Jackie Stewart

Stewart won three championships and then spent the rest of his life on the thing he is most responsible for: making Formula One survivable. When he started, the sport killed roughly two drivers a season and the response was fatalism.

His campaign began after his 1966 crash at Spa, where he lay trapped in a car filling with fuel for twenty-five minutes with no marshals, no medical staff and no tools on hand. He pushed for barriers, full-face helmets, seat belts, medical teams at circuits, and boycotted tracks he judged indefensible. He was widely disliked for it.

He retired after the 1973 season, his hundredth race cancelled after his team-mate Francois Cevert was killed in practice at Watkins Glen. He later ran Stewart Grand Prix, the team that became Jaguar and then Red Bull.