Formula One legend Tony Brooks has died

Tony Brooks, a six-times Formula One Grand Prix winner, has died aged 90. The announcement was made by his daughter Giulia on Tuesday. He was the last of the great generation of Grand Prix winners who transformed the sport during the Fifties, and electrified fans with their driving skills – and intense bravery.

This was motorsport’s most dangerous era, a fact which imbued F1 with a formidable allure. Brooks, though, was a thoughtful, philosophical man who eschewed the trappings of fame in favour of driving racing cars as fast as possible without endangering himself or anyone else. He was a natural, sublimely fast, and drove with a fabulous precision. But rather like Jackie Stewart, who would dominate the next decade, Brooks was not interested in taking risks for the sake of it. He watched as some of his comrades pressed "further than their natural ability. I stayed within mine, and fortunately for me it was good enough to win a few races".

He was also self-effacing, possibly even an accidental racing driver. Born on February 25, 1932 in Dukinfield, Cheshire, he dabbled in club racing before signing up for Aston Martin’s sports car squad in 1954. The breakthrough came when the Connaught team called him up at the last moment to drive in the non-championship 1955 Syracuse GP. He qualified third behind the works Maseratis of Luigi Musso and Luigi Villoresi, but won the race. It was a sensation, not least because this was the first international GP win for a British constructor since the 1924 San Sebastiân GP. But also because Brooks was studying for his finals in dentistry at the time.

"I was totally absorbed in studying when Connaught called me, and I was still immersed all the way out there," he recalled. "It was probably a blessing, because I didn’t have time to think what I was doing, going to what was regarded as the end of the world to drive a car I’d never sat in, on a circuit I’d never seen…"

After a difficult year racing BRMs in 1956, he joined Stirling Moss and Stuart Lewis-Evans at Tony Vandervell’s Vanwall team, and spent much of the season as Moss’s wingman. This meant dutifully handing over his car, engine or gearbox to the team number one when required. The car he shared with Moss in the 1957 British GP at Aintree was the first British-constructed car to win a World Championship race in the modern era.

In 1958 he also won as many GPs as his higher-profile team-mate. Note also the tracks on which the victories came: Spa-Francorchamps, Nürburgring and Monza, the fastest and most deadly of them all. Brooks had a calculated approach that made him an outlier at the time but perhaps he was a trailblazer for a different sort of driver. The so-called ‘racing dentist’ was also somewhat professorial…

This didn’t put him at odds with the likes of Mike Hawthorn, who would win the world championship in 1958, Peter Collins or any of the other more flamboyant drivers of the time, but it kept him alive. He drove to his limit but, having suffered several big crashes as a result of mechanical failure, no further. No matter. Brooks’s limit was sky high, and he would also demonstrate his phenomenal ability in sports car racing. He was part of an elite cadre of drivers, but kept himself to himself.

"I think we did feel different from the others. I did, because motor racing was too serious to fool about," he later observed. "I felt that you had to be totally fit and totally focused on what you were doing. Away from racing, I was finishing my studies and had this idea that I would qualify as a dentist, not a professional racing driver. I think I probably felt that all my career."

In 1959, he joined Ferrari and won the GPs at Reims and Avus; had it not been for the cancellation of the Belgian GP that year, a burnt-out clutch on the grid at Monza, or the fact that his team-mate Wolfgang von Trips rammed him on the opening lap in the final showdown at Sebring, Brooks may well have won the title for the Scuderia. He wisely pitted to get the Ferrari checked, rather than risk a high-speed failure, and could only finish third.

Enzo Ferrari rather waspishly recalled three years later, "Brooks, who has given up racing to be a car saleman or a dentist – I am not sure which – appeared in the limelight as a great stylist and a man who used his brains. Subsequently, although possessing ability and skill, he became far too cautious for himself and others".

Brooks preferred front-engined racing cars to the emerging new rear-engined breed, and aged just 29 retired following a third-place finish at the 1961 US GP at Watkins Glen. He had a garage business to build up and a young family. Some things in life, he determined, were simply more important than motor racing.

Just a few years ago, his former team-mate Stirling Moss noted that "Brooks was a tremendous driver, the greatest, if he’ll forgive me saying this, ‘unknown’ racing driver there’s ever been. He was far better than several people who won the world championship."

Top Gear salutes a racing hero and sends its condolences to his family.