1906 - French Grand Prix
1907 - German Grand Prix
1907 - French Grand Prix

1902 - Paris Vienna
1903 - Irish Gordon Bennet Trophy
1904 - Gordon Bennet Trophy
1906 - French Grand Prix

This track used to be one of those incredible long circuits (like the Nurburgring) that required incredible skills to lap consistently fast.

Saying that, it was just short enough that you could actually memorise the layout which took you through villages and forest areas - this is a truly beautiful circuit with more interesting surroundings than the Nordschleife, in my opinion.

This is a hotlap done in the game, Grand Prix Legends that I found and set in a 60s Ferrari.

Prequalifying is an old F1 institution when too many teams wanted to race and some of them had to prequalify just to participate in qualifying and the race! Of course, the cost of running an F1 team was much cheaper in those days.

This short clip shows a number of cars roaring over the start finish line and braking at the first corner.

In fact, although the engine notes are sweet as the cars pass by the camera, I actually prefer the roaring as the cars downshift under braking. Simply incredible and I have never heard something so amazing.

Those of you who have played GP4 will know that it is possibly the best F1 sim ever. Some may scoff and say that today’s sims such as rFactor are better sims, however in my opinion there is nothing else to match GP4 in terms of the combination of simulation and racecraft.

I’ve never seen any other game match it for the battles you can have - in fact, people are still modding it, 13 years after its release!

I found this excellent video that someone has captured of their classic F1 battle recreations. Honestly, I was astounded by this effort.

Included are:

• Senna and Prost, Suzuka Japan 1989.
• Senna and Mansell, Barcelona Spain 1991.
• Senna and Mansell, Monte Carlo Monaco 1992.

My fellow afficionados, I know you will appreciate these great efforts by the author of this video.

Irvine is famous for his playboy antics such as going down to his hotel bar wearing his Ferrari overalls to pick up the chicks.

But less well known about his is that he was already a self-made millionaire before he reached F1 - thanks to his canny stock market investments.

He came close to the title in the year that Schumacher broke his leg but ultimately finished a close second.

Still, he was a very flamboyant personality and exciting to watch, off the track mainly….

He actually trained in design and apparently even raced in his own non-F1 car.

He was at his peak in 1985 when at Ferrari and challenged Alain Prost that season for the championship but finished 2nd, not helped by reliability issues.

After that he went from poor team to poor team and never reached those dizzying heights again.

Despite this, Alboreto does have other respectable motorsport accolades to his name including the Le Mans 24 Hours and Sebring 12 Hours.

Sadly, he died in 2001 whilst testing in Germany.

Titles have often gone down to the wire in F1, but only rarely has a championship gone down to the last race with any one of three drivers still able to take the crown.

That year, teammates Nigel Mansell and Nelson Piquet plus Mclaren’s Alain Prost battled it out.

Mansell was in the best position - despite losing a battle against Prost, he needed only to coast to 4th to seal the title.

Suddenly the Goodyear tyres started to fail and before Mansell could pit, his tyre exploded down the back straight, the car lurching from side to side like a wild animal but Mansell able to control it till it reached a standstill.

It remains one of the defining pieces of archive footage from this classic period of F1 racing in the 80s. Enjoy!

Being in the early 70s, you still had many of the heroes from the romantic 60s driving, including the likes of Jackie Stewart, Chris Amon, Ronnie Peterson, Mike Hailwood and Jacky Ickx.

Before they destroyed Monza with its numerous chicanes, this race was more like Talladega and low drag was everything. Many even raced without front wings to gain as much of a slipstreaming advantage as possible!

This was a race of severe attrition with several challengers dropping out of the race for various reasons.

The race was eventually won by Peter Gethin in a BRM. But to get there, the race experienced over thirty (yes 30!) changes for the lead!

Thus this GP remained the fastest ever in history until 2003 when Michael Schumacher broke the record.

The finish came down to a photo with only 0.01s seperating the cars of Gethin and Ronnie Peterson which remains the closest ever finish in F1!

Enjoy the videos and remember to click the “MORE VIDEOS” link below for the second part.

He will be best remembered for his valiant efforts to save his friend Roger Williamson at the Dutch Grand Prix at sandy Zandvoort in 1973.

The car overturned and Purley did his best to try to flip it over, despite the risk of fire. However, the flames were simply too powerful and Purley’s efforts were ultimately futile.

Purley was almost famous for apparently suffering the highest ever survived deceleration experienced by a human ever when he crashed at Silverstone and experienced a 178h deceleration resulting in bad injuries.

WARNING - these videos contain graphic footage. Do not watch if you are easily offended.

The first video in particular is interesting as it is not highlights footage but an excerpt from the original live Dutch broadcast.