Dominating F1 Champs Trivia Quiz

Answer: Giuseppe Farina & Piero Taruffi

Farina, the 1950 world champion, was runner-up in the 1952 championship 12 point behind Ascari (24 pts to 36 pts). Taruffi surprised by winning the opening Grand Prix in Switzerland and came in third in the championship 14 points behind Ascari.

Gonzales and Bonetto were team-mates at Maserati. Behra and Trintignant drove for Gordini. Moss drove for three different teams but failed to score a single point. Fangio didn't compete in the 1952 championship because of an injury sustained in a non-championship race held in Monza before the season began.

Ascari and Ferrari also dominated the 1953 season. Ascari won 9 races in a row in the 1952 and 1953 seasons combined.

Answer: Maserati

Mercedes wasn't ready for the first two races (Argentina and Belgium) so Fangio drove them in a Maserati. Unsurprisingly he won them both. Fangio won 6 F1 races out of 8 starts in 1954 and won the championship with a big advantage over his countryman Gonzales.

Answer: Nürburgring

Fangio, driving for Maserati, was leading the German Grand Prix until he had to make a pit-stop to change tyres and refuel. The pit-stop went terribly wrong as one of the wheels couldn't be removed. When he finally exited the pits he was 48 seconds behind the Ferraris of Mike Hawthorn and Peter Collins. With only 10 more laps to go victory seemed lost but Fangio started one of the sport's greatest comebacks. Over the next 10 laps he broke the lap-record 9 times; and on one lap he took 15 seconds out of Hawthorn's lead. In the penultimate lap Fangio passed both Ferraris and held on to win the race by 3.6 seconds.

Fangio also secured his fifth and last title by winning the 1957 German grand prix. He finished second in the two remaining races that season. In 1958 he only raced in two grand prix before he retired from the sport.
His five championships were 1951, 1954-55-57-57.

Answer: His car got stuck in tramlines

Brabham started his title defence in 1960 with two non finishes. He staged a great comeback by winning the next four races.

The Portuguese Grand Prix was held in Oporto, on a street circuit with cobblestones and tramlines. On the second lap of the race Brabham and Dan Gurney were fighting for the lead. At a certain point the circuit went uphill along the tramlines and then turned left in a 90° hairpin, but the tramlines went straight on. Brabham moved to the inside of Gurney to overtake him but got himself into the tramlines going straight on like a tram and wasn't able to stop. After the race Brabham said he had thought: "I'll have to stay in the tramlines all the way to the depot, wherever that is". Eventually he managed to slow his car down, extricate it, turn it around and head back towards the circuit to rejoin in eighth place. He overtook some cars, and some people in front of him had to retire with mechanical failures. On lap 38 leader John Surtees hit a curb and damaged his car. Brabham inherited the lead, won the Grand Prix and the championship.

It's hard to imagine the conditions in which races were held in those days.
Quote from Christopher Hilton's 'Grand Prix Showdown'.

Answer: Indianapolis 500

In 1965 the Monaco GP was held on 30th May 1965, the Indianapolis 500 was held on 31st May. Lotus boss Colin Chapman preferred his star driver to enter the Indianapolis 500 and skip the Monaco GP. A successful move as Clark won the Indianapolis 500. Graham Hill won the Monaco Grand Prix in Clark's absence.

The Mille Miglia was an open-road endurance race held in Italy until 1957. It was cancelled after an accident killed two participants and several spectators that year. The Targa Florio was a similar race held in Sicily until 1977 when it was also discontinued for safety concerns.

Answer: Ronnie Peterson

Ronnie Peterson made his debut in the 1970 Monaco Grand Prix in a March. Next year he finished second in the championship, without winning a single race. He came in second four times though (Monaco, Great-Britain, Italy and Canada).

Answer: He didn't show up

From the beginning of the season Lauda's relationship with Ferrari boss Enzo Ferrari started to deteriorate. Ferrari made no secret of his lack of confidence in Lauda's abilities after the horrible crash the Austrian had barely survived the previous season. Ferrari had contracted Carlos Reutemann as lead-driver for the 1977 season. Lauda completely outshone Reutemann, won three races and won the championship with 17 point over Jody Scheckter. Reutemann only managed one win and finished fourth in the championship.

After the USA Grand Prix, where Lauda finished fourth and won the championship, his relationship with Ferrari reached breaking-point. He left the team and didn't compete in Canada and Japan. This made it possible for Gilles Villeneuve to drive his first races for Ferrari. The next year Lauda drove for Brabham and finished fourth in the championship.

Answer: Ayrton Senna

Senna's McLaren was no match for the Williams that season. In Monaco he made good use of the tightness of the street circuit to block Mansell in the remaining 8 laps of the race. Senna also won the Monaco Grand Prix the next year, making it six wins in total in the principality. Riccardo Patrese was Mansell's team-mate at Williams, but Mansell was usually the fastest of the two. Patrese only won one GP that season and came in second in the the standings. Schumacher drove for Benetton in 1992, whilst Alain Prost took a sabbatical.

Answer: Renault

Williams and Renault started their partnership in 1989. By the end of 1991 it was clear they were the strongest combination although Senna and McLaren took the titles that year. From 1992 till 1997 Williams-Renault enjoyed great success in F1. After Mansell had taken the drivers' title in 1992, Prost (with Renault's support) swept in for the 1993 season. Mansell left to race in the Indy car series. Prost ensured his position as number one driver by demanding a clause in his contract that stated that Senna couldn't race for Williams that year. The relatively inexperienced Damon Hill became Prost's team-mate in 1993, almost guaranteeing the Frenchman a fourth title.

Williams-Renault continued their success with drivers' titles for Hill in 1996 and Jacques Villeneuve in 1997 and constructors' titles in '94, '96 and '97. Their cooperation ended after the 1999 season. BMW replaced Renault as their power-source in 2000.

Answer: Team-mate Barrichello deliberately let Schumacher pass him just before the finish-line

Barrichello led most of the race until he was instructed by his team to let Schumacher win the race. Ferrari boss Jean Todt defended this move by arguing that Ferrari's victory in the driver's championship was by no means certain and that it was wiser to give the extra points that come with victory to his leading driver. Eventually Schumacher won the championship in July with six races to spare.

This event lead to the banishment of team-orders after the 2002 season. This ban proved to be ineffective as many teams continued to apply them in a concealed manner.

After a similar move by Ferrari involving Alonso and Massa in the 2010 German Grand Prix, the ban was lifted for the 2011 season.