Louis Chiron

Louis Chiron, a Monegasque driver born in 1899, was already 50 years old when the Formula 1 World Championship began in 1950, yet he went on to make sixteen starts in the series across five seasons spread over seven years.

His first championship season was comfortably his best: driving a Maserati in 1950, he took a podium finish and four points, classifying tenth in the inaugural drivers' standings.

Thereafter his appearances became intermittent. He returned with Maserati in 1951, drove for OSCA in 1953 and Lancia in 1955, and made his final championship appearances back in a Maserati in 1956 — by which time he was in his late fifties.

Chiron's four points and single podium all date from that first season, but the span of his record is the remarkable part: a driver born in the nineteenth century who was still starting World Championship Grands Prix in the mid-1950s.