Did you know...? Pt 1

Did you know...?

That Johnnie Walker Scotch whisky and Formula One motor racing have more in common than you thought.

Johnnie Walker is one of the current sponsors of the McLaren Mercedes Formula One racing team and the distinctive walking man logo can be seen on advertising hoardings around almost every Formula One track on the calendar.

The connection with Formula One does not stop there though. Johnnie Walker was there in the early beginnings of Formula One racing in the 1950's or more precisely Rob Walker, a direct descendent of John Walker and a member of the Walker whisky dynasty.

Rob Walkers interest in motor racing stemmed from his childhood with a visit to the 1924 Boulogne Grand Prix in France. The 7 year old Rob was immediately enthralled by the spectacle. He began racing through in the late 1930's at Brooklands as a sprint racer and also had a stint at the Le Man 24-Hours in 1939 where he and his co-driver, Ian Connell, finished eight. His racing career was short lived as the outbreak of war put a stop to his racing exploits. Post-war Rob  set up a garage, which led him to preparing cars for many of the racing drivers of that time.

His inheritance from shares within the Johnnie Walker whisky company gave Rob the money to get back into racing.  In 1957 Rob Walker finally made a comeback on to the Racing scene where he personally funded a Formula Two Cooper-Climax which contested the Monaco Grand Prix of that year and finished sixth in the hands of Jack Brabham.

It was a partnership with Stirling Moss that led to most successful years of racing for Rob Walker. Rob Walker formed a private team, Rob Walker Racing in 1958 and contested the Formula Two season with Moss driving a Cooper, where he scored a win at the Argentine Grand Prix.  Walker switched to Formula One in 1960, again with Moss driving but Walker managed to secure Lotus cars to contest the championship.  Moss won the Monaco Grand Prix in a famous victory. It was famous in many ways: it was the first Formula One victory for Rob Walker Racing and a famous victory for Lotus engineering and Colin Chapman, who had won their first Formula One Grand prix as a manufacturer. Moss also won the United States Grand Prix that year.

Rob Walker Racing continued until 1974 when Rob Walker called time on his racing management career and went into journalism. The period between 1960 and 1974 brought more grand prix wins - 9 in total - and another famous victory at Oulton Park in 1961, where Walker entered a four-wheel Ferguson racing car, which won the race, the first four-wheel drive car to do so.

During his racing career Walker ran some of the racing greats of Formula One and developed the careers of some of the rising stars. Some of the drivers who starred for Rob Walker Racing were Peter Collins, Jack Brabham, Reg Parnell, Tony Brooks, Maurice Trintigant, Ricardo Rodriguez, Jo Bonnier, Jo Siffert, World Champion Graham Hill, Mike Hailwood, Alan Jones and his most successful driver, Stirling Moss.

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