When A Thai Prince Won a Grand Prix, & more | #222
also, checkout the Akshay Kumar multiverse 👉👉
Hello friends
This weekend is the Formula 1 Baku Grand Prix - an exciting weekend full of fast cars, cool overtaking maneuvers and the emission of a metric ton of carbon. F1 has seen a second wind in the last few years thanks in part to the Netflix show Drive to Survive and we hear all the cool kids are following the sport. So we dug deeeep into the archives for some Fun Facts about the ol’ days of F1.
The lights go out and away we go…
Things we learnt this week 🤓
Lewis Hamilton was the first black person to drive a F1 car right? Nope!
Back in the 80’s Willy T Ribbs was an African American with a talent for motor racing. He idolized Muhammed Ali and got a chance to meet his hero who gave him one piece of tough advice: “There are Blacks in my sport. But there are no Blacks in your sport. They’re going to want to kill you.” This motivated Ribbs who then hired legendary promoter Don King to manage his career. This partnership was fruitful as in 1986, Bernie Ecclestone gave Ribbs an F1 test with his Brabham team, making him the first black person to drive a Formula 1 car. Although he didn’t get a chance to race as a F1 driver, his career moved forward as he became the first African-American to qualify for the hallowed Indy 500. It took another 21 years for Lewis Hamilton to become the first black driver in Formula 1. A guy named Ribbs was in a team named ‘ham’. There’s a joke there somewhere.
Fitting a seatbelt around his rib(b)s Juan Manuel Fangio is considered one of the greatest motorsport drivers of all time, having won the drivers' championship five times in 1951 and 1954-57. However, he once made global headlines for a different reason. Here’s the INSANE story:
The night before the 1958 Cuban Grand Prix two gunmen burst into Hotel Lincoln in Havana and kidnapped Fangio. At the time, Cuba was going through monumental changes as Fidel Castro’s forces attempted to take control of the country and implement a communist state. To highlight their cause, kidnappers attempted to take Fangio and rising star Stirling Moss hostage. The kidnappers let Moss go after Fangio lied that Moss was ‘on his honeymoon’. The start of the GP was delayed for two hours, hoping that perhaps the police might just find the event’s star driver, who had helped attract a crowd of over 250,000 people. The delays couldn’t go on forever, though, and when it became clear that Fangio was not going to make the grid, his Maserati was given to driver Maurice Trintignant, and the race was ready to run.
The show did go on, but Fangio’s kidnappers were faced with a new dilemma: How could they safely free Fangio? Fangio himself had the answer: they should simply drop him off at the apartment of Raul Lynch, who was serving as Argentina’s ambassador to Cuba. The captors did exactly as he asked — and for good measure, they even apologized for inconveniencing him as they dropped him off after having been in captivity for 29 hours.
What happened in the race though? It was red flagged after just six laps after an accident that involved a Ferrari car crashing into the crowd. The leader after six laps was declared the winner who happened to be.. Sterling Moss!
The infamous Cuban GP in 1958 The first full international car race in the Zandvoort circuit in Netherlands was in 1948, but the race was not yet part of the F1 calendar just yet (that happened in 1952). There’s not much footage of the first race, but what is known is that Prince Bira, family of the king of Siam (now Thailand) bested English man Tony Rolt by 0.1 seconds to win the first Zandvoort GP! Prince Birabongse Bhanudej Bhanubandh aka Bira was born in the Bangkok Royal Palace in Bangkok in 1914. In 1927 his family sent him to London to study at prestigious universities where he developed a love for motorsport. He founded the White Mouse team with his nephew Prince Chula. This team developed a new type of chassis for a car and named it Hanuman, with a large, embossed, silver badge depicting the Hindu deity after whom he had named the car. That’s not all - For good measure this renaissance man also competed in sailing events at four Summer Olympic Games, and flew from London to Bangkok in his own twin-engine Miles Gemini aircraft in 1952!
Prince Bira with the drip! 
The Hanuman II
From IWTK, with love 💌
Checkout the Akshay Kumar Multiverse in his movies illustrated by this clip.
India’s first propaganda film was not made in 2014, but in 1939 🤯
It was sponsored by the Congress Party. Don’t miss this clip!
Only In India 🇮🇳
Amazon’s customer obsession is..something.
