#F1Birthdays: Chris Irwin - 1942 Born in Wandsworth, London, Chris Irwin is a former racing driver who participated in 10 Formula One World Championship Grands Prix, debuting on 16 July 1966. He scored two championship points. Irwins career was ended prematurely by an accident he sustained when driving a Ford P68 sports prototype during practice for the 1968 1000km Nürburgring endurance race. He lost control of the notoriously twitchy car at the Flugplatz, the P68 flipping end over end after landing on its tail following a jump. He suffered severe head injuries but eventually recovered. However, it prevented him from racing again. Irwin is still alive and reasonably well, but his whereabouts are largely unknown as he stays out of the public eye and away from motor racing events. In 2006 it was reported that he had become re-acquainted with a racing rival from the 1960s after a chance meeting in London, and that he sometimes still suffers flashbacks to his accident. Irwin was reported, however, to be in generally good health. He currently lives in rural Rutland in the UK, and today marks his 72nd birthday. ------------------------------------------------ Nico Rosberg - 1985 Nico Rosberg was born in Wiesbaden, son of the 1982 world champion Keke Rosberg. He was brought up in Monaco and became fluent in German, English, Italian, Spanish and French; but only learnt a spattering of his fathers native Finnish. In his early career he raced under both German and Finnish nationalities but was eventually officially classified as German when he reached F1 due to the nationality of his passport. In his early karting days he was team-mates with Lewis Hamilton, but ended up moving through the ranks quicker and eventually made it to Formula One a year ahead of Hamilton in 2006. Just a year earlier in 2005 he had been considering a degree in aeronautical engineering at Imperial College London but decided to race in GP2 instead. When he joined Williams, he scored the highest ever result in the teams engineering aptitude test, taken by all the teams drivers. Today marks his 29th Birthday.
Posted on: Fri, 27 Jun 2014 19:49:33 +0000
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