Johnny Herbert

Johnny Herbert reached Formula 1 with shattered legs. Born in Romford in 1964, in 1988 he crashed in Formula 3000 at Brands Hatch and suffered serious injuries to his feet, yet the following year he made his debut with Benetton in Brazil: he started tenth and finished fourth, at a time when he could still barely walk.

The years that followed, in a Lotus that was no longer what it had been, proved the speed was still there. In 1995 he finally had a winning car as Michael Schumacher's team-mate at Benetton, and he took both chances the year gave him: he won at Silverstone, after Schumacher and Damon Hill took each other out, and at Monza. He finished fourth in the championship.

His best-remembered win came in 1999, at the European Grand Prix at the Nürburgring, with Stewart. He started fourteenth and, in a race of on-off rain in which nearly all the favourites slipped up, gave Jackie Stewart's team its only victory. Before that he had scored podiums with Sauber at Monaco 1996, from thirteenth on the grid, and in Hungary 1997. He bowed out in 2000 with Jaguar.

Three wins and seven podiums, every one of them in races where he knew how to be in the right place. Few careers in F1 started with so much against them.