Grand Prix Insider

11th of June -It is with great sadness that I’ve learned of Ove Andersson’s passing, one of the guys who worked his way into Formula 1 with passion and competence. Besides a top manager, Ove was always accessible and easy going. I knew him since 1995 and when the big launch of the F1 team took place in Cologne, he gave interviews for the entire afternoon. Darkness had already fallen when he attended me for the final interview of the day, patiently answering all of the questions I had for him. And he went on to prove he was one of the good guys in the paddock. Ove will be greatly missed and my heart goes out to his family and many friends.

11/6/1964, Jean Alesi is born in Avignon-Montfavet, France.

Jean Alesi made a lasting impression on whoever saw hi in action in lower formulae winning the 1987 French F3 Championship and the 1989 Forula 3000 Championship, despite racing in F1 for Tyrrell from the halfway point of the year. He had been thrust into the limelight at the French Grand Prix that year as he replaced Michele Alboreto at Tyrrell. At one stage on his debut at Paul Ricard he was running as high as second behind Alain Prost. Eventually he finished a stunning fourth and had a seat garantueed at the Ken’s team. In 1991 he joined Ferrari but over the following five years only one Grand Prix victory materialized at the 1995 Canadian Grand Prix. Fittingly, it was also Jean’s 31st birthday.

By 1995 Ferrari replaced him with Michael Schumacher and two unhappy two seasons at Benetton were followed by the 1999 season with Sauber. In 2000 he signed a two-year deal to race for his old Ferrari partner, Alain Prost. Frustrated he left in the middle of 2001 and switched to Jordan in place of Heinz-Harald Frentzen before retiring from F1 at the end of the season. He then raced with Mercedes-Benz in the German Touring Car Championship (DTM) until the end of 2006 with the occasional opportunity in 2002 to test a McLaren-Mercedes F1 car. In 2007 Alesi was one of the title favorites in the middle east based Speedcar series.

11/6/2008, Ove Andersson dies.

Former rally driver and winner of the 1971 Monte Carlo Rally as well as European Rally Championship in 1972 and endurance racer, the Swede was the Founder of Toyota Team Europe, later acquired by Toyota to run the WRC activities as a true manufacturer team. Andersson was then employed by Toyota and became the central figure of Toyota’s quest to win the 24 hours of Le Mans with their extreme GT-One racer. After their last attempt in 1999 the company was renamed into Toyota Motorsport GmbH and Andersson lead the F1 program through all its development stages to the first season in 2002 until he retired in 2003. Ove suffered an accident during the Milligan Classic Rally in South Africa as a result of irresponsible driving of a taxi driver, who made a risky overtaking maneuver and hit the Volvo 144 head on.

Born: 3rd of January 1938 in Sweden;
Died: 11th of June 2008 near Oudtshoorn, South Africa.

11/6/1972, Joakim Bonnier dies.

A wealthy Gentleman driver of the competitive kind and a very likable personality, Jo Bonnier started in Formula 1 in 1957 with a Maserati and his greatest claim to fame was to claim BRM’s maiden Grand Prix victory at Zandvoort in 1959. He continued as a GP regular in private entries, although with decreasing success, and was one of the driving forces behind the Grand Prix Drivers’ Association. He was also highly competitive in endurance racing winning the Targa Florio twice (1960 and 1962) and the 1962 Sebring 12 Hours race. He was killed in the 1972 Le Mans 24 hours race when his private Lola-Cosworth T280 took off after colliding with Swiss amateur Florian Vetsch’s Ferrari Daytona and was shattered in the trees on the roadside.

Born: 31st of January 1930 in Stockholm, Sweden.
Died: 11th of June 1972 at the Le Mans circuit, France, aged, 42.

11/6/1966, Jim Davies dies.

Jimmy Davies raced both the Championship cars and midgets, winning thee USAC titles in the latter. As the Indianapolis 500 counted as a round of the Formula One World championship from 1950 to 1960 his career is credited with participation in 4 grands prix, with 1 podium and 4 championship points scored for a third place in the 1955 Indy 500. He died at only 37 years old from injuries suffered in a midget crash at Santa Fe Speedway in Chicago.

Born: 18th of August 1929 in Glendale, USA;
Died: 11th of June 1966 in Chicago, USA, aged 36.

11/6/1947, Robert Neville Anthony Evans is born in Waddington, UK.

