Tom Pryce was the greatest Welshman ever to race a Grand Prix car, combining natural speed with sensational car control that invited comparisons with legends such as Jochen Rindt and Ronnie Peterson.

Born in Ruthin, North Wales, on 11 June 1949, he was known as Maldwyn or Mal (his middle name) by parents Jack and Gwyneth but became Tom when he started taking his first tentative steps in racing when he was 20.

These came at Mallory Park in England in 1969, where his tutor was Trevor Taylor, the former Team Lotus team-mate of the great Jim Clark whom Tom so resembled with his quiet, introspective character. His big break came when he won a Formula Ford Lola T200 in the Daily Express Crusader Championship early in 1970, and such was his speed and style that successes in that category and Formula F100 sportscars at Brands Hatch catapulted him into Formula Three with Royale by the end of 1971. Victory in the Formula Three event, which supported the Race of Champions in 1972, brought him further acclaim, and, after an impressive series of Formula Atlantic and Formula Two races in 1973, he made his Formula One debut with the little Token team in the Daily Express International Trophy race in 1974. He quickly followed this with his Grand Prix debut at Nivelles in Belgium.

Ironically, it was the fact that he had to go back to Formula Three at Monaco, when Token's entry there was refused, that finally propelled him into the big time. He won the prestigious support race with ease and suddenly found himself racing as the fulltime replacement for the late Peter Revson in the Shadow team.

Over the next three seasons he underlined his stunning car control with a series of brilliant drives, which clearly marked him out as a champion of the future. Among them was a gritty sixth at the Nürburgring, soaked in fuel, in 1974; third in the rain in Austria in 1975; and third in Brazil in 1976. Many times he was headed for strong finishes, only to be let down by his machinery.

He is best remembered for winning the Race of Champions at Brands Hatch in 1975, on a day when his pace was simply irresistible. But at the British Grand Prix at Silverstone later that year, having become the only Welshman ever to have won a Formula One race, he became the only one to have started a Grand Prix ahead of the rest of the field, and to have led it. He moved ahead on the 19th lap and was still there on the 20th. But it was a great irony that, on the 21st, a sudden rain shower caught him out and he spun into the barriers at Becketts.

During the first practice session for the 1977 South African GP at Kyalami Tom conclusively demonstrated his innate talent and commitment, and his other-worldly prowess in the rain, by setting the fastest time in the less competitive Shadow, comfortably ahead of established stars such as Niki Lauda, James Hunt and Jody Scheckter.

Sadly, while making up ground after a poor start, he was killed in the race on Saturday 5 March in a freak accident that made his death all the more tragic. His team-mate Renzo Zorzi's Shadow DN8 had rolled to a halt opposite the pits, just over a brow. When a minor fire broke out two marshals ran across the track from the pit wall to render assistance. Tom was racing Hans Stuck, Jacques Laffite and Gunnar Nilsson as they approached the scene, and as they crested the blind brow at 180 mph Stuck was just able to swerve to miss the two men. Tucked right in his slipstream, Tom was suddenly confronted with marshal, Jansen van Vuuren. With Zorzi's car to his left and Stuck's to his right, he had nowhere to go and absolutely no chance to react. He struck and killed the 19 year-old, whose fire extinguisher took his own life as it hit him full in the face.

“I was feeling really pleased with myself, with what I had done,” said Lauda, who had won in difficult circumstances. “It wasn't until I got on to the podium that they told me that Tom had been killed… He was an upcoming star and I respected him. There was no joy after that.”