F1 driver and politician Carlos Reutemann died on 7 July 2021; he was 79. Bernie Ecclestone signed him to drive for the Brabham Formula One team in 1972 – Reutemann responded in style by qualifying on pole position for his debut.
In 1974, Reutemann took his first victory at the South African Grand Prix in the BT44, also winning that year in Austria and the US. He raced with Ferrari, Lotus and Williams, too.
In all, Reutemann won 12 Grands Prix. In the right frame of mind, he was near-unbeatable. On other days, his presence in a race could almost go unnoticed.
He occasionally returned to motorsport and finished third on the World Rally Championship’s 1985 Rally of Argentina in a Peugeot 205 T16
Graham Robson 1936-2021
Double Le Mans winner Jean-Pierre Jaussaud died at the age of 84 on 22 July.
He was 40 by the time he took to the top step at La Sarthe – but he’d been on the podium twice before, claiming third with Matra in 1973 and again two years later in a Gulf-Mirage GR8. His 13th and final appearance came in 1983.
And then the world of motoring and motorsport lost a good friend on 5 August. Graham Robson’s busy professional life ended shortly before his passing, during which he wrote nearly 170 books and countless newspaper and magazine features including five years of Anorak’s corner for C&SC.
But quantity did not affect quality – his work was always meticulously researched and well written.
He was president of the TR Register, vice president of Club Triumph and an honorary life member of several other clubs, as well as a prolific writer, researcher and author.
Robert Brooks 1956-2021
Aston Martin authority Richard Stewart Williams died, aged 76, on 12 August, having contracted pneumonia. He was an apprentice at Aston when he was 16, and later established Richard Stewart Williams Ltd, preparing racing Aston Martins before taking on Le Mans, including running the AMR1 Group C project.
Ford cancelled the programme in 1989, but Williams continued working with Aston, contributing to the firm’s Continuation projects.
Classic car dealer Adrian Hamilton passed away at the age of 74 this August, following a stroke. After training as an officer in the merchant navy, ‘Hammy’ returned in 1968 to work for his father, 1953 Le Mans-winner Duncan, cleaning cars before making his first sale – a 1956 Jaguar MkVII.
As well as running cars at Le Mans, Hamilton campaigned an ex-Girling GT40 and took part in historic rallies in a Le Mans C-type. His achievements in selling historic cars are the stuff of legend, with nine 250GTOs and countless GT40 and 917 sales to his credit. He was also instrumental in assembling the 42-strong ROFGO Collection of Gulf-liveried race cars after sourcing a GT40 for German oil magnate Roald Goethe.
And Robert Brooks, former owner of auctioneer Bonhams, died on 23 August aged 64, from cancer. Brooks’ first passion was motorsport, but he ended his racing career at the age of 19 to become Christie’s youngest-ever auctioneer.
By 30 he was a member of the board, before founding Brooks Auctioneers in 1989. A decade later the firm merged with Bonhams, and he built it into one of the great collector-car auction houses. He sold the business in 2018, retiring to his Exmoor farm.
Gordon Spice 1940-2021
Also succumbing to cancer, Gordon Spice, the most successful Ford Capri racer of all time, died on 10 September at the age of 81.
He took class honours in the British Saloon Car Championship for six consecutive seasons from 1975, with 26 wins from ’75 to ’82 (although one was later chalked off for what he described as “post-race hassles”).
Spice won his class four times at Le Mans and, with Teddy Pilette, triumphed at 1978’s Spa 24 Hours in, of course, a Capri.
You can read our interview with him, from 2019, here. “I’m just very lucky that I can look back on quite a successful time,” he told us. “I’m happy with that, I’ve made a lot of good friends on the way.”
Nino Vaccarella 1933-2021
Targa Florio legend Nino Vaccarella died at the age of 88 on 23 September.
Affectionately nicknamed ‘The Flying Headmaster’ in reference to his day job at his family-owned school, Vaccarella was born in Sicily, home of the Targa, and became a specialist in the event, winning it three times, in 1965, 1971 and 1975.
He also won Le Mans in ’64 and the 12 Hours of Sebring in 1970, and made four World Championship Formula One starts.
