Remembering Switzerland’s first F1 winner

“As soon as the race ended I ran through the tunnel into the pitlane. I saw Rob Walker walking towards me with tears down his face.”

Former Autosport editor Simon Taylor was at the 1971 World Championship Victory Race at Brands Hatch when Jo Siffert was killed. Although the 35-year-old Swiss was a BRM driver, Taylor knew that there was a special relationship between Siffert and the successful privateer team boss.

“I didn’t know ‘Seppi’, as everyone called him, but people who knew him well adored him,” adds Taylor. “Rob was able, because he was an extraordinarily nice man, to have wonderful relationships with his drivers. But with Siffert there was real affection. It was a very special relationship.”

Siffert had driven for Walker’s team between 1965 and 1969, and it was perhaps fitting that he should forge his Formula 1 career as part of a privateer squad, given his own hard work to get into motorsport.

Although born into a family with a small dairy business, times were invariably tough for the young Siffert, born in Fribourg on 7 July 1936. Siffert found many ways to make extra money, including collecting old paper to sell, cleaning bicycles, being a rag merchant and – having overheard a conversation between two soldiers in a cafe – digging up spent cartridges to sell on.

The two Swiss F1 drivers, Jo Siffert, March and Clay Regazzoni, Ferrari

Photo by: David Phipps

He was not particularly successful at school, a situation not helped by a near-fatal bout of diphtheria when he was seven, but he had a knack for doing deals and persuading people to help him.

A trip to the 1948 Grand Prix of Europe at Berne fired his motorsport interest. And he settled on his patriotic helmet design early on, inspired by Benoit Musy, a driver also from Fribourg who had impressed Siffert in a modified sportscar race at Berne.

As a child, Siffert showed an affinity with wheeled transport, driving the family car around the farm, and first started competing in motorcycle races. He proved rapid and became a national champion, but was also hard on the equipment and garnered a reputation as a risk-taker following several scrapes.

He showed promise, most notably beating reigning world champion Jim Clark in the sensational 1964 Mediterranean GP at Enna-Pergusa, but joining Walker’s team was the key step

After becoming an apprentice at the Frangi coachbuilding works, Siffert started a road-car business that helped him fund his fledgling career. Initially he raced a Formula Junior Stanguellini in 1960 and then a Lotus 18 the following year. Wins came quickly and he took the 1961 European Formula Junior title, shared with Tony Maggs.

Remarkably, he then stepped up into F1 in 1962. For the next three seasons he would appear in many F1 races, initially for Ecurie Nationale Suisse and then Ecurie Filipinetti before going it alone.

He showed promise, most notably beating reigning world champion Jim Clark in the sensational 1964 Mediterranean GP at Enna-Pergusa, but joining Walker’s team was the key step. Siffert’s first world championship F1 podium came as early as the 1964 United States GP, a race of attrition in which he’d had to finish the race stuck in fifth gear, and more strong drives in 1965 cemented his place in the team. That was crucial when Walker had to downsize to one car for the 1966 season, Siffert being selected over veteran Jo Bonnier.

Jo Siffert, March 70 MEX 05

Photo by: Motorsport Images

Siffert remained an underdog in F1 for several seasons, but it was a different matter in sportscars, where he attracted the attention of Porsche. As the banning of the big bangers made the German firm consistent overall contenders, Siffert became its lead driver. And in 1969 he formed one of the great partnerships, alongside Brian Redman, the duo sweeping to five wins in the first nine world championship races before Siffert took the fearsome 917’s first major victory with Kurt Ahrens Jr at the Osterreichring.

“Seppi was fun-loving, business-minded and of course, very quick,” recalls Redman, now 84.

“If I don’t win, Porsche doesn’t win either,” Siffert is reported to have said after Jacky Ickx’s late defeat of Hans Herrmann at Le Mans in 1969. Porsche must have felt that he had a point, since it funded his move to the March F1 team for 1970 to prevent him joining Ferrari. It was a development Walker supported, even though it meant losing the driver who had given him his ninth – and final – world championship race victory in the 1968 British GP.

Walker’s purchase of a Lotus 49 had helped make the spectacular Siffert a frontrunner in F1. As well as the Brands Hatch victory, he had starred at the Mexico City finale, then added podiums at Monaco and Zandvoort the following year. The former came despite the camshaft being broken at one end, putting one of the two valves for the last cylinder out of action, while the latter came after a charge from 10th on the grid.

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So Siffert started 1970 as a GP winner, one of the world’s leading sportscar drivers, and with Porsche and March deals. But the season didn’t entirely go to plan.

The March 701 was not particularly brilliant – even Jackie Stewart would only win one world championship race in it – and the situation with Porsche got complicated. The JW Automotive Engineering team had taken over the running of the manufacturer’s world sportscar project. Siffert and Redman were ‘Porsche’s’ drivers, while Pedro Rodriguez and Leo Kinnunen were ‘JWA’s’. A fierce rivalry with Rodriguez began, one in which Siffert was on the losing side more often than he would have liked.

Neither were great test drivers; both were tough racers. They’d battled hard at the Spa 1000Km in 1969, when Rodriguez was a Ferrari driver, and at the same race in 1970 they touched through Eau Rouge at the start disputing the lead. Thanks to Redman’s pace and trouble for the Rodriguez/Kinnunen car, Siffert won, but it was usually Rodriguez who did the winning in the 917.

