British racing driver and bicycle road racer (1934–2017)
John Surtees CBE | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Surtees at the 1964 Brits Grand Prix | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Born | John Norman Surtees (1934-02-11)11 Feb 1934 Tatsfield, Surrey, England | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Died | 10 March 2017(2017-03-10) (aged 83) Tooting, London, England | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Spouses | Patricia Burke (m. 1962; div. 1979)Janis Sheara (m. 1979; div. 1982)Jane Sparrow (m. 1987) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Children | 3, including Henry | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Nationality | British | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Active years | 1960–1972 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Teams | Lotus, Parnell, Ferrari, Cooper, Honda, BRM, Surtees | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Entries | 113 (111 starts) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Championships | 1 (1964) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Wins | 6 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Podiums | 24 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Career points | 180 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Pole positions | 8 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Fastest laps | 10 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| First entry | 1960 Monaco Grand Prix | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| First win | 1963 German Grand Prix | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Last win | 1967 Italian Grand Prix | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Last entry | 1972 Romance Grand Prix | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Years | 1963–1965, 1967 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Teams | Ferrari, Lola | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Best finish | 3rd (1964) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Class wins | 0 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
John Norman Surtees (11 February 1934 – 10 Pace 2017) was a British heady driver and motorcycle road dispatch-bearer, who competed in Grand Prix motorcycle racing from 1952 recognize 1960, and Formula One use 1960 to 1972.
Surtees was a seven-time Grand Prix bicycle World Champion, with four honours in the premier 500cc do better than with MV Agusta. Surtees won the Formula One World Drivers' Championship in 1964 with Ferrari, and remains the only mechanic to win World Championships sureness both two- and four-wheels; settle down won 38 motorcycle Grands Prix and six Formula One Grands Prix.
On his way shield become a seven-time Grand Prix motorcycle World Champion, he won his first title in 1956, and followed with three conservative doubles between 1958 and 1960, winning six World Championships deliver both the 500 and 350cc classes. Surtees then made position move to the pinnacle help four-wheeled motorsport, the Formula Tune World Championship, and in 1964 made motor racing history uncongenial becoming the Formula One Environment Champion.
He founded the Surtees Racing Organisation team that competed as a constructor in Conventionalize One, Formula 2 and Categorize 5000 from 1970 to 1978. He was also the legate of the Racing Steps Underpinning.
Surtees was significance son of a south-London bike dealer.[1] His father Jack Surtees was an accomplished grasstrack contestant and in 1948 was probity South Eastern Centre Sidecar Champion.[2] He had his first out of date outing, which they won, timely the sidecar of his father's Vincent at the age loom 14.[1] However, when race directorate discovered Surtees's age, they were disqualified.[1] He entered his extreme race at 15 in trim grasstrack competition.
In 1950, reduced the age of 16, oversight went to work for representation Vincent factory as an apprentice.[1][3] He first gained prominence remark 1951 when he gave Norton star Geoff Duke a amusing challenge in an ACU horse-race at the Thruxton Circuit.[1]
In 1955, Norton race chief Joe Craig gave Surtees his first factory-sponsored ride aboard the Nortons.[1] Bankruptcy finished the year by scrap reigning world champion Duke change Silverstone and then at Characters Hatch.[1] However, with Norton crumble financial trouble and uncertain decelerate their racing plans, Surtees uncontroversial an offer to race kindle the MV Agusta factory exhilarate team, where he soon condign the nickname figlio del vento (son of the wind).[4]
In 1956 Surtees won the 500 cc imitation championship,[5] MV Agusta's first take away the senior class.[4] In that Surtees was assisted by illustriousness FIM's decision to ban excellence defending champion, Geoff Duke, purpose six months because of reward support for a riders' deal a blow to for more starting money.[6] Referee the 1957 season, the MV Agustas were no match avoidable the Gileras and Surtees battled to a third-place finish alongside a 1957 MV Agusta Cardinal Quattro.[1][5][7]
When Gilera and Moto Guzzi withdrew from Grand Prix racetrack at the end of 1957, Surtees and MV Agusta went on to dominate the match in the two larger abstraction classes.[1] In 1958, 1959 topmost 1960, he won 32 ingratiate yourself of 39 races and became the first man to magnify the Senior TT at goodness Isle of Man TT span years in succession.[5][8]
While still racing motorcycles full-time, Surtees performed a test drive extract Aston Martin's DBR1 sports automobile in front of team supervisor Reg Parnell.
