For the F1 Grand Prix Drivers Club, the year 2015 will mark an important step toward the future.
When the Club was founded more than half a century ago, its purpose was purely social: the centre for arranging places and times for former Grand Prix drivers to meet up and stay in touch. It was a wonderful idea, as relevant and important today as it was in the early years of the Club and you can read the details in the About Us section.
Over the years our little Club (we have rarely had more than 100 active members) has become the custodian of a great heritage, almost involuntarily.
With today’s F1 racing going through some fundamental changes, we have come to see it as our duty to not only protect that heritage, as well as the spirit of what people now fondly call the ‘golden age’ of racing, but equally to share and to actively promote that history.
Racing drivers are not always the best organised or disciplined of people, with some of us not even having mobile phones, let alone computers. So we looked at our decision to start a website with some trepidation and a good deal of caution. We have now made a start.
We will gradually feed in material from the Club archives (a lot of it has now been digitised) and from members’ private collections, but of course we will also welcome interesting contributions from enthusiasts. We will attempt to answer questions about our history whenever possible, while at the same time respecting members’ privacy. Hopefully we will be able to show more Club presence at events and, subject to the necessary funding, we have a very special project in mind through which enthusiasts can win participation at track events, where we can arrange for them to join us for a lap or two in some of the two seater cars and experience what we once enjoyed so much during our own racing days.
But first let me welcome you to our modest website and I hope you will find it of interest. Then, through our combined efforts, I hope we will all be able to safeguard and promote the wonderful heritage of Grand Prix racing, and keep alive the original spirit of sporting camaraderie.
With my best wishes,
Howden Ganley
President, F1-GPDC