PICTURES
1950 Raymond Sommer
A fiercely independent streak meant Raymond Sommer won fewer races than perhaps he should have done. As such it’s difficult to say what he might have achieved, beyond his tally of three points from five world championship appearances, had he not crashed fatally aboard a Cooper in a minor event at Cadours in September 1950.
But the two-time Le Mans victor had a giant-killing streak that he’d displayed in defeating the mighty Alfa 158s with his private Maserati at St Cloud in 1946. And when the world championship began in 1950, Sommer even led at Spa aboard his privately entered Talbot-Lago after the hitherto dominant 158s pitted for fuel. It prompted panic and even disbelief from the Alfa pits, who lobbied the timekeepers that he couldn't possibly be on the same lap.
The inaugural BRM driver, whose V16 never made it off the startline at the International Trophy, Sommer was respected enough to have driven for all the period’s top-line manufacturers and scored Ferrari’s first grand prix podium as a constructor in 1948. He just preferred to drive his own car.
1973 George Follmer
Time wasn’t on George Follmer’s side when he made his F1 debut with Don Nichols’ new Shadow team in 1973. A
