Motorsports Trivia Thread!

  • Thread starter Cap'n Jack
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I don't have a complete answer for this: how many blood relatives have raced in F1 for the same team?

So far I'm up to 5:

  • Graham and Damon Hill both raced for Brabham
  • Wilson and Emerson Fittipaldi for Fittipaldi Automotive
  • Keke and Nico Rosberg for Williams
  • Michael and Ralf Schumacher for Jordan
  • Ayrton and Bruno Senna for Williams

I'm not counting in-laws, so Christian Fittipaldi and Max Papis for Footwork don't count, and the team has to be the same, so Jos Verstappen (Minardi, Stewart) and Max (Toro Rosso, Red Bull) don't either. As far as I can tell Motor Racing Developments (when Graham Hill drove for them) are considered to be Brabham.

Are there any others?

Edit to add: the Verstappens don't count twice, as Jos drove for Stewart which eventually became Red Bull.
 
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Brothers Teo and Corrado Fabi for Brabham, even sharing the same car during the season in 1984.

And obviously Jack and David Brabham for Brabham, unless it's too obvious.
 
@Roo Jackie and Jimmy Stewart both drove for Ecurie Ecosse but only Jimmy drove for them in F1; he drove for them at the 1953 British Grand Prix and Jackie drove for Ecurie Ecosse before he signed with Ken Tyrrell in Formula Junior.

Close but not close enough.
 
Roo
I don't have a complete answer for this: how many blood relatives have raced in F1 for the same team?

So far I'm up to 5:

  • Graham and Damon Hill both raced for Brabham
  • Wilson and Emerson Fittipaldi for Fittipaldi Automotive
  • Keke and Nico Rosberg for Williams
  • Michael and Ralf Schumacher for Jordan
  • Ayrton and Bruno Senna for Williams

I'm not counting in-laws, so Christian Fittipaldi and Max Papis for Footwork don't count, and the team has to be the same, so Jos Verstappen (Minardi) and Max (Toro Rosso) don't either. As far as I can tell Motor Racing Developments (when Graham Hill drove for them) are considered to be Brabham.

Are there any others?
Click to expand...

Honourable mention:
Jim and Dick Rathmann both raced for two constructors (Watson, Kurtis Kraft) at the Indy 500 when it was on the Formula 1 calendar between 1950-60, however they raced for different entrants.
 
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Everyone with the surname Hill who has raced in the F1 World Championship has won the title.
 
Gerhard Berger is the only Formula One driver who drove at every Australian Grand Prix at Adelaide.
 
Liquid
As a comparison, here is how Fangio's still-extant record of % of races won stands up today:

Juan Manuel Fangio - 46% of races won (24 from 52)
Jim Clark - 34% (25 from 72)
Lewis Hamilton - 33% (84 from 250)
Michael Schumacher - 30% (91 from 308)
Alain Prost - 25% (51 from 202)
Ayrton Senna - 25% (41 from 162)

Michael Schumacher (2006) - 36% (91 from 250)

/Boring Statistics
Click to expand...

These were the % of races won at the time in 2020. What's changed from three years of dominance from someone not on that list?
There is also an increase in decimal points accuracy.

Juan Manuel Fangio - 46.15% of races won (24 from 52)
Jim Clark - 34.72% (25 from 72)
Lewis Hamilton - 30.56% (103 from 337)
Max Verstappen - 30.52% (58 from 190)
Michael Schumacher - 29.54% (91 from 308)
Ayrton Senna - 25.30% (41 from 162)
Alain Prost - 25.24% (51 from 202)


Michael Schumacher (2006) - 36.40% (91 from 250)

Not a surprise given Verstappen's career prior to 2021 and Hamilton's lack of success after 2021. I think Schumacher's 2006 record is astonishing given his own career in some years before 2000.
 
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Liquid
These were the % of races won at the time in 2020. What's changed from three years of dominance from someone not on that list?
There is also an increase in decimal points accuracy.

Juan Manuel Fangio - 46.15% of races won (24 from 52)
Jim Clark - 34.72% (25 from 72)
Lewis Hamilton - 30.56% (103 from 337)
Max Verstappen - 30.52% (58 from 190)
Michael Schumacher - 29.54% (91 from 308)
Ayrton Senna - 25.30% (41 from 162)
Alain Prost - 25.24% (51 from 202)


Michael Schumacher (2006) - 36.40% (91 from 250)

Not a surprise given Verstappen's career prior to 2021 and Hamilton's lack of success after 2021. I think Schumacher's 2006 record is astonishing given his own career in some years before 2000.
Click to expand...
Consider Fangio only had 8 races to compete in for his last championship win in 1957.

A third of what Verstappen enjoys in current championship terms.

Many other factors muddy the pure statistical comparisons too.

Prost, Senna & Schumacher's numbers are more comparable given the number of races in a calendar year was more consistent.
 
