Jo
Siffert

Jo Siffert was born on 7 July 1936 in Fribourg, Switzerland. At the age of twelve he went with his father to watch the 1948 Swiss Grand Prix at the Bremgarten circuit in Bern, and it was there that he decided he wanted to become a racing driver. He began on two wheels and won the Swiss 350 cc motorcycle championship in 1959, then moved to cars in Formula Junior with a Stanguellini.

Siffert reached Formula One in 1962 as a privateer, driving a four-cylinder Lotus-Climax. He later raced for Scuderia Filipinetti and in 1964 joined Rob Walker's private team, the Rob Walker Racing Team. In non-championship Formula One races he won the Mediterranean Grand Prix in 1964 and 1965, each time by a very small margin over Jim Clark. Between 1962 and 1971 he drove cars built by Lotus, Brabham, Cooper, March and BRM, making 96 starts from 100 entries. He took two wins, six podium finishes and two pole positions.

His first World Championship win came at the 1968 British Grand Prix at Brands Hatch. Driving the Rob Walker team's Lotus 49B, he held off Chris Amon's Ferrari after a battle that lasted the whole race. He finished that season seventh in the championship. He raced for March in 1970 and for BRM in 1971, the team where Pedro Rodriguez also drove. With BRM he won the Austrian Grand Prix at the Österreichring and finished fifth in the championship, his best final position.

Siffert was also a Porsche works driver in sports car racing. In 1968 he won the 24 Hours of Daytona and the 12 Hours of Sebring with Hans Herrmann in a Porsche 907. The Porsche 917 brought him further major victories in Europe, and in 1969 he finished fourth in the Can-Am championship in a 917PA. In 1970 he won the Targa Florio with Brian Redman in a Porsche 908/3.

Siffert died on 24 October 1971 in the World Championship Victory Race at Brands Hatch, a non-championship event, at the circuit where he had won his first World Championship race. His BRM crashed after a suspension failure and caught fire. The accident led to a rapid improvement in safety, with on-board fire extinguishers and piped air to the driver's helmet becoming mandatory. About 50,000 people attended his funeral in Switzerland.

Source: Wikipedia, “Jo Siffert”. Text licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.