• January 29 down the years

The world champion they wanted to ban

What happened on January 29 in Formula One history?

1950
Jody Scheckter, born on this day in East London, South Africa, enjoyed nine seasons in the sport between 1972 and 1980 with 10 wins from 113 grands prix. In 1979, his first season with Ferrari, he won the drivers' championship even though he only won three races. He arrived on the scene and soon earned a reputation as a error-prone liability, and two bad accidents in 1973 led to other drivers calling for him to be banned. But after witnessing the death of Francois Cevert at the end of the season he changed: "From then on, all I wanted to do was save my life." Replacing Jackie Stewart at Tyrrell, where Scheckter was supposed to partner Cevert, he started winning races but unhappy, moved to Wolf where the wins kept coming. He jumped at the chance to join Ferrari where his title came, and after seeing out the 1980 season to fulfil his contractual obligations and then quit. An astute businessman, he made a fortune running a security company and now runs an organic farm in England.

1978
Carlos Reutemann in his Ferrari recorded his second successive win in Brazil, marking the end of an 80-race winning sequence for Goodyear as the car was running on new Michelin tyres. Reutemann led from the moment he shot past the front row on the opening lap, and the 60,000 spectators roared Emerson Fittipaldi through into second place. Many others failed to finish in blisteringly hot conditions. James Hunt crashed out halfway through, completing a wretched weekend - he had been fined $500 for walking back to the pits along the track after another accident during practice.

1915
Johnny McDowell, born on this day in Delavan, Illinois, competed in three Indianapolis Grands Prix between 1950 and 1952 when they counted towards the FIA World Championship. He was killed a week after his final Indy in a crash in qualifying at Milwaukee.

1940
Born in Tokyo on this day, Kunimitsu Takahashi only raced in one grand prix, his home race in 1977, where he managed to finish ninth. He continued to actively race until 2000 and went on to become the president of the Japanese GT association.

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