Above: Jarrott’s 1903 Gordon Bennett machine
Question: what was the first-ever British victory recorded in international motor racing? Clue: it’s not Stirling Moss’s British GP glory of 1955, nor even Frank Clement’s win in the second-ever Le Mans 24 Hours in 1924 (alongside Canadian John Duff in a Bentley 3-litre). The answer pre-dates both substantially, all the way back to 1902 when Selwyn Francis Edge won the illustrious Gordon Bennett Cup, racing a 6.5-litre Napier from Paris to Innsbruck in Austria.