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 BORN in Ruthin,North Wales, Tom Pryce was the last Welshman to finish on the podium in a Formula One Grand Prix.
In 1976, the policeman's son finished third in Brazil for the Shadow team, qualified in pole for the British Grand Prix and finished in 11th place in the drivers' championship.
But Pryce's career was tragically cut short the following year at Kyalami, South Africa, on March 5 in a most bizarre accident when he was unable to avoid a fire marshal who was running across the track to attend to another car.
The impact killed the marshal but the fire extinguisher he was carrying hit Pryce on the head. The Welshman was killed instantly but the car went on down the main straight and crashed into Jacques Laffite's Ligier at the first corner. Fortunately Laffite was not hurt.
This violent end for the 27-year-old understandably came to overshadow Pryce's short career, but he'd developed a reputation since breaking into Formula One in 1974 that had brought him to the attention of some of the top teams at the time.
The high point in Pryce's career had come the previous year when he finished third in Austria, fourth in Germany and sixth three times and ended the year 10th in the World Championship.
In the same year he also won the Race of Champions at Brands Hatch. In his short career he had put Wales at the forefront of the international motor racing scene and was tipped by many to be a potential world champion.
Pryce was 21 before he took up motorsport seriously but shot through the ranks. He raced Formula Ford in 1970, moving to the Super Vee formula and then to Formula Three in 1972. He shone in this formula and after sustaining a broken leg in a bizarre accident in Monaco was offered a drive in Formula Two.
Ron Dennis, now the multi-millionaire CEO and co-owner of McLaren, was running the Motul Rondel Racing team and Pryce did well in Formula Two, hoping to use his team boss' contacts to secure a drive with the Token Formula One team in 1974.
His best result came at the Norisring, where he finished second behind his team-mate Tim Schenken, and things looked bright for a step up to the Token team, which had originally been planned as Dennis's first Formula One team with Motul backing.
The money failed to materialise and the project was taken over by businessmen Tony Vlassopoulo and Ken Grob. The car appeared at the Belgian GP in the hands of Pryce and qualified 20th but retired with suspension trouble.
Pryce was refused an entry at Monaco and so switched to the Formula Three race with Ippocampos Racing's March 743 and won.
This brought him to the attention of the Shadow Formula One team and he scored the first point for the team at the German GP that summer.
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