Rob Walker (1917 - 2002) Passes Away (Merged x 2)

[Super Tourer]

From Autosport.com

Formula 1's most famous privateer team owner from the 1950s and 1960s, Rob Walker, has died.

Walker was best known for running Coopers and Lotuses for Sir Stirling Moss, who claimed both marques' first Grand Prix victories at Monaco in the team's blue and white colours.

[Dr. Austin]

He also ran a Lotus 49 for Jo Siffert and a 49/72 for the great Graham Hill. Coupled with Ken Tyrell's sad demise, there is little to remind us that F-1 has it's roots in successful privateers. It has certainly changed, hasn't it?

[TimD]

Only a couple of weeks ago, I picked up a copy of his biography. Rob was an extraordinary man, and was one of those who packed into his lifetime about three times what most people achieve.

Definitely a legend, he was instrumental both in providing us with some of the great influences on the sport, and in showing the sport something of what it was losing.

We shan't see his like again.

[EERO]

Darn. I owe my love of F1 largely to his wonderful race reports in Road and Track. It was only later that I learned of his role as an entrant. He was a remarkable gentleman. The saddest incident in his life has to be his incidental involvement in Mike Hawthorne's fatal road accident. He wrote about it often,, and his remorse and saddness were obvious. It cannot have been easy being involved in the spaort through all those tragic years, but his grace and wit were undiminished by the time he spent.
RIP, Mr Walker, you brought a love of Grand Prix Racing to a lot of kids in the Sates.

[Mr V]

http://www.autosport.com/newsitem.cfm?id=18799&series=5

[f1manoz]

Sad news indeed. The last of the great privateers.

[Valve Bounce]

Yes!! He loved motor racing, and he put Sterling Moss into his cars which brought him some well earned success. I was thinking of him when someone posted a thread about Sterling the other day.

[JPBeltoise]

Originally posted by EERO
Darn. I owe my love of F1 largely to his wonderful race reports in Road and Track...RIP, Mr Walker, you brought a love of Grand Prix Racing to a lot of kids in the Sates.

Indeed. I also grew up reading Rob Walker's wonderful accounts in Road & Track. His writing always reflected just the right combination of British aristocratic sophistication and self-deprecating humor. My favorite story, which Rob related himself in one of his articles, concerns an incident when he was looking for his wife after the Italian Grand Prix one year:

Rob Walker: "Has anyone seen my nearest and dearest?"

Jackie Stewart: "Well, you're already here, aren't you, Rob?"

It was little stories like this that helped readers who had never seen a Formula One race imagine what the atmosphere at a Grand Prix weekend must have been like back in the 1970's.

[djb]

I, as well, have memories of his Road and Track articles, and also learned more about him only much later in my life. I think it's fair to say that he lived a long and interesting life.

[Hans.ca]

Team owner Rob Walker established a partnership with Stirling Moss and later Seppi Siffert.
A finer gentlemen then Rob was never in F1. It is a great loss to the sport. RIP.
For full story see BBC Sport, Formula one.

[Neil C]

And a great loss to motorsport journalism as well. The end of an era.