The reliability of F1 cars has improved in the span between 2000-2005, and it's quite rare that more than five cars retire from any one race. Teams tend to be a bit more dominant; wasn't uncommon for a leading team(s) to have a bad weekend or two just on setups or some other midfield team having an awesome time.

If we counted non-championship races, I think Jim Clark would enjoy an ever higher winning percentage. For Fangio, probably not so much; many non-champ races didn't feature the top teams before the 1960s. Many were effectively a show for whatever leading team was from that country, with some lucky part-timers that really needed the prize money, along with local amateurs plying their trade in between other events. Or they were a "practice run" event for a circuit before getting the chance to put on a real Grand Epreuve the following year.
 
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Pete05
Many other factors muddy the pure statistical comparisons too.
Click to expand...
I wasn't posting them for any other reason than just being a statistic; I had seen my 2020 post going through some old stuff and just wondered what had changed since then.
 
Holy thread revival! How did we let this one sit dormant for 9 months?

Anyway I can't think of a good Trivia question currently, so here's just a general Motorsports question.

Post pictures/track maps and/or stories about some of the weirdest "Oval" circuits out there. We are used to the Tri-Ovals, Indianapolis, Pocono and short circuits like Dover, North Wilkesboro and Martonsville. But share some images of oddly shaped, irregular or just generally surprising or quirky Oval circuits from history. Examples include:

Rockingham, UK
RockinghamOval.png

Such an odd shape for a 4-corner layout with 4 different arclength corners.

Trenton Speedway, NJ
Trenton68.png

Historic speedway with a corner to the right.


Langhorne, PA
it-amazes-me-that-the-langhorne-speedway-was-even-built-i-v0-m30g7zcr6beb1.jpg

It's a circle...


As a European with not much NASCAR knowledge, I'm sure you can find some circuits weirder and more wonderful over just the layout shape.
 
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Brooklands. Races would start and finish on the "finishing straight" but the rest of the races would go right at the fork and use the home banking.

Brooklands-Outer37.png


The Lausitzring is rather unusual in being a European tri-oval.

Eurospeedway-Lausitz-Oval-07.png


Interlagos wasn't designed as an oval when it opened in 1940 but had one awkwardly put in to create an 'exterior circuit' in 1957.

Interlagos-Outer-1957.png
 
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They were designed together. Being based in Britain, which doesn't have an Oval racing culture, it needed a good infield course to survive and be used by other racing series. Still, it only lasted 17 years while being regularly used by British club racing and bigger series like British GT and BTCC before closing in 2018.
 
There's the egg-shaped ovals such as Gateway and Motegi:

1000013246.png

And then there's Phoenix - supposedly a dogleg but it's easier to describe it as a tri-oval.
1000013247.png
 
Cap'n Jack
The Calder Park Thunderdome is a typical tri-oval, but races were ran in both clockwise and anti-clockwise directions if that counts for anything.
Click to expand...
The good old Thunderdome.

Modelled on a scaled down version of Charlotte Speedway of 1 metre over 1.8km, or 1.1 miles and change.
Charlotte measures 2.414km or 1.5 miles for comparison.

For really strange, the Thunderdome and Calder Park National circuit were combined for a handful of races, one of which was a round of the one and only 1987 World Touring Car Championship, a week after the Bathurst race.
The combination measured 4.216km or 2.62 miles.

Another oval with a difference, is the now defunct Nazareth Speedway in Pennsylvania, USA.
The layout itself is nothing special, but this one gets my nomination for its rise and fall in elevation.
The back straight went down hill by around 30 feet.
 
Mallory Park in Leicestershire is a now little used oval.

Before they added the two chicane complexes either end of Stebbe Straight it was still an immensely fast circuit even with the slowest corner on any permanent UK circuit, Shaws Hairpin, the lap record average speed is 127mph. I believe when the oval version is used its run anti-clockwise.


Mallory-Park-06.png

Jimlaad43
They were designed together. Being based in Britain, which doesn't have an Oval racing culture, it needed a good infield course to survive and be used by other racing series. Still, it only lasted 17 years while being regularly used by British club racing and bigger series like British GT and BTCC before closing in 2018.
Click to expand...
It does very much have an oval racing culture, BriSCA Formula 1 (open wheel) and Nation Hot Rods (closed wheel), have a very strong following, but not at the NASCAR or Indy level. Loads of BTCC and British GT racers cut their teeth on short ovals. A bloke called Derek Warwick too.
 
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Apparently so. Although I meant to say ‘tighter’. it’s slightly banked if I remember rightly so it may not be actually slower, than Croft at least. Only the gap-in-the-barriers hairpin on the Cadwell short layout is tighter, but I don’t know if they even use that layout any more.
 
It’s quite tight but riding it in person I reckon you’re correct about the banking making it quicker than Croft.
 

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