The F1 debut of Gilles

©CahierArchive

On this day in 1977, Gilles Villeneuve made his F1 debut. The Canadian made his name as a Ferrari driver, but in his first race he was driving for McLaren at Silverstone in the M23 with which the team had started the season. Villeneuve qualified a credible ninth on the grid and was classified 11th in the race, but was not retained by the team and joined Ferrari before the year was out.

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.