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JOHN SURTEES' TIMELINE
Nought to Eight World Championships in 15 Years
John's interest in bikes and racing was kindled at an early age by his father, Jack - a successful sidecar racer and motorcycle shop proprietor.
But it was a picture of 1939 Isle of Man TT winner Georg Meier that really fired his imagination. Marooned on the Yorkshire moors outside Huddersfield - well away from the blitz - John used to pore over Jack's old race programmes and copies of Motor Cycle and Motorcycling.
 One - featuring Meier hurtling down Bray Hill on his way to victory - really captured John's attention. "I've never been one for hero worship but that picture made an enormous impression on me," he recalls.
By the early 1950s he was building and racing his own machines, proving himself to be devastatingly quick from the word go. In the process, he caught the eye of the Norton works team and then, in 1956, MV Agusta.
By the end of the decade he was the proud holder of seven World Championships on two wheels and, with nothing left to prove, switched his attention to four wheels first with Ken Tyrrell and later in F1 with Colin Chapman's Lotus team.
Over the following 12 years he demonstrated what a brilliant all-round racer he was in single seaters and sports cars, winning the F1 World Championship with Ferrari in 1964 and clinching the Can-Am Championship two years later in the Lola T70 which he helped develop.
His story from the 1940s through to the present day is charted in this timeline.
Picture: Georg Meier on the way to victory in the 1939 TT, an image that was to inspire the young Surtees
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