Jo Siffert, March 701 Ford

Photo by: Motorsport Images

“Pedro and Joseph got on perfectly well but not for too long; pointed in the same direction their characters were too strongly defined for them ever to be real friends,” reckoned Siffert’s mate and assistant Jacques Deschenaux in his 1972 book Jo Siffert.

“It was because the qualities of the Mexican driver were so similar to his own that Pedro was his great rival.”

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Was Siffert still tough on the equipment? In the Gulf film A Year to Remember on the 1970 sportscar season, JWA boss John Wyer seemed torn: “Seppi is a natural charger. His one idea of motor racing is to get in front and stay there. If there is a car in front, Seppi has to pass it if he can.

“This causes us no problem because it’s desirable to have one driver of this type in the team
and in the shorter races it may be essential. In the longer races he may sometimes drive harder than is strictly necessary, but he doesn’t ask more from the car than it should be able to stand.”

“In terms of outright speed, there was little difference between Seppi and Pedro, but I feel Pedro was more sympathetic with the car and perhaps more thoughtful” Brian Redman

In the same film, Siffert gave his own view on what inspired him: “When I am driving I must pass all cars, Ferrari or Porsche of my own team, it’s all the same. I must pass even if the chief of the team is not always happy.”

Redman, who lost the 1970 Le Mans 24 Hours because Siffert missed a gearchange and blew up their 917’s engine, says: “In terms of outright speed, there was little difference between Seppi and Pedro, but I feel Pedro was more sympathetic with the car and perhaps more thoughtful. I don’t like to say this as it seems disloyal to my great driving partner.”

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Aside from the Spa victory, Siffert and Redman also won the Targa Florio (with a 908/3) and Osterreichring 1000Km (917K), but Seppi ended the 1970 F1 season with no points.

Siffert joined Rodriguez at BRM for 1971, making the two rivals team-mates in both F1 and endurance events. Once again Siffert tended to play second fiddle, but was thrust into the team leader role when Rodriguez was killed at the Norisring in July.

Jo Siffert, BRM P160

Photo by: David Phipps

Deschenaux felt this hit Siffert hard: “Joseph felt out on his own. At both BRM and John Wyer, he felt charged with a heavier burden.”

Nevertheless, his performances, particularly with BRM, indicated he was back to his best without the need to beat Rodriguez. He dominated the Austrian GP and was a leading contender in the epic Italian GP slipstreamer (eventually won by team-mate Peter Gethin) until his P160 got stuck in fourth gear.

“Jo was a very, very good driver – undemanding, not a technical driver,” says BRM designer Tony Southgate. “When Pedro got killed, Jo took over as number one and was immediately quicker. It was obviously a difference for him; we didn’t do anything different.”

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Siffert was ninth following a spin in the wet Canadian GP, but he signed a new contract with BRM for 1972 and, with Porsche withdrawing from world sportscar racing thanks to the incoming three-litre regulations, looked set to join Alfa Romeo.

He was then second to Francois Cevert in the championship-closing US GP, enough for him to take fifth in the drivers’ table. BRM also finished second in the constructors’ table, its best result since 1965.

The Victory Race, to celebrate Stewart’s second world title, was the final F1 event of the year and Siffert’s 41st race of 1971. He took pole, with Gethin matching his time for a BRM 1-2.

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Siffert made a poor getaway but was working his way back to the front when a mysterious failure pitched the BRM into the bank approaching the high-speed Hawthorn right-hander.

The car took off and burst into flames as it landed. Apparently already knocked unconscious, Siffert had no chance of survival.

Nearly 50,000 people attended his funeral in the city of Fribourg, the cavalcade appropriately including a 917.

Deschenaux summed up Siffert in the final line of his book: “Racing was his life and death, and he was happy.”

Jo Siffert, BRM P160, BRM team manager Tim Parnell

Photo by: David Phipps

BRM designer Tony Southgate on the cause of Siffert’s fatal crash

“I was on holiday in Tenerife when Seppi was killed. On my return, I inspected the charred remains of the car in the factory. We hadn’t had any trouble with the car or funny handling. We’d left all the problems behind, so I was baffled.

“I couldn’t find anything that caused it. We couldn’t check the tyres as they’d burned away. But a year later I found out.

“At Monza, Peter Gethin went off in practice for no reason and came into the pits slowly. His face was white and the left-front tyre was flat – it had obviously been quite a moment. It had just turned right and we thought the left-front tyre had gone flat. But when we took it to Firestone they said there was nothing wrong with the tyre and we could use it again if we wanted.

“Then I remembered that when we first switched to Dunlop [in 1969] the tyres had been very tight on the rims and Dunlop had been reluctant to change the tyre mould. So a minute amount was skimmed off the wheels so we could get the tyres on and off. When we changed to Firestone that was long forgotten and the tyres were made perfectly to the required standard, so were a little loose.

“I concluded that the tyre beads were allowing air to escape and the tyre deflate even though there was no puncture. All F1 cars in those days used bolsters [special bolts] to keep the tyre in the wheel rims when cornering due to the very wide rims and low tyre pressures being used.

“It appears that the tyre bead seat could move in between the bolsters when cornering at maximum G-force, thereby allowing a rapid deflation of the tyre. I think that happened at Brands.”

British Racing Motors designer Tony Southgate, Pedro Rodriguez, British Racing Motors, Jo Siffert, British Racing Motors

Photo by: David Phipps