Bob Evans won the 1974 British Formula 5000 Championship and promoted to Formula 1 the following season with the fading BRM team, then had two races for Lotus in 1976 before being replaced by Gunnar Nilsson.

11/6/1955, Pierre Eugène Alfred Bouillin dies.

A French sportsman and racecar driver. He took the racing name Pierre Levegh in memory of his uncle, a pioneering driver who died in 1904. Levegh is mainly remembered for a disaster that killed him and 82 spectators during the 1955 24 Hours of Le Mans automobile race.

Levegh was also a world-class ice hockey and tennis player. In motorsport he competed in Formula 1 for the Lago-Talbot team in 1950 and 1951, starting six races, retiring in three, and scoring no points.

At Le Mans he raced for Talbot in four races, finishing fourth in 1951. In 1952, driving single-handedly, his car suffered an engine failure in the last hour of the race with a four lap lead. This failure was probably caused by a missed gear change due to driver fatigue. In 1953 he came in eighth, and in 1954 he was involved in an accident in the seventh hour of racing.

In 1955 he was tempted away from Talbot and joined the American John Fitch in racing a Mercedes-Benz 300 SLR. In the third hour of racing, while on the Tribunes Straight, he clipped the Austin-Healey of Lance Macklin that was forced to make an evasive move after Mike Hawthorn dove into the pits. After hitting an earth bank, the car flew through the air, disintegrating, scattering components into the crowd. Levegh was killed in front of his wife’s eyes, as were 82 spectators, while over 100 were injured. The race was continued in order to prevent the spectators from leaving, which would have blocked all access roads and the ambulances.

While Mercedes withdrew from the race as a sign of respect to the victims (and later from motor racing in general for the next 30 years), Mike Hawthorn and Ivor Bueb continued on in their Jaguar to win the race. The accident was a major contributor to changing attitudes about the acceptance of danger in motor racing and an increase in the desire to make courses safer for spectators and drivers alike. The small British firm of Bristol Cars, whose entrants achieved a 1-2-3 finish in the 2-litre class at Le Mans that year, decided to abandon racing altogether as a result of the tragedy, scrapping all but one of their racing cars. Fitch became a safety advocate and began research into automotive safety, some of which has advanced into motorsport.

Born: 22th of December 1905, Paris
Died: 11th of June 1955 in Le Mans, France.

11/6/1949, Thomas Maldwyn Pryce is born in Ruthin, North Wales.

After only one season in 1973 with Ron Dennis’s Motul Rondel Racing Formula 2 team, Pryce was asked to drive for the Token F1 team, which had originally been planned as Dennis’s first F1 team with Motul backing in 1974. 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 3 race with Ippocampos Racing’s March 743. He won the race and this brought him to the attention of the Shadow F1 team for whom he scored points at the German GP that summer.

In 1975 he was third in Austria, fourth in Germany, sixth three times and qualified on pole for the British Grand Prix. Thus he ended the year as 10th in the World Championship. That year he also won the Race of Champions at Brands Hatch. He stayed with Shadow in 1976, getting a third place in Brazil and a couple of fourth places. Early in 1977 he was killed at Kyalami 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. He was killed instantly but the car went on down the main straight and crashed into the Ligier of Jacques Laffite who lucky to gat away unhurt.

Born: 11th of June 1949 in Ruthin, Wales;
Died: 5th of March 1977 at Kyalami circuit, South Africa.

11/6/1939, Sir John Young Stewart is born in Milton, Scotland.

After dominating F3 in Ken Tyrrell’s Cooper-BMC in 1964, Stewart turned down an offer from Lotus for the 1965 season, signed for BRM instead and ended up joining forces with Ken Tyrrell in F1, too. The Scotsan went on to win a record 27 wins and three World Championships, driving Matra, March and Tyrrell machinery. He was one of the few with the self-control to walk away from the driving side of the sport at his absolute peak.

More than any other racer, Jackie Stewart revolutionized safety standards with a remorseless crusade for circuit and car improvements, and was among the first to pioneer the use of safety belts and full-face helmets. Short-term unpopularity with circuit owners has long since been superseded by an enduring affection for the spring-heeled little Scot who, as the owner of Stewart Grand Prix, remained the perfect ambassador for the sport in which he so excelled, and a stylish and essential part of its fabric. Jackie Stewart was knighted in 2001.