Carel
Godin de Beaufort

Carel Godin de Beaufort was born on 10 April 1934 in Maarsbergen in the Netherlands, into a noble family. He raced as a privateer and ran his cars in the Dutch racing colour of orange under the Ecurie Maarsbergen name, which came from his country estate. In 1956 he made his debut at the 24 Hours of Le Mans, sharing a car with Wolfgang Seidel. He won his class there in 1957 and finished fifth overall in 1958. In four further appearances between 1959 and 1963 he retired every time.

He made his World Championship debut at the 1957 German Grand Prix in a Porsche RS550. In 1958 he took part in the Dutch and German Grands Prix. His outings in 1959 and 1960 were few, with Maserati and Porsche in 1959 and Cooper in 1960. In 1961 he contested six races in his Porsche 718.

He scored his first championship points in 1962 with sixth places in the Netherlands and France, and finished the season 17th in the standings. In 1963 he repeated the feat in Belgium and the United States and ended the year 14th. He was the first Dutch driver to score points in the Formula One World Championship. In 1963 he also finished on the podium in three non-championship races, at Syracuse, Rome and in Austria. In total he made 28 World Championship starts, without a win or a championship podium.

Godin de Beaufort died on 2 August 1964 following an accident in practice for the German Grand Prix at the Nürburgring.

Source: Wikipedia, “Carel Godin de Beaufort”. Text licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.