Chequered Past

Martin Elliot
  • 5.0 (1)
  • Sports

Chequered Past is a Formula 1 history podcast that dives deep into iconic races, legendary drivers, and forgotten moments from motorsport’s rich and dramatic past. Each episode revisits Grand Prix events that took place on the same date in history, uncovering fascinating stories, on-track controversies, and the evolution of F1 through the decades. Whether you're a lifelong fan or new to the sport, Chequered Past offers compelling insights and nostalgia-fuelled storytelling from the world’s fastest sport. 

  1. 3h ago

    29th May 1960: The Pit Stops That Decided Monaco

    On the twenty-ninth of May, Formula One has been decided in the pit lane more than once.  In 1960, Stirling Moss brought a Rob Walker Lotus to the pits in Monaco running on three cylinders — and went on to win, delivering Lotus their first World Championship victory through a private entry in the wrong colours.  In 2022, Charles Leclerc qualified on pole for his home race and lost it in two laps of strategic confusion that handed the race to Sergio Pérez and the season to Red Bull.  And in 2016, a pit crew who weren’t ready cost Daniel Ricciardo a win he had controlled from the start. Hear all these stories in today’s Chequered Past. Send us Fan Mail Music by #Mubert Music Rendering

    22 min

  2. 18h ago

    28th May 1989: The Suspicion That Never Goes Away

    The 28th of May appears four times in Formula One's history as a date that produced not just results, but questions — the kind that follow drivers and teams for years without ever reaching a clean answer. In Mexico City in 1989, Alain Prost finished fifth, lapped by his McLaren teammate Ayrton Senna, and left the circuit carrying a suspicion about his Honda engine that he would never fully let go of. Whether he was right has never been established. Whether it mattered is a different question entirely. In Monaco in 1995, Michael Schumacher outthought Damon Hill on strategy — a one-stop gamble against a two-stop plan — and won by thirty-four seconds. Hill acknowledged they had got it wrong. The suspicion, in hindsight, was quieter: had Williams ever really given themselves a chance? In Monaco in 2006, Schumacher parked his Ferrari at Rascasse in the final seconds of qualifying, bringing out yellow flags and aborting Fernando Alonso's pole lap. The stewards concluded it was deliberate. Schumacher maintained it was a mistake. The suspicion has never gone away. And in Monaco in 2017, Ferrari kept Sebastian Vettel out five laps longer than his teammate Kimi Räikkönen, and Vettel emerged from his pit stop ahead. Ferrari called it strategy. Räikkönen said second place didn't feel awfully good. The suspicion, as ever, was left to the listener. This is Chequered Past — the podcast about the stories behind the results. The ones the sport never quite explained. Send us Fan Mail Music by #Mubert Music Rendering

    29 min

  3. 2d ago

    27th May 2018: The Circuit That Offers Redemption

    There are dates in the Formula One calendar that give you one story. And then there are dates that seem to have been waiting — accumulating history across decades, storing it up, until you can’t look at them without seeing everything at once. The 27th of May is one of those dates. This episode of Chequered Past takes three races — separated by nearly thirty years at their extremes — and asks what Monaco does to a driver that no other circuit can. Not what it demands technically, but what it finds. Because Monaco doesn’t just test pace. It tests what you’re carrying. And on the 27th of May, across 1990, 2007, and 2018, three drivers arrived at the Principality with something to prove, something to settle, or something to survive — and the circuit gave each of them exactly what they’d earned. We begin, briefly, in a forest north of Bern. May 27th, 1951. The second season of the Formula One World Championship, and the first wet race it had ever seen. Send us Fan Mail Music by #Mubert Music Rendering

    24 min
  4. 26th May 2024: The Race That Calls You Home

    3d ago

    26th May 2024: The Race That Calls You Home

    Monaco doesn’t simply produce the fastest driver — it produces the one who belongs there.  On the twenty-sixth of May, across 1963, 1968, 1974, 2002 and 2024, five races asked that question in five different ways.  Graham Hill won here twice on this date, carrying a broken team through grief in 1968.  Ronnie Peterson drove a four-year-old Lotus to victory over the finest cars of 1974.  David Coulthard held off Michael Schumacher in Ferrari’s most dominant season.  And in 2024, Charles Leclerc — Monégasque, haunted by near-misses, carrying the memory of people who never saw it — finally won his home race. Send us Fan Mail Music by #Mubert Music Rendering

