Saturday 18th April 1942

Born on this day, Jochen Rindt, the only driver to posthumously win the Formula One World Drivers’ Championship (in 1970), after being killed in practice for the Italian Grand Prix. In 1969, Team Lotus founder Colin Chapman signed Rindt to partner reigning World Champion Graham Hill. The newcomer quickly out-paced his illustrious team mate, but the Lotus 49 was as fragile as it was fast. Jochen was leading the Spanish Grand Prix at Montjuich Park when his car’s high rear wing collapsed, pitching it into the wreckage of Hill’s Lotus, which had earlier crashed for the same reason. Hill was unhurt but Jochen suffered a concussion and a broken jaw and became an outspoken critic of Chapman’s cars, calling them unsafe as well as unreliable. However, he modified these views following his first championship victory: the 1969 United States Grand Prix at Watkins Glen. His first win of 1970, indeed the greatest of his short career, came at Monaco in the outdated Lotus 49, the new 72 model not yet being raceworthy. After languishing in fifth place for much of the race, the retirement of others promoted Rindt to runner-up, 15 seconds behind Jack Brabham driving one of his own cars. Scenting a whiff of victory, Rindt then proceeded to reel in the race leader by means of a thrilling, even frightening, charge that mesmerized all who saw it, including Brabham himself. Faster and faster Rindt went, smashing the lap record to smithereens. For the veteran Brabham, the sight of the wildly careening Lotus looming ever closer in his mirrors proved such a distraction that on the last corner of the last lap he crashed into the barriers. Jochen wept tears of joy as Prince Rainier and Princess Grace presented him with the winner’s trophy. In the next few weeks he wept at the deaths of two of his close friends – Bruce McLaren and Piers Courage. He began to consider retiring for family reasons, for Nina had presented him with a baby daughter, Natasha. Yet he drove as hard as ever and won four consecutive races, including the Dutch Grand Prix where Courage was killed, and also the French, British and German events. Then came the ill-fated day of September 5, 1970, when Jochen Rindt’s Lotus inexplicably ploughed into a guardrail at Monza during practice for the Italian Grand Prix. One of the first on the scene was his good friend and business manager Bernie Ecclestone, who came away with only two sad souvenirs: a battered helmet and a single shoe which had been thrown some distance from the wreckage. The fatal accident happened close to where his boyhood hero Wolfgang von Trips was killed in 1961. At that time the German was leading the championship, just as the Austrian was now. But while von Trips was later beaten to the title by his Ferrari team mate Phil Hill, even after his death no one was able to deprive Jochen Rindt of the championship he surely deserved.