Hailwood’s best season in Formula One was 1972 when he ranked 8th in the points, highlighted by a 2nd-place finish in Monza’s Italian GP.
Photo: Nick Loudon
Mike Hailwood had won no fewer than nine World Motorcycle Championships before he ever competed in his first Formula One motor race. Not to mention 14 victories in the heart-in-your-mouth Isle of Man TT. So he quickly earned himself the nickname of “Mike the Bike.”
If the truth were told, he was nothing like as successful racing cars as he clearly was on motorcycles, but he did win the 1972 European Formula Two Championship driving a car built by the only man to win world titles on both two and four wheels, his friend John Surtees. That year, Mike scored six podium placings, two of them victories.
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