Stefan
Johansson

Stefan Johansson was born on 8 September 1956 in Växjö. He started in karting and won the Swedish championship in 1973. In Formula Ford he took the Swedish title in 1977 and 1979. He raced in British Formula Three from 1978 to 1980 and won the championship in his final year with Ron Dennis's Project Four team. That same year he made his Formula One debut with Shadow, but failed to qualify in either Argentina or Brazil. In 1982 he drove for Spirit in the European Formula Two Championship and finished eighth overall.

He returned to Formula One with Spirit in 1983, making six starts, with seventh place in the Dutch Grand Prix as his best result. In 1984 he joined Tyrrell from the British Grand Prix as a replacement for the injured Martin Brundle. He then stood in for Johnny Cecotto at Toleman and finished fourth at Monza. In 1985 he began the year at Tyrrell and moved to Ferrari after René Arnoux was sacked following the opening race. At the San Marino Grand Prix he took the lead two laps from the end, but ran out of fuel. He was second in both Canada and Detroit. He stayed at Ferrari for 1986 and finished fifth in the World Championship, his best final position.

In 1987 he partnered Alain Prost at McLaren. With five podiums, including second place behind Prost in Belgium, he ended the year sixth in the standings. In 1988 he drove for Ligier, whose car with a naturally aspirated Judd engine was uncompetitive. He scored no points, failed to qualify six times and finished ninth twice. In 1989 he took third place for the new Onyx team in Portugal, which remained the team's only podium. Onyx dropped him after the 1990 Brazilian Grand Prix, and in 1991 he made his last appearances for AGS and Footwork. In total he made 80 starts from 103 entries and stood on the podium twelve times without winning a race.

From 1992 to 1996 Johansson raced in CART, won the Rookie of the Year title in 1992 and took his first pole position at Portland in 1993. As in Formula One, he remained without a win in CART. He made 73 starts and also contested the Indianapolis 500 from 1993 to 1995. In the 1996 race at Toronto he was involved in an accident in which Jeff Krosnoff and a track marshal lost their lives. After the end of his CART career in 1996 he went back to sports car racing and won the 1997 12 Hours of Sebring in a Ferrari 333 SP. Later that year he won the 24 Hours of Le Mans in the Joest Porsche WSC-95 with Michele Alboreto and Tom Kristensen. He also founded an Indy Lights team in 1997 and ran his own team in CART in 2003.

Source: Wikipedia, “Stefan Johansson”. Text licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.