🇺🇸 Sam Hanks

Sam Hanks was an established professional racing driver who competed in Formula 1 between 1950 and 1957, driving primarily for Kurtis Kraft. He scored one win and four podiums across eight starts in the series against a field that mixed amateurs, semi-professionals and graded professionals in the same races.[1]

Hanks won the 1957 Indianapolis 500 and finished seventh in that year's Formula 1 championship standings with a win and another podium finish from a single round of competition. His record across the full span of his Formula 1 career placed him among the established professionals of his era; he finished ahead of Duane Carter and Jim Rathmann, both established professionals with comparable Formula 1 experience, and ran closely matched with Tony Bettenhausen, another regular opponent at the same level, while usually finishing ahead of Fred Agabashian. Kurtis Kraft, the team he drove for most often, was an established outfit that fielded 87 drivers and won five races across the index.[2]