Rally great Jack Tordoff passed away on 4 October after a long illness. A lifelong enthusiast, Tordoff campaigned everything from Ford Cortina GTs to Saab 96s, winning various events including the Seven Dales Rally, the Morecambe Rally and the Granite City Rally. His greatest sporting achievement came in 1973 with victory in the Circuit of Ireland in a Porsche 911. He was also a gifted businessman.
Bob Bondurant 1933-2021
Westfield founder, historic Grand Prix competitor and engineer Chris Smith passed away on 30 October after a long battle with cancer; he was 77.
After constructing a replica of the 1956 Lotus Eleven Le Mans car he much admired in 1982, Smith established Westfield a year later, naming his replica-building business after his home near Lichfield, Westfield House. Following the Eleven came the 7SE as the company continued to grow and in 1991 it relocated to Kingswinford, where it remains to this day.
Championship-winning racer, Le Mans class winner, nine-time F1 entrant and renowned driving instructor to the stars Bob Bondurant passed away on 12 November 2021, aged 88.
He began racing on four wheels aged 23 in a Morgan Plus 4. From 1963 he joined Carroll Shelby’s team and the following year, with co-driver Dan Gurney in a Shelby Daytona Cobra Coupe, he scored a class win and finished fourth overall at the 24 Hours of Le Mans, arguably his most famous result.
However in 1967, driving a McLaren at Watkins Glen, a huge crash caused life-changing injuries. He worked hard to overcome these and went on to found the Bob Bondurant School of High Performance Driving to improve driving standards – more than 500,000 students benefited from his skills, including several film stars, because he became Hollywood’s go-to person when an actor needed to learn how to drive.
Tony Dron 1946-2021
Tony Dron, who died aged 75 on 16 November after a long illness, was that rare beast: a motoring journalist who really did know how to race cars.
His racing career lasted from 1968 to 2011, and in those 43 seasons he scored victories in 41 different types of car.
He was sports editor of the weekly Motor and then editor of Classic Cars, and in addition he wrote for the Daily Telegraph and authored several books.
Sir Frank Williams CBE 1942-2021
F1 giant, Sir Frank Williams CBE, died on 28 November at the age of 79.
No other man has run his own F1 team for 43 years, from 1969 until he handed the day-to-day reins to his daughter, Claire, in 2012.
Between 1980 and 1997 Williams won seven Drivers’ World Championships and nine Constructors’ titles, and between 1979 and 2012 the team scored 114 Grand Prix wins.
Doctors gave him a decade to live following his life-changing car crash in France, back in 1986, that saw him wheelchair bound thereafter, but his determination, optimism and self-discipline meant he defied the odds.
He always credited any success to the talented team he gathered around him, but none of it could have happened without Williams’ inspiring leadership.
Al Unser Snr 1939-2021
Just seven months after the death of his brother, Bobby, Al Unser Snr died on 9 December, at the age of 82.
He’s one of only four drivers who have won the Indianapolis 500 four times, the others being Rick Mears, AJ Foyt and, joining this exclusive club earlier this year, Hélio Castroneves.
He first won at the Brickyard in 1970, and when he did so again in 1971 he became just the fourth-ever racer to win the great race back-to-back.
Unser took the spoils again in 1978 and when he did so for the final time in 1987, at the age of 47, he became the Indy 500’s oldest-ever winner.
Hazel Chapman (1927-2021), pictured with her husband Colin
On 14 December 2021, Lotus shared the news that the marque’s co-founder, Hazel Chapman, had died; she was 94.
The other half to Colin Chapman as much as Lotus itself, Chapman (née Williams) was a former racer who became the business mind behind the marque.
She met Colin in 1944 and by 1952 she had helped build the MkI and MkII, funded the first Lotus company and then, in 1954, the two married.
On the board of Lotus Cars, Team Lotus and Lotus Components, she also championed the lucrative Lotus Seven kits.
Widowed in 1982, she stayed close to the marque as a director of Classic Team Lotus and inspecting each new Lotus road car since.
Images: Getty Images/Dominique Fontenat/Jakob Ebrey Photography/Newspress/Bondurant Racing School/Chapman Foundation
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Lizzie Pope
Lizzie Pope is Classic & Sports Car’s Associate Editor
