Tony Maggs died on 2 June 2009, leaving behind one of those early Formula 1 records that deserves more than a line in a results table.
Maggs raced in Formula 1 during the early 1960s, most notably with Cooper. He twice finished second in the French Grand Prix, in 1962 and 1963, at a time when South African racing had a far stronger presence in the world championship than modern memory often allows.
He was not a superstar and did not become a champion, but his career sits in the rougher, more international edge of the sport’s early decades: privateers, long travel, fragile cars and a paddock that could still feel close to club racing until it suddenly did not.
Maggs remains a small but real part of Formula 1’s South African thread, before Kyalami became a regular stop and before Jody Scheckter turned the connection into a world title.
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