Portal:Scotland/Selected article/Week 20, 2010

Jackie Stewart 1969 with the Matra-Cosworth at the Nürburgring

Jackie Stewart, OBE (born 11 June, 1939 in Milton, West Dunbartonshire), also nicknamed The Flying Scot, is a Scottish former racing driver and team owner. He competed in Formula One between 1965 and 1973, winning three World Drivers' Championships. He also competed in Can-Am. He is well-known in the United States as a color commentator of racing television broadcasts, and as a spokesman for Ford, where his Scottish accent made him a distinctive presence. Between 1997 and 1999, in partnership with his son, Paul, he was team principal of the Stewart Grand Prix Formula One racing team. In 2009 he was ranked fifth of the fifty greatest Formula One drivers of all time by journalist Kevin Eason who wrote: "He has not only emerged as a great driver, but one of the greatest figures of motor racing."

Jackie's family were Austin, later Jaguar car dealers and had built up a successful business, Dumbuck Garage, in Milton. His father had been an amateur motorcycle racer, and his brother Jimmy was a racing driver with a growing local reputation who drove for Ecurie Ecosse and competed in the 1953 British Grand Prix, until he went off at Copse Corner in the wet.