{"id":411277,"date":"2026-01-14T01:55:16","date_gmt":"2026-01-14T01:55:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/411277\/"},"modified":"2026-01-14T01:55:16","modified_gmt":"2026-01-14T01:55:16","slug":"matt-bishop-just-four-drivers-from-f1s-first-decade-remain-alive","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/411277\/","title":{"rendered":"Matt Bishop: Just four drivers from F1’s first decade remain alive"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hans Herrmann<\/a> died four days ago, on January 9, aged 97. The news landed with the dull thud of inevitability, yet it still had the power to hurt, because men like him somehow ought to be immortal, for he was not merely old. No, he was also venerable, a living bridge to motor racing\u2019s most romantic but least safe epoch, a time when bravery was assumed rather than applauded and survival itself was a kind of victory.<\/p>\n

Once international motor sport had recommenced after World War II, Herrmann raced in the wild, untamed, and unapologetically perilous classics such as the Mille Miglia<\/a>, the Targa Florio, and the Carrera Panamericana, and he was still racing 20 years later, having adapted his driving style to suit the new breed of powerful and bewinged early-1970s endurance projectiles. Along the way he acquired a reputation as one of the great survivors: a dyed-in-the-wool racer whose very longevity felt like a rebuke to the sport\u2019s then brazen acceptance of danger. His Le Mans<\/a> win in a Porsche<\/a> 917 in 1970 \u2013 the marque\u2019s first triumph there, to be followed by 18 more \u2013 came when most 1950s aces who had survived that decade had long since hung up their helmets. Well into his forties, he had promised his wife that he would retire if he won, and he was as good as his word.<\/p>\n

Following Herrmann\u2019s death, a subtle but significant statistical line has been crossed: there is now no longer anyone alive who recorded a top-three finish in a 1950s world championship-status F1 grand prix, which Herrmann did in 1954<\/a>, at the wheel of a Mercedes<\/a>-Benz W196, at fast and tree-lined Bremgarten<\/a>, Switzerland, which even 72 years ago was regarded as a scary place, especially in the rain; and it rained there in 1954. The heroes who stood on those makeshift 1950s podiums, if there were podiums at all \u2014 smiling, sweaty, grimy, and garlanded in laurels \u2014 are all now gone, their names long ago transferred from the realm of mere memory to that of indelible legend. Herrmann, the last of them, could say, hand on heart, that he had raced wheel-to-wheel with those giants \u2014 Giuseppe Farina, Alberto Ascari<\/a>, Juan Manuel Fangio<\/a>, Froil\u00e1n Gonz\u00e1lez, Stirling Moss<\/a>, Mike Hawthorn<\/a>, et al \u2014 and that he had been there when F1 had been inventing itself, in real time, often with scant regard for the wellbeing of its dauntless protagonists. He was the last, and now he has gone.<\/p>\n

Yet, if every top-three finisher of F1\u2019s first decade has now met his maker, and they all now have, the decade itself is not entirely beyond the reach of living memory, for four drivers remain alive who started world championship-status F1 grands prix in the 1950s, although top-three finishes eluded them; four men who, in different ways and with different levels of involvement, lined up on the same grids, took the same risks, felt the same fear and exhilaration, and breathed the same oily air as the aces, even if their names do not resonate as loudly. They are, in descending order of age, Hermano da Silva Ramos<\/a>, Andr\u00e9 Milhoux<\/a>, David Piper<\/a>, and Peter Ashdown<\/a>, and each of them is a reminder that F1\u2019s history is made not only by its winners but also by the hope and hustle of those who never quite made it.<\/p>\n

\"Froilan<\/p>\n

Hans Herrmann (right) next to race winner Juan Manuel Fangio and Froil\u00e1n Gonz\u00e1lez at Bremgarten in 1954<\/p>\n

\n Bernard Cahier\/Getty Images\n <\/p>\n

Hermano da Silva Ramos is now 100 years old, a centenarian who, improbably and delightfully, still represents a living link to F1\u2019s earliest years. Born in 1925, in Paris, he started seven world championship-status F1 grands prix, a modest tally by modern standards but a significant achievement in an era when opportunities were scarce, funding was haphazard, and travel itself could be an adventure. He raced in F1 in the mid-1950s, and like so many of his contemporaries he was a gentleman racer in the truest sense: competing for the love of it, driven by passion rather than by the prospect of professional reward.<\/p>\n

Ramos\u2019s mother was French but his father Brazilian, and his F1 forays were interwoven with sports car racing in Europe and South America. His first race was the 1947 Grande Premio de Interlagos<\/a>, a Formula Libre race won by Achille Varzi<\/a> in an old Alfa Romeo Tipo 308, which Ramos entered in an MG TC. Yes, you read that right: there is a man alive today who raced Achille Varzi, a megastar of the 1920s and 1930s, and the great Tazio Nuvolari<\/a>\u2019s fiercest rival.<\/p>\n

