Christine Beckers

Christine Beckers (1978)

Christine Beckers (born December 4, 1943 in Brussels ) is a former Belgian circuit and rally driver who also contested her races under the pseudonym Christine and worked for many years as a motorsport journalist.

Career

First successes

Christine Beckers began racing in the mid-1960s. Her first racing car was an NSU Prinz , with which she competed in national rallies in France and Belgium in 1966. She contested her first big race a year later. The 24-hour race of Spa-Francorchamps is the second well-known international 24-hour race for automobiles in Europe after the 24-hour race of Le Mans . The race at Le Mans was held for the first time in 1923 ; the race at Spa made its debut a year later . After a long break - after the race in 1953 there was no event of this kind for ten years - a long-distance race was held again from 1964 . In contrast to the previous years, however, only for touring cars . In 1967 Christine Beckers also took part in this race and formed a women's duo with the Frenchwoman Marie-Claude Charmasson . With an NSU 1000TTS they only achieved 23rd place in the overall standings, but they were the first women's team to cross the finish line and make it into the final ranking in this race.

The connection with Alfa Romeo

The collaboration with Alfa Romeo was decisive for the Belgian’s further career . First signed by Alfa Romeo Belgium in 1968 for touring car races and rallies, she soon became a works driver in the racing department in Milan and in 1970 a team member at Autodelta . The relationship with Alfa Romeo began in 1968 and ended at the end of the 1971 racing season. She competed in various racing classes with the Alfa Romeo GTA .

She competed in rallies and circuit races and occasionally also hill climbs . In 1969 she competed in the Monte Carlo Rally . It wrote motorsport history in 1970. After finishing fourth in the overall standings in the races in Monza and Brno, which were part of the European Touring Car Championship , she achieved third place in the overall standings at the 6-hour race at the Nürburgring . She was the first woman in the history of the Nordschleife of the Nürburgring to climb the top three podium in a race. Her team partner was Teodoro Zeccoli .

Sports car racing

After the end of the relationship with Alfa Romeo, Beckers turned increasingly to sports car racing from 1971. In the Tour de France for automobiles , she drove a Porsche 911SC in eighth place overall; she could not win the women's championship because she did not have a female co-driver. From 1972 she drove in the sports car world championship and competed a total of four times in the Le Mans 24-hour race; among others in 1976 in the factory inaltera together with Jean Rondeau and Jean-Pierre Jaussaud . Her last sports car race was in 1980 when she retired with a defect at the Spa-Francorchamps 24-hour race .

NASCAR

She was the first European woman in a Sprint Cup race of the NASCAR went to the start. In 1977 she drove a Ford at the Firecracker 400 at Daytona International Speedway . She finished the race 37th overall.

Dakar Rally

The Belgian also competed several times in the Dakar Rally . She achieved her best result in 1980 when she finished seventh in the car classification and won the Coupe de Dames.

Private

After the end of her racing career, she adopted two children and worked for many years as a journalist in the Formula 1 scene . Her partner Roger Dubos had a fatal accident in the 1973 Spa-Francorchamps 24-hour race .

statistics

Le Mans results

year	team	vehicle	Teammate	Teammate	placement	Failure reason
1973	Blancpain Total Dinitrol	Chevron B21 / 23	Roger Dubos	Pierre Pagani	failure	Injection pump
1974	Ecurie Seiko	Chevron B23	Yvette Fontaine	Marie Laurent	17th place and class win
1976	Inaltera	Inaltera LM	Jean-Pierre Jaussaud	Jean Rondeau	Rank 21
1977	Inaltera	Inaltera LM77	Lella Lombardi		Rank 11

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
1971	Ennio Bonomelli	Porsche 911	BUA	DAY	SEB	BRH	MON	SPA	TAR	ONLY	LEM	ZEL	WAT
							DNF		DNF
1973	Dinitrol Total	Chevron B21	DAY	VAL	DIJ	MON	SPA	TAR	ONLY	LEM	ZEL	WAT
							9			DNF
1974	Christine Becker's Seiko Scato	Chevron B21 Chevron B23 Chevron B26	MON	SPA	ONLY	IMO	LEM	ZEL	WAT	LEC	BRH	KYA
				DNF	17th		17th	DNF
1975	Chappée	Chevron B23	DAY	MUG	DIJ	MON	SPA	BY	ONLY	ZEL	WAT
							DNF
1977	Inaltera	Inaltera LM	DAY	MUG	DIJ	MON	SIL	ONLY	VAL	BY	WAT	EST	LEC	MOS	IMO	SAL	BRH	HOK	VAL
			47
1979	ADP Computer Service	Chevrolet Camaro	DAY	SEB	MUG	VALLEY	DIJ	RIV	SIL	ONLY	LEM	BY	DAY	WAT	SPA	BRH	ROA	VAL	ELS
															DNF
1980	Their Automotive Kredietbank Racing	BMW M1 VW Scirocco	DAY	BRH	SEB	MUG	MON	RIV	SIL	ONLY	LEM	DAY	WAT	SPA	MOS	ROA	VAL	DIJ
			47											DNF

Web links

Commons : Christine Beckers  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Information about Christine Beckers
• Circuit racing results

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Christine Beckers and the Alfa Romeo GTA
2. ↑ 6-hour race at the Nürburgring 1970
3. ↑ Christine Beckers third in the 6-hour race at the Nürburgring in 1970
4. ↑ History of Dakar - RETROSPECTIVE 1979-2007. (PDF) dakar.com, archived from the original on May 21, 2011 ; accessed on February 16, 2019 . 
5. ↑ 1980 Christine BECKERS / Thierry GéRIN / Marc STINGLHAMBER - RANGE ROVER V8 n ° 177. dakardantan.com, accessed February 16, 2019 .