I first met Tony Brooks in 1958 when he won the Belgian Grand Prix in a Vanwall at Spa, where I was filming the race for the Castrol Oil company. Live broadcasts were rare then, and just recently I gave him a DVD copy of it.
Tony once told me that in that era racing was a psychological challenge, and one small error could be your last. Those were the days when tracks were lined with trees, telegraph poles and ditches, before the introduction of Armco crash barriers.
A few years ago I made a film for BBC TV with Tony recalling the 1959 season, when he almost won the drivers’ world championship for Ferrari. He was one of the most underrated drivers in the history of Formula One.