In the 1950s, having returned to France, Ramos campaigned Aston Martin<\/a> sports cars. In F1 he raced Gordini<\/a> Type 16s, those dinky French machines that sometimes punched above their ultra-light weight, particularly when driven by the French aces Robert Manzon<\/a> and Jean Behra<\/a>. Ramos\u2019s best F1 result, his only points-scoring finish, came in 1956, at Monaco<\/a>, where he was fifth, albeit seven laps behind Stirling Moss\u2019s winning Maserati<\/a> 250F. Today, at 100, he is not merely a former driver; he is a century-old custodian of memories from a time when F1 was still defining what it was.<\/p>\n

\"Hermano<\/p>\n

Hermano da Silva Ramos was fifth at Monaco in 1956<\/p>\n

\n Bernard Cahier\/Getty Images\n <\/p>\n

Next in line, and only just younger, is Andr\u00e9 Milhoux, who was born in 1928 and is now therefore 97. Milhoux started just one world championship-status F1 grand prix, but to measure his contribution to motor racing by that single statistic would be a pity. A Belgian, born in Li\u00e8ge, he raced a Fiat 1100 in the 1953 Spa 24 Hours<\/a>, a Ferrari<\/a> 500 Mondial in the 1956 Monza<\/a> 1000km, and a Gordini T17S in the 1956 Le Mans 24 Hours<\/a>. He is a man for whom racing was not a ladder to be climbed but a pastime to be enjoyed.<\/p>\n

He drove his sole world championship-status F1 grand prix in 1956, at N\u00fcrburgring<\/a>, the infamously dangerous \u2018green hell\u2019 that punished mistakes with pitiless brutality, and his opportunity came about quite by chance. A guest of \u00c9quipe Gordini, he had not intended to race until the team\u2019s regular driver, Andr\u00e9 Pilette<\/a>, was injured in practice. To race at the Nordschleife at all in the 1950s was an act of nerve. To do so with no preparation whatsoever, in a Gordini Type 32, a stylish but ponderous machine, as Milhoux did in 1956, required a particular brand of sangfroid. He completed 15 laps \u2013 more than 200 miles \u2013 before his engine failed, but he had broken his F1 duck.<\/p>\n

\"Andre<\/p>\n

Andr\u00e9 Milhoux stepped in for \u00c9quipe Gordini at the N\u00fcrburgring in 1956<\/p>\n

\n LAT\n <\/p>\n

David Piper<\/a>, born in 1930, occupies a rather different niche in the sport\u2019s collective memory. His F1 record shows just two world championship-status F1 grand prix starts, but his name resonates far beyond those sparse entries. Piper was a quintessential British privateer, a man who loved racing in all its forms and carved out a formidable reputation in sports cars, particularly in his own Ferraris and Porsches, which he painted bright green, and touring cars, racing tin-tops as disparate as a Chevy Camaro Z28 and a Triumph Dolomite Sprint.<\/p>\n

His two world championship-status F1 grand prix appearances came in 1959 at Aintree<\/a>, and in 1960 at Silverstone<\/a>, at the wheel of a privateer Lotus<\/a> 16, for like so many of his generation he straddled the amateur-professional divide with ease. He was good enough to race at the highest level \u2014 F1 \u2014 but he never constrained himself to it, preferring the variety and camaraderie of sports cars and touring cars.<\/p>\n

His career was savagely altered by a catastrophic accident while filming the Steve McQueen<\/a> movie Le Mans in 1970, which resulted in the loss of his right leg. That he survived at all was remarkable. That he continued to race thereafter, competing successfully in historic events with a prosthetic limb, was a testament to his indomitable spirit. He once described the accident with the very stiffest of upper lips: \u201cI was sitting in half a car, surrounded by smoke and dust, and I thought, \u2018Good Lord, that\u2019s my shoe over there, and my foot is still in it.\u2019\u201d It was. Today, 95-year-old Piper stands as an emblem of resilience, a man whose life in racing has encompassed both the beauty and the brutality of the sport.<\/p>\n

The youngest of the quartet, if that word can be used with any validity, is Peter Ashdown, who was born in 1934 and is now therefore 91. Ashdown started just one world championship-status F1 grand prix, but his presence on the 1950s survivors\u2019 list is no less significant for that. An Essex man, he started racing in the mid 1950s, in sports cars and Formula 2 cars, before becoming a leading light in Formula Junior until he had a big shunt at Rouen<\/a> in 1958. He resumed his motor sport career the following year, 1959, racing an Alan Brown<\/a>-entered Cooper<\/a> T45 in that year\u2019s British Grand Prix at Aintree. He qualified 23rd and finished 12th.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Hans Herrmann died four days ago, on January 9, aged 97. The news landed with the dull thud…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":411278,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[573],"tags":[64,63,817,813,816,217576,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-411277","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-formula-1","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-f1","11":"tag-formula-1","12":"tag-formula1","13":"tag-hans-herrmann","14":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/411277","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=411277"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/411277\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/411278"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=411277"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=411277"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=411277"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}