John
Surtees

John Surtees was born on 11 February 1934 in Tatsfield in the United Kingdom. His father ran a motorcycle business in south London and competed in grasstrack racing. At 14, Surtees rode in the sidecar of his father's Vincent in a race, and at 16 he started an apprenticeship at the Vincent factory. From 1952 to 1960 he competed in Grand Prix motorcycle racing, won seven world titles, four of them in the 500cc class with MV Agusta, and took 38 Grand Prix victories.

In 1960 he moved to car racing full-time and made his Formula One debut with Lotus. He finished second in only his second World Championship race, the British Grand Prix, and took pole position in his third, in Portugal. After a year with Cooper and another with Lola, he joined Ferrari in 1963 and became World Champion in 1964. He remains the only driver to have won world championships on both two and four wheels.

In September 1965 he had a serious accident in practice for a sports car race at Mosport in Canada. In 1966 he led the Monaco Grand Prix for Ferrari until his engine failed, and two weeks later he won the Belgian Grand Prix in a rain-hit race. After a dispute over the driver line-up for the Le Mans 24 Hours he left Ferrari, finished the season with Cooper by winning the final race, and took second place in the championship. That year he also won the inaugural Can-Am series, with three victories in six races.

With Honda he won the 1967 Italian Grand Prix by 0.2 seconds, the manufacturer's second Formula One victory, and finished fourth in the championship. He drove for BRM in 1969 and for McLaren in 1970, when he also founded his own team, the Surtees Racing Organisation, which ran until 1978. He retired as a driver in 1972. In all, he started 111 races, winning six, standing on the podium 24 times and taking eight pole positions. His son Henry also became a racing driver and died in a Formula 2 race at Brands Hatch in 2009. John Surtees died on 10 March 2017.

Source: Wikipedia, “John Surtees”. Text licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.