Born Sir John Young Stewart on June 11, 1939 in Dumbartonshire, Scotland. He was commonly known as Sir Jackie Stewart also nicknamed the “flying Scot”. A nickname enough to point to the glorious era Jackie Stewart drew with petrol oil on canvas as he flew on circuits all over the racing spots worldwide.
Jackie Stewart was an uptight gentleman known for his distinguished Scottish accent that earned him popularity. He was the son of a family of Austin and jaguar dealers and started his early attachment to the motoring world as he was an apprentice mechanic for his family business. Jackie was also known for his shooting talent as he won several shooting completions; no wonder he has a highly agile reflex!
In 1964 Sir Jackie competed in Formula3 in wet conditions for the Tyrrell team and accomplished a 25 second lead in the first two laps! A performance that earned him a deal from Cooper within days to compete in F1, which Jackie declined hoping to collect more driving experience with Tyrrell. He’s also the man that impressed the legendary Colin Chapman and Jim Clark while testing the F1 Lotus 33-Climax. And from a victory to another, Stewart collected in his Scottish basket 3 fromula1 world championships in 1969, 1971 and in 1973 securing him a solid place in the hall of fame of the motoring world. And later from 1997 till 1999 he was principle of the Stewart GP team a well organized racing team.
The influence of Jackie Stewart to the business of F1 wasn’t restricted to the numbers of Champaign bottles he popped
- The Shining Jackie Stewart
on podiums but went further to reach the rearrangement of this sports’ rules and regulations and also the working conditions of the sport itself; his accident in Spa, Belgium and the fact that he got stuck for many minutes because of his steering wheel after crashing into a telephone post, in a track where there weren’t any barriers nor emergency and medical teams, enforced many additives to the sport; where the electric removable steering wheel became a part of the regulation also after this Jackie started a campaign aiming to replace traditional barriers with advanced and safer barriers and loading the tracks with emergency medical units and personnel. Jackie’s work for advanced safety wasn’t regarded by everyone and made some racers, organizers and especially track owners upset. For this Sir Jackie stated:” I would have been a much more popular World Champion if I had always said what people wanted to hear. I might have been dead, but definitely more popular.”