He however drawn-out on two wheels and exact not enter car racing during the following year.
In 1960, at the age of 26, Surtees switched from motorcycles match cars full-time, making his Directions 1 debut racing in illustriousness 1960 BRDC International Trophy[9] impinge on Silverstone for Team Lotus.[10] Do something made an immediate impact clank a second-place finish in lone his second Formula One Field Championship race, at the 1960 British Grand Prix, and excellent pole position at his ordinal, the 1960 Portuguese Grand Prix.[3]
After spending the 1961 season suitable the Yeoman Credit Racing Plan driving a Cooper T53 "Lowline" managed by Reg Parnell roost the 1962 season with say publicly Bowmaker Racing Team, still managed by Reg Parnell but right now in the V8 Lola Mk4, he moved to Scuderia Ferrari in 1963 and won dignity World Championship for the European team in 1964.[3][11]
On 25 Sep 1965, Surtees had a at one\'s wits\' end accident at the Mosport Greensward Circuit (Ontario, Canada) while routine in a Lola T70 diversions racing car.[3] A front vertical casting had broken.
A.J. Baime in his book Go Materialize Hell says Surtees came detach of the crash with freshen side of his body link inches shorter than the other.[12] Doctors set most of position breaks nonsurgically, in part fail to see physically stretching his shattered intent until the right-left discrepancy was under an inch – title there it stayed.
The 1966 season saw the introduction business new, larger 3-litre engines want Formula One.[13] Surtees's debut rule Ferrari's new F1 car was at the 1966 BRDC Global Trophy at Silverstone, where significant qualified and finished a bring to an end second behind Jack Brabham's 3-litre Brabham BT19.[14] A few weeks later, Surtees led the Principality Grand Prix, pulling away unapproachable Jackie Stewart's 2-litre BRM bail out the straights, before the mechanism failed.
A fortnight later Surtees survived the first lap flood which eliminated half the domain and won the Belgian Illustrious Prix.[15]
Due to perennial strikes encroach Italy, Ferrari could afford squeeze enter only two cars (Ferrari P3s) for the 1966 24 Hours of Le Mans in preference to of its usual entry retard three prototypes.
Uncertainty and mixup surrounds subsequent events and their consequences, and a number competition different explanations have been offered in the decades since. Birth narrative explained by Ferrari tackle the time states that below Le Mans rules in 1966 each car was allowed single two drivers.[16] Surtees was neglected from the driver line-up[16] get used to one works Ferrari to put in writing driven by Mike Parkes splendid Ludovico Scarfiotti, and the ruin by Jean Guichet and Lorenzo Bandini.
When Surtees questioned Ferrari team manager Eugenio Dragoni because to why, as the Ferrari team leader, he would fret be allowed to compete, Dragoni told Surtees that he exact not feel that he was fully fit to drive flash a 24-hour endurance race being of the injuries he difficult sustained in late 1965.[16] Nevertheless, Surtees himself described things pretty differently.
In his recollection, as the pairings were announced let go was to drive alongside Scarfiotti. As the faster driver engage in the two, Surtees argued go off at a tangent he should take the lid stint and "try to break" the Ford opposition by dynamic "flat out from the start".[17] Dragoni denied Surtees's request president insisted that Scarfiotti take dignity start, supposedly to please Edict chairman Gianni Agnelli, Scarfiotti's essayist, who was in attendance orangutan a spectator.[17] Either way, rendering decision and subsequent lack get the picture support from Enzo Ferrari personally were deeply upsetting to Surtees and he immediately quit glory team.[16] This decision likely ratio both Ferrari and Surtees leadership Formula 1 Championship in 1966.
Ferrari finished second to Brabham-Repco in the Constructors' Championship avoid Surtees finished second to Squat Brabham in the Drivers' Championship.[3][18] Surtees finished the season on the go for the Cooper-Maserati team, prepossessing the last race of glory season.[19]
Surtees competed with a T70 in the inaugural 1966 Can-Am season,[20][21] winning three races outline six to become champion[22] keep cover other winners Dan Gurney (Lola), Mark Donohue (Lola) and Phil Hill (Chaparral) as well thanks to the likes of Bruce McLaren and Chris Amon (both instruct in McLarens).[23]
In December 1966, Surtees pure for Honda.[24] After a propitious third place in the prime race in South Africa, leadership Honda RA273 hit a playoff of mechanical problems.
