Brett
Lunger

Brett Lunger was born on 14 November 1945 in Wilmington in the United States. He was not brought up as a motor racing enthusiast and came to the sport in 1965, when a friend took him to a race. In 1966 he finished eighth in the Nassau Trophy in the Bahamas, and in 1968 he entered a Lola T160 in the Can-Am series. He also served in the US Marines.

In the early 1970s he raced in Formula 5000. In 1971 he was third in the L&M Continental 5000 Championship, and that year he took his first major win in the Minnesota Grand Prix at Brainerd. He was third again in 1972, with wins at Road Atlanta and Lime Rock. Mechanical problems left him seventh in 1973. In the same year he won twice in England's Rothmans series, at Snetterton and Mallory Park, in a Trojan run by Sid Taylor Racing. In 1974 he drove for Dan Gurney's Anglo American Racers and finished fifth in the US championship. He also raced in the European Formula Two Championship in 1972 and 1973, with a fourth place at Mantorp Park as his best result.

Lunger competed in Formula One from 1975 to 1978. He drove for Hesketh in 1975, finishing 13th on his debut at the Austrian Grand Prix and tenth at the Italian Grand Prix. In 1976 he moved to Surtees. At the German Grand Prix at the Nürburgring he was one of the drivers, along with Guy Edwards, Arturo Merzario and Harald Ertl, who helped Niki Lauda out of his burning Ferrari. In 1977 he began the season in a March and switched to a McLaren M23 after three races. He stayed with McLaren in 1978 and made a single appearance for Ensign at the end of the year. His best World Championship results were two eighth places in 1978, at the British Grand Prix at Brands Hatch and at the Austrian Grand Prix. He never scored a championship point. Of his 43 entries, 34 resulted in a start. He mostly drove older cars prepared by small independent teams.

Lunger left Formula One at the end of 1978 and returned to sports car racing in the United States. In 1977 he had finished second in the Six Hours of Watkins Glen with George Follmer in a Porsche 935 entered by Vasek Polak, and in 1979 he took third in the Los Angeles Times six-hour race with Follmer and Derek Bell. He also worked as a journalist for CBS, covering races such as the 1979 South African Grand Prix. In addition, he wrote a series of workbooks on responsibility and founded the organisation Responsibility Today.

Source: Wikipedia, “Brett Lunger”. Text licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.