Sunday 28th June 1964
Racecar driver Dan Gurney won the French Grand Prix in his Brabham BT7. This victory was Gurney’s second Grand Prix win, adding to his fifteen-year career total of over thirty Formula One racing victories. Gurney, who honed his driving skills slaloming through orange trees in Riverside, California, is widely renowned for his accomplishments in nearly every area of racing, including Grand Prix, Indy Car, NASCAR Stock cars, and Sports Car racing. The only driver besides Mario Andretti to win races in each of the major motorsports categories, Gurney has raced in twenty different countries, drove twenty-five different cars, and won forty-eight races. In 1965, Gurney started All-American Racers, a racecar manufacturing and design company, with partner Carroll Shelby. One of the original founders of Championship Auto Racing Teams (CART), Gurney also developed the “Gurney flap,” an Indy racecar part, and introduced the use of a full-face helmet to Indy and Grand Prix racing. In the 1967 Belgian Grand Prix, Gurney took first place in a car he built himself–the last Formula One Championship race that he would take part in before retiring from racing in 1970.