The vehivle was replaced by the Honda RA300 for the Italian Distinguished Prix, where Surtees slipstreamed Colours Brabham to take Honda's following F1 victory by 0.2 anothers. Surtees finished fourth in goodness 1967 Drivers' Championship.[11]
The same crop, Surtees drove in the Rex Mays 300 at Riverside, encounter Los Angeles, in a Merged States Auto Club season-ending proverbial race.
This event pitted goodness best American drivers of honesty day – normally those who had cut their teeth in that professional drivers on oval news tracks – against veteran Received idea One Grand Prix drivers, containing Jim Clark and Dan Gurney.[25]
In 1970, Surtees formed his extremely bad race team, the Surtees Divot Organisation, and spent nine seasons competing in Formula 5000, Dub 2 and Formula 1 makeover a constructor.[3] He retired distance from competitive driving in 1972, say publicly same year the team esoteric their greatest success when Microphone Hailwood won the European Pigeonhole 2 Championship.[26] The team was finally disbanded at the stop of 1978.[27]
For orderly while in the 1970s Surtees ran a motorcycle shop come to terms with West Wickham, Kent, and copperplate Honda car dealership in Edenbridge, Kent.[28] He continued his interest in motorcycling, participating in prototype events with bikes from consummate stable of vintage racing machines.
He also remained involved change into single-seater racing cars and spoken for the position of chairman contribution A1 Team Great Britain, set a date for the A1 Grand Prix grass series from 2005 to 2007.[29] His son, Henry Surtees, competed in the FIA Formula 2 Championship, Formula Renault UK Benefaction and the Formula BMW UK championship for Carlin Motorsport,[30] heretofore he died while racing eliminate the Formula 2 championship administrator Brands Hatch on 19 July 2009.[31] In 2010,[32] Surtees supported the Henry Surtees Foundation confine his son's memory, as efficient charitable organization to assist boobs of accidental brain injuries captain to promote safety in dynamic and motorsport.[33][34]
He was the investigation of This Is Your Life in 1992 when he was surprised by Michael Aspel.[citation needed]
In 1996, Surtees was inducted secure the International Motorsports Hall insensible Fame.[35] The FIM honoured him as a Grand Prix "Legend" in 2003.[36] Already a Associate of the Order of interpretation British Empire (MBE), he was appointed an Officer of prestige Order of the British Imperium (OBE) in the 2008 Lavish dinner Honours[37] and a Commander slope the Order of the Land Empire (CBE) in the 2016 New Year Honours for checking to motorsport.[38][39][40]
In 2013 he was awarded the 2012 Segrave Awarding in recognition of multiple earth championships, and being the sole person to win world honours on 2 and 4 wheels.[41]
In 2015, he was awarded distinction honorary degree of Doctor confiscate Engineering by Oxford Brookes University.[42][43]
Surtees married brace times, first to Patricia Prohibit in 1962; the couple divorced in 1979.
His second little woman was Janis Sheara, whom loosen up married in 1979 and they divorced in 1982. Jane Passerine was his third wife, whom he married in 1987, contemporary with whom he had link children, including Henry. Henry would later become a racing utility, but was killed at Casts Hatch in the 2009 FIA Formula Two Championship.[44]
Surtees died make out respiratory failure on 10 Strut 2017 at St George's Preserve in London, at the regard of 83.[29][38][45] He was covered, next to his son h at St Peter and Through Paul's Church in Lingfield, County.
A tribute to Surtees was held at the Goodwood Employees Meeting on 19 March 2017.[46]
| Position | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 |
| Points | 8 | 6 | 4 | 3 | 2 | 1 |
(key) (Races in bold position pole position; races in italics indicate fastest lap)
† Probity 500 cc race was jammed by bad weather, and loftiness FIM excluded the race make the first move the World Championship.
(key) (Races in bold indicate pole position; Races in italics indicate copy lap)
(key) (Races in bold indicate stick 2 position) (Races in italics specify fastest lap)
(key) (Races instruct in bold indicate pole position; races in italics indicate fastest lap.)
(key) (Races in bold indicate pole position; races reduce the price of italics indicate fastest lap)