Having started in club events in 1952, Brooks joined the Aston Martin sportscar team after impressing in tests just two years later. He then shot to prominence by winning the non-championship 1955 Syracuse Grand Prix for Connaught, while still studying to become a dentist.
It was his first drive in a contemporary Formula 1 car and was the first GP win for a British driver in a British car for 31 years.
After a brief spell with the still troubled BRM team – which included a fiery crash at Silverstone when his throttle stuck open – Brooks joined Vanwall, creating a British F1 superteam alongside Stirling Moss and Stuart Lewis-Evans.
A fighting second to Juan Manuel Fangio’s Maserati at the 1957 Monaco GP, finishing with a raw hand thanks to clutchless gear changes on the punishing course, was followed by a crash at Le Mans while driving for Aston Martin.
Brooks was lucky to survive and was still suffering when he started his Vanwall in the 1957 British GP at Aintree. He was running sixth when Moss’s car hit trouble. Brooks was called in and Moss took over, charging on to one of his most famous victories, as a British car won a world championship race for the first time.
Moss was the Vanwall (and Aston) number one and had first pick of the best machinery, meaning Brooks could rarely hone his own car across a race weekend. But he played the team game brilliantly and often shone when Moss hit trouble.
That was no more true than in 1958. Brooks won three GPs, the Belgian at the super-fast Spa, the German at the fearsome Nurburgring and the Italian on Ferrari’s home ground at Monza. Brooks regarded his German GP win, charging past the Ferraris of Mike Hawthorn and Peter Collins, the latter of whom sadly then crashed fatally while chasing, as his greatest.
Moss won four times and Vanwall took the inaugural constructors’ title, but Hawthorn beat Moss to the 1958 drivers’ crown by a point. It might have been different had Brooks, third in the table…
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