Mike Hawthorn, Phil Hill, Jochen Rindt, Graham Hill and Fernando Alonso are the famous five who achieved one of the rarest “doubles” in motorsport history. Looking a little closer, we see five personalities who are as remarkable as their track record.

Five racers, five characters

Mike Hawthorn, the first to perform the feat, had his own distinctive style as he raced in a bow tie and an open-face helmet with a large translucent visor. After winning the 24 Hours in 1955, Hawthorn became the first British driver to be crowned Formula One world champion.

Motor racing was not Phil Hill’s only passion. The first US-born driver to triumph at Le Mans was also a music lover and an accomplished pianist who regularly attended La Scala opera house in Milan while employed by Ferrari. He holds a unique place in motorsport history by winning the 24 Hours and the Formula One title the same year (1961).

Jochen Rindt was raised by his grandparents in Austria after his parents were killed in an Allied bombing raid on Hamburg in 1943. He was a rebellious youth who had had several brushes with the law before turning his attentions to motor racing. He was aged just 23 – the youngest of the famous five – when he won the 24 Hours of Le Mans in 1965. Five years later, Rindt became the only Formula One world champion to be crowned posthumously following his fatal accident in practice for the Italian Grand Prix.

Graham Hill was a relative latecomer to the sport after passing his driving test at the age of 24. Despite this unusual fact, Hill reached the pinnacle of motorsport with two Formula One titles, victory at Indianapolis and Le Mans, and five Monaco Grand Prix wins. He had retired from the wheel to form his own Formula One team – Embassy Hill – when he was killed in an aeroplane crash.

Fernando Alonso is a fearsome competitor both on the racetrack and in the political mind games that go hand-in-hand with Formula One. In 2018, he set himself the triple challenge of F1, the 24 Hours of Le Mans and the FIA World Endurance Championship after sitting out the previous season’s Monaco Grand Prix to contest the Indianapolis 500. Alonso is the only F1 world champion to have won the 24 Hours several times, and the only driver to have clinched the world title in both Formula One and endurance. Reviving the spirit of the great racing drivers of the sixties and seventies, he has even turned his hand to rally raid, like Jacky Ickx in his day.

Five drivers and seven decades of history

The eight 24 Hours of Le Mans wins amassed by these five drivers between 1955 and 2018 also stand as a marker in the evolution of motorsport.

Three of the five – Hawthorn, Phil Hill and Rindt – won the twice-round-the-clock classic before their Formula One title. Back in the 1950s, most drivers competed in single-seater racing, endurance and even in the great road marathons of the day. Founded in 1950, Formula One was still in its infancy and took two decades for its popularity to reach that of sports car and endurance racing.

Rindt, the 1970 Formula One world champion, and Graham Hill, the 1972 24 Hours of Le Mans winner, illustrate this development perfectly. The German-born driver won the 24 Hours in 1965 while still a budding talent with an emerging reputation in Formula Two. His Formula One career, however, didn’t really take off until 1969 when he joined Lotus at a watershed moment. In 1968 – the year of Graham Hill’s second title – Formula One gave the green light to sponsorship from outside the world of sport, paving the way to the funding of teams by companies whose core business lay in other fields. This expansion had the effect of keeping F1 world champions away from the 24 Hours. The French endurance classic essentially became a must-do event before or after a career in Formula One. That was until Alonso restored the connection between the two flagship disciplines of track-based motorsport.

In 2023, the centenary edition of the 24 Hours of Le Mans will mark the coming of a new golden age with the nascent Hypercar class, whereas Formula One will hold its biggest-ever race schedule as it approaches its 75th anniversary. Alonso, meanwhile, has made no secret of his intention to return to La Sarthe and succumb to the tempting future battle between Hypercar manufacturers. Reigning world champion Max Verstappen, already a keen 24 Hours of Le Mans Virtual competitor, is also interested in switching to the real-life event. Could he be the sixth F1 world champion to climb on to the highest step of the Le Mans podium?

MIKE HAWTHORN (Great Britain, 1929-1959) – Five 24 Hours of Le Mans starts between 1953 and 1958, one win (1955 in a Jaguar, with Ivor Bueb). 45 Grands Prix, three wins, 1958 world champion in a Ferrari.

PHIL HILL (USA, 1927-2008) – Fourteen 24 Hours of Le Mans starts between 1953 and 1967, three wins (1958, 1960 and 1962 in a Ferrari, with Olivier Gendebien). 47 Grands Prix, three wins, 1961 world champion in a Ferrari.

JOCHEN RINDT (Austria, 1942-1970) – Four 24 Hours of Le Mans starts between 1964 and 1967, one win (1965 in a Ferrari, with Masten Gregory). 60 Grands Prix, six wins, 1970 world champion in a Lotus.

GRAHAM HILL (Great Britain, 1929-1975) – Ten 24 Hours of Le Mans starts between 1958 and 1972, one win (1972 in a Matra, with Henri Pescarolo). 176 Grands Prix, 14 wins, world champion in 1962 (BRM) and 1968 (Lotus). Also won the Indianapolis 500 in 1966.

FERNANDO ALONSO (Spain, born in 1981) – Two 24 Hours of Le Mans starts, two wins (2018 and 2019 in a Toyota, with Sébastien Buemi and Kazuki Nakajima). Record number of 356 Grands Prix (to the end of the 2022 season, career ongoing), 32 wins, 2005 and 2006 world champion in a Renault. Also world endurance champion in the 2018-19 Super Season (with Buemi and Nakajima).

PHOTOS: LE MANS (SARTHE, FRANCE), CIRCUIT DES 24 HEURES, 24 HOURS OF LE MANS – FROM TOP TO BOTTOM (© ACO ARCHIVES): In 2019, Fernando Alonso (centre) and teammates Kazuki Nakajima and Sébastien Buemi left their imprint (literally!) on 24 Hours of Le Mans history; Jochen Rindt (right) won in 1965 with American Masten Gregory, but had to wait another four years for his maiden Formula One triumph; Graham Hill (left), partnered by Henri Pescarolo for his tenth and final 24 Hours in 1972, held the record for the number of Grand Prix starts from 1975 to 1989, a mark since bettered by Riccardo Patrese, Rubens Barrichello, Kimi Räikkönen and current record holder Alonso since the 2022 Singapore Grand Prix; after becoming the only currently active racing driver to have officiated as race starter in 2014, Alonso was also the first to cover the 13 kilometres of the Circuit des 24 Heures at the wheel of a Formula One single-seater during an Alpine demonstration as curtain raiser to the 2021 race.