Christian Heins

Alpine M63 , chassis 1703; crashed in the chassis 1702 Bino Heins at the 1963 24 Hours of Le Mans deadly

Christian "Bino" Heins (born January 16, 1935 in São Paulo ; † June 15, 1963 in Le Mans ) was a Brazilian racing car driver .

Family and origin

Christian Heins was born in São Paulo to a German father and an Italian mother. His father Carl Heinrich Christian Heins was a managing director in the chemical industry . His mother, Giuliana de Fiori, nicknamed him Bino , an abbreviation of Bambino (dt. Boy ). His maternal grandfather was a doctor known in his hometown who taught him how to drive and familiarized him with the technology of vehicles. After studying technology, he came to Europe for the first time to do an internship at Daimler AG in Stuttgart .

Career in motorsport

Christian Heins began his career at the age of 19. He was supported by Victor Losacco, a Brazilian motorsport pioneer who accompanied many young Brazilians of the 1940s and 1950s on their first attempts at sport. The first races took place in small regional races around his hometown. In May 1956 he celebrated his first class victory in a sports car race in Interlagos on a Porsche 356 . His first major success was second overall at the Mil Milhas Brasileiras in 1956 .

In 1958 he came to Europe again. His very first race start ended with a win. To the amazement of the spectators and the specialist journalists present, he won the hill climb in Bolzano and set a new course record . The previously completely unknown Brazilian was made German in the daily newspaper articles. A few weeks later he won the 10-hour race in Messina . The endurance race was on a street circuit in Messina, Sicily, and was considered to be particularly strenuous. Partner in the Porsche 550 was Paul-Ernst Strähle . After his victory at the Giro delle Calabria a few weeks later, everyone in the professional world was aware of his Brazilian citizenship and many journalists predicted a great future for him.

In the following years he switched back and forth between Europe and Brazil. In 1959 he made his debut at the Le Mans 24-hour race as a partner of Carel Godin de Beaufort ; the performance ended due to an engine failure on the Porsche 718 RSK . He drove a few races in the Italian Formula Junior Championship and won the Messina Grand Prix ahead of his compatriot Fritz d'Orey .

At home in Brazil, his overall win at the Mil Milhas Brasileiras in 1960 made him popular across the country. Although teammate Chico Landi was also Brazilian, it was considered his merit to have won the race on a Brazilian vehicle, a JK2000 from Fábrica Nacional de Motores . He finally became a popular hero after his overall victory at the 24-hour race in Interlagos in 1961 , which he drove again with Landi on an FNM JK2000.

His greatest success in the sports car world championship was fourth place in the 1960 1000 km race in Buenos Aires in a Maserati 300S .

Death at Le Mans

When Christian Heins accepted a factory commitment from Alpine at Le Mans in 1963 , he was already more of a team boss than a racing driver. In the meantime he had taken over the management of the racing department of Willys Overland Brazil , at that time the second largest car manufacturer in his home country. The company built Renault models under license and had good connections with Alpine. Heins wanted to retire after the race and came to France with his wife and child.

Heins contested the race with partner José Rosinski on an Alpine M63 . His death was the result of an engine failure at Aston Martin DP214 by Bruce McLaren after nearly five hours of racing. Due to the engine failure, the track just before the Mulsanne was smeared with oil. In a passage that is driven at full throttle, that was fatal. Since the marshals reacted far too late, there were three accidents in quick succession, including Roy Salvadori in the Jaguar E-Type Lightweight owned by Briggs Cunningham . When Heins got to the scene of the accident, the runway was littered with wreckage. He tried to evade at high speed and got off the track. The M63 hit a telegraph pole and went up in flames. Heins was unable to free himself and was rescued with serious burns. When he arrived at the hospital, only his death could be determined.

The death of the only 28-year-old Heins caused dismay and sadness in his home country. At Willys Overland vehicles were named after his nickname Bino, including a special edition of the Ford Corcel . A street near the Interlagos circuit got his name. Wilson Fittipaldi , whom Heins had inspired at a young age, gave his son the first name Christian.

statistics

Le Mans results

year	team	vehicle	Teammate	placement	Failure reason
1959	Baron Carel Godin de Beaufort	Porsche 718 RSK	Carel Godin de Beaufort	failure	Engine failure
1963	Société des Automobiles Alpine	Alpine M63	José Rosinski	failure	fatal accident from Heins

Individual results in the sports car world championship

season	team	race car	1	2	3	4th	5	6th	7th	8th	9	10	11	12	13	14th	15th	16	17th	18th	19th	20th	21st	22nd
1957	Scuderia Madunina Brasil	Porsche 550	BUA	SEB	MIM	ONLY	LEM	KRI	CAR
			DNF			DNF
1958	Porsche	Porsche 550	BUA	SEB	TAR	ONLY	LEM	RTT
								8th
1959	Helmut Busch Carel Godin de Beaufort	Porsche 356 Porsche 718 RSK	SEB	TAR	ONLY	LEM	RTT
					11	DNF
1960		Maserati 300S	BUA	SEB	TAR	ONLY	LEM
			4th
1963	Alpine	Alpine M63	DAY	SEB	SEB	TAR	SPA	MAY	ONLY	CON	ROS	LEM	MON	WIS	TAV	FRE	CCE	RTT	OVI	ONLY	MON	MON	TDF	BRI
												DNF

literature

• Christian Moity, Jean-Marc Teissèdre, Alain Bienvenu: 24 heures du Mans, 1923–1992. Éditions d'Art, Besançon 1992, ISBN 2-909413-06-3 .

Web links

Commons : Christian Heins  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• Christian Heins at Motorsport Memorial
• Christian Heins at Racing Sports Cars
• Christian Heins at Historic Racing

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Mil Milhas Brasileiras 1956
2. ↑ 10-hour race of Messina 1958
3. ^ Giro delle Calabria 1958
4. ↑ Mil Milhas Brasileiras 1960
5. ↑ 24-hour race of Interlagos 1961
6. ↑ Christian Heins and the Alpine M63 with start number 48 before and during the race
7. ↑ The burning M63
8. ↑ The completely burned-out wreck