    22 min
  5. 25th May 2008: The Day That The Lead Changed

    4d ago

    25th May 2008: The Day That The Lead Changed

    On May the twenty-fifth, across four decades of Formula 1, the world championship changed hands. Four times. Four drivers. One date. In 1975, Niki Lauda drove a controlled, clinical race at Zolder and went to the top of a championship he would never relinquish — while a sport still reeling from the deaths at Montjuïc Park tried to look forward rather than back.  In 1986, Nigel Mansell won at Spa and dedicated his victory to Elio de Angelis, killed eleven days earlier in a testing accident that should never have happened.  In 1997, Jacques Villeneuve took the championship lead at Barcelona — but the afternoon belonged to a Frenchman on Bridgestone tyres, charging from twelfth, closing a gap that other people kept reopening. And in 2008, Lewis Hamilton turned a puncture at Tabac into the foundation for the most important win of his career. Monaco. Rain. A fuel call that changed everything. Four races. Four new leaders. This is what May the twenty-fifth looked like. Send us Fan Mail Music by #Mubert Music Rendering

    25 min
  6. 24th May 2015: The Calculation That Cost The Race

    5d ago

    24th May 2015: The Calculation That Cost The Race

    On the 24th of May, three Monaco Grands Prix separated by seventeen years each asked the same question of the teams on the pit wall — and got three very different answers.  In 1998, Mika Häkkinen and McLaren answered it perfectly, delivering a grand chelem while the field destroyed itself around them.In 2009, Ross Brawn's improbable championship-leading team answered it with patience and precision, running Jenson Button to a fifth win in six races. In 2015, Mercedes got it wrong — a single miscalculation on lap sixty-five handing Nico Rosberg a race that Lewis Hamilton had led by nineteen seconds.Elsewhere in the episode: Jim Clark's dominant, wire-to-wire victory at the 1964 Dutch Grand Prix at Zandvoort, and a birthday tribute to Ivan Capelli — the Italian who stood on the Estoril podium in 1988, discovered he had a retroactive one from Spa he never knew about, and then led forty-five laps of the 1990 French Grand Prix before an oil warning light took it all away.  Cover image: By Kd1980 - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, Link Send us Fan Mail Music by #Mubert Music Rendering

    25 min
  7. 23rd May 1982: The Race That Nobody Wanted To Win

    6d ago

    23rd May 1982: The Race That Nobody Wanted To Win

    The 23rd of May has a habit of producing extraordinary racing at Monaco. Three times across three different decades, the same date has delivered three completely different kinds of grand prix. In 1971, Jackie Stewart arrived already leading the championship and proceeded to give a clinic in perfection. He took pole by more than a second, led every one of the eighty laps, set the fastest lap, and won by twenty-five seconds. Around him, a twenty-seven-year-old Ronnie Peterson was making his way through the field in a way that announced he would be a name to watch. In 1982, the Monaco Grand Prix became known as the race nobody wanted to win. Four drivers led in the final three laps. Alain Prost crashed. Riccardo Patrese spun and stalled. Didier Pironi stopped in the tunnel on the last lap. Andrea de Cesaris stopped at Casino Square, out of fuel. Patrese, having bump-started his Brabham, came through to win his first Formula One Grand Prix — without knowing he'd won it. In 1993, Ayrton Senna claimed his sixth Monaco victory, breaking Graham Hill's record that had stood since 1969. Second place went to Damon Hill. The son of the man whose record had just been broken.  Same date. Same place. Never the same race twice.  Send us Fan Mail Music by #Mubert Music Rendering

    23 min
  8. 22nd May 1955: The Teddy Bear That Won at Monaco

    May 22

    22nd May 1955: The Teddy Bear That Won at Monaco

    On 22 May 1955, Maurice Trintignant — a Provençal winegrower's son who had once been declared clinically dead and carried a stuffed teddy bear in the pocket of every racing car he ever drove — became the first Frenchman to win a World Championship Grand Prix. He did it because the Mercedes-Benz juggernaut collapsed, and because Alberto Ascari — the two-time world champion who had been about to inherit the lead — drove into Monaco harbour on lap 81 and sank to the bottom. Ascari walked away. Four days later he was dead. This episode tells the story of that race in full — and three others on the same date:  Jackie Stewart winning in 1966 as the new 3-litre formula produced just four finishers; Jody Scheckter and Walter Wolf's five-month-old team beating the world in 1977; Kimi Räikkönen winning wire-to-wire in 2005 while a championship leader burned his tyres to nothing and an Australian finally stood on a Formula One podium for the first time. Send us Fan Mail Music by #Mubert Music Rendering

    23 min
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About

Chequered Past is a Formula 1 history podcast that dives deep into iconic races, legendary drivers, and forgotten moments from motorsport’s rich and dramatic past. Each episode revisits Grand Prix events that took place on the same date in history, uncovering fascinating stories, on-track controversies, and the evolution of F1 through the decades. Whether you're a lifelong fan or new to the sport, Chequered Past offers compelling insights and nostalgia-fuelled storytelling from the world’s fastest sport. 

Information

  • Creator
    Martin Elliot
  • Years Active
    2025 - 2026
  • Episodes
    365
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © 2026 Chequered Past
  • Show Website
    Chequered Past

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