A no-frills car launch back in François Cevert's day!

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French driver François Cevert was born on this day in 1944. He made his début in the Netherlands, four races into the 1970 season, following the sudden retirement of Johnny Servoz-Gavin. He went on to make 46 starts with Tyrrell alongside Jackie Stewart.

Stewart was the star of the team during this period, but Cevert was a solid support. His one and only race victory came at Watkins Glen in 1971 when he won by over 40 seconds. However he also picked up ten second places and a further two third place finishes during his time.

Here's Cevert at the wheel of the Tyrrell 005, when the car was launched in 1972. Compared to today's glitzy multimedia presentations, this one looks like it's being held in Ken Tyrrell's back garden!

In fact it was one of the very first times a team had held what we would recognise today as a an official car launch, with teams such as Lotus and Ferrari later following Tyrrell's lead.

Sadly, the charismatic Cevert - Stewart's natural successor - would be killed in 1973, the victim of a devastating impact with the barriers at Watkins Glen during qualifying for the end-of-season US Grand Prix.

Andrew Lewin

Andrew first became a fan of Formula 1 during the time when Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill were stepping into the limelight after the era of Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell and Aryton Senna. He's been addicted ever since, and has been writing about the sport now for nearly a quarter of a century for a number of online news sites. He's also written professionally about GP2 (now Formula 2), GP3, IndyCar, World Rally Championship, MotoGP and NASCAR. In his other professional life, Andrew is a freelance writer, social media consultant, web developer/programmer, and digital specialist in the fields of accessibility, usability, IA, online communities and public sector procurement. He worked for many years in magazine production at Bauer Media, and for over a decade he was part of the digital media team at the UK government's communications department. Born and raised in Essex, Andrew currently lives and works in south-west London.