drive at the German Grand Prix of 1957, the title race would become an all British affair in 1958, Hawthorn and Peter Collins in their Ferrari's against Stirling Moss and Tony Brooks in the Vanwalls (a 4 way fight that eventually became 3 after Peter Collins's tragic death in Germany) There would also be the odd forays by the Cooper pair of Roy Salvadori and the French veteran Maurice Trintignant.

It turned out to be a titanic struggle between the top 3 (Hawthorn, Moss, Brooks) to see who would become the first British world champion, Going into the final round in Morocco though, controversy was still in the air, Hawthorn (who had only won one race) went in 3 points clear of Moss instead of 1 after a disqualification for cheating in Portugal was overturned after an intervention by none other than his title rival Moss, a wonderous show of sportsmanship ensuring that all Hawthorn needed to do was to finish 2nd and the crown would be his, no matter what Moss did. Moss did all he could, dominating the event by winning and setting fastest lap (which back then you got a point for) but after a bit of team play on Ferrari's part, the American driver Phil Hill let his teammate Hawthorn through to 2nd place and claim the title by 1 point, after which Hawthorn thanked Moss for a great title fight and then announced his retirement from the sport, talk about going out on a high.

Or so it seemed, just 3 months later, while in wet conditions on the A3 near Guildford, Hawthorn in a Jaguar Mark 1 Sedan, crashed to his death, an accident that shocked the whole nation. The cause of the accident remains a mystery, but later on it was revealed that Hawthorn apparently was slowly dying anyway due to an incurable kidney condition, either way, it was a huge loss to British motorsport.

His legacy though lives on, a memorial headstone was built near the family home in Farnham which is regularly visited by racing fans from right around the world and also a life sized statue of him at Lord March's Goodwood track in West Sussex, also every year since 1959 there has been the awarding of the Mike Hawthorn Memorial Trophy by the BRDC, this is awarded to the most successful (i.e. highest points scoring) Commonwealth driver in Formula 1 each year. Nigel Mansell being the record holder winning the award on 7 occasions.