Rupert Keegan

The much hyped Keegan did possess talent, but perhaps not quite as much as he and his father, backer and number-one fan Mike believed.

Starting his career with a win first time out in a Ford Escort Mexico, Keegan soon moved into Formula Ford, where he was quick but erratic. A successful end to the 1974 season encouraged him to move into Formula 3 the following year with the ex-Henton March 743, but the season was punctuated with crashes, including a very nasty one at Thruxton.

Things changed dramatically in 1976, with a more consistent Rupert winning nine rounds of the BP championship and the title to line up a seat in the Hesketh Grand Prix team for 1977. The car was awful but Keegan emerged with great credit, qualifying for every race in which he was entered, only to jump out of the frying pan and into the fire by joining the ailing Surtees team in 1978.

Left with no alternatives, Rupert drove an Arrows in the 1979 Aurora F1 series, winning five rounds and the championship, but his return to the Grand Prix arena in 1980 with the RAM Williams brought little reward, and the same could be said of his final shot in the Rothmans March at the end of 1982. After a spell in endurance racing and a brief flirtation with Indy cars, Keegan quit to pursue an entrepreneurial business career.

In 1995, at the age of forty, he made a surprise reappearance on the track, driving a Lister Storm at Le Mans with Geoff Lees and Dominic Chappell.