Fritz d'Orey

D'Orey's parents were from Portugal and his grandfather was German, which probably accounts for his forename. The family were wealthy Packard car importers, and the young Fritz was soon behind the wheel of a Porsche Spyder.

In 1958 he acquired an ex-Chico Landi F1 Ferrari and raced it extensively in Brazil, Uruguay and Argentina, and his successes led to an invitation to race in Europe.

Having safely negotiated the French Grand Prix, Fritz crashed and wrote off the Maserati at Silverstone, which cut short his F1 plans for the season, but he later drove the TecMec at Sebring, although he was glad to retire the machine, which he felt was too dangerous. However, wins in Formula Junior at the GP de Messina and in sports cars in the Austrian GP with a Ferrari Testa Rossa led to the 22-year-old d'Orey signing a contract with Ferrari to race their sports cars in 1960.

Describing himself as 'a child and very crazy', Fritz escaped a huge crash at Monza when trying to keep pace with Phil Hill before having a much more serious accident at Le Mans when he slammed his Ferrari into a tree. Sustaining serious head injuries, d'Orey spent eight months in hospital making a full recovery, but never raced thereafter.