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Sports correspondent & historian with |
I have become a motor racing fan after having zero interest up until about 18 months ago.
Driving my new interest was having more time on my hands and looking for live sport on Sky television.
The USA IndyCar races have a sweet spot for daytime viewing, and with Kiwis Scott Dixon and Scott McLaughlin often at the sharp end of the action, I became an avid race fan.
I then started to watch F1, with another Kiwi driver, Liam Lawson, adding to the thrill of high-powered race car action.
Last weekend, Lawson finished in a career-best-equalling fifth place in the iconic Monaco Grand Prix.
Lawson has joined a small group of 10 Kiwi race car drivers who have competed in F1 racing.
Leading the group is Denny Hulme, who was the 1967 world champion, with Bruce McLaren (four F1 wins) and Chris Amon (11 F1 podium finishes).
Liam Lawson followed the well-tried route of kart racing at 6 years of age, before moving through the various classes to the Red Bull Junior Team in 2019.
Today, he drives for Racing Bulls, which is, in effect, the second Red Bull F1 racing team.
Last season was a battle, often fought from the back of the grid. This year has been about consistency, to the point where he currently sits in ninth place in the Drivers’ Championship.
One of the launching pads for McLaren, Hulme and Amon was the New Zealand Grand Prix. First held as a one-off at Ohakea Air Force Base in 1950, the race was relocated to Ardmore Airfield in 1954.
During the 1950s and 1960s, the world’s best drivers raced at the New Zealand Grand Prix, with six Formula One world champions winning the country’s premier car race.
However, one world champion who started the New Zealand Grand Prix on seven occasions without taking the chequered flag in first place had a strong Western Bay of Plenty connection.
Denny Hulme was a New Zealand racing driver who competed in Formula One from 1965 to 1974, with second behind Bruce McLaren the closest he came to winning his home country’s biggest motor race.
Born on his parents’ tobacco farm in Motueka, the family moved north to Pongakawa when Denny was a youngster.
The Hulme family was well used to the spotlight that Denny Hulme would later attract in his motor racing career.
Denny’s father, Clive Hulme, was one of eight New Zealand servicemen to win the Victoria Cross during World War II.
After leaving school, Denny worked in a garage and saved enough money to buy an MG TF, with which he began competing in local car club events.
His racing career took off in 1960 when he won a New Zealand Driver to Europe scholarship.
The New Zealand History website tells us that between his debut at Monaco in 1965 and his final race in the US Grand Prix in 1974, Hulme made 112 starts in F1, for eight victories and 33 podium finishes.
His 1967 season was a non-stop affair of motor racing, where he won the F1 championship, finished second in the Can-Am series, and fourth in the Indy 500.
The year was capped off when he was presented with the New Zealand Sportsman of the Year award, as the supreme trophy was then called.
Liam Lawson has some big boots to fill if he wishes to build on the 12 Kiwi F1 victories, which ended when Denny Hulme won the 1974 Argentine Grand Prix.