Hans Herrmann
Nation: | Germany | ||||||||
Automobile world championship | |||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
First start: | 1953 German Grand Prix | ||||||||
Last start: | 1966 German Grand Prix | ||||||||
Constructors | |||||||||
1953 Hans Herrmann 1954 and 1955 Daimler-Benz AG 1957 Maserati - Scuderia Centro Sud 1958 Scuderia Centro Sud - Joakim Bonnier Racing 1959 Scuderia Centro Sud - British Racing Partnership 1960 Porsche System Engineering 1961 Porsche System Engineering - Ecurie Maarsbergen 1966 Roy Winkelmann Racing | |||||||||
statistics | |||||||||
World Cup balance: | Seventh World Cup ( 1954 ) | ||||||||
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World Cup points : | 10 | ||||||||
Podiums : | 1 | ||||||||
Leadership laps : | - |
Hans Herrmann (born February 23, 1928 in Stuttgart ) is a former German automobile racing driver .
The trained confectioner was one of the most versatile German pilots who competed in a wide variety of races on a wide variety of brands. His career ranges from working with pre-war players such as Mercedes racing director Alfred Neubauer to the beginning of Porsche dominance in the Le Mans 24-hour race . He started successfully in legendary long-distance races such as the Mille Miglia , Targa Florio and Carrera Panamericana and is one of the last contemporary witnesses from this era. In addition, Hans was involved in some spectacular, but minor accidents or actions.
The road to becoming a racing driver
As a 17-year-old Herrmann was drafted into labor service in 1945 and a short time later he was assigned to the Waffen SS. On the transport to the scene of the incident, he and four comrades managed to escape and to go to Stuttgart in civilian clothes. After the war he completed his apprenticeship as a pastry chef, but later did not practice the profession, although he was supposed to take over his mother's café.
After completing his apprenticeship, he bought a small BMW 3/20 (built from 1932 to 1934) with the help of his mother and used it to chauffeur a doctor to the patient. In 1947 Herrmann registered a license as a haulier, now with a 1.5-liter BMW, which he bought for 40,000 Reichsmarks and which he used as a kind of taxi company to transport people. His next cars were a 2-liter BMW and in 1951 a Porsche 356 1300. In February 1952 he took part in the 1st Hessian Winter Drive with the Porsche.
Career in motorsport
The beginning with Porsche
In 1952 Herrmann started a circuit race for the first time at the Nürburgring with his private Porsche (now with a 1500 cm³ engine) and won. As early as 1953 he was part of the Porsche works team and successfully participated a. a. in the Mille Miglia, which he finished with a class win. During this race across Italy in 1954 , he drew attention to himself with a spectacular action: When the rail barriers for the approaching express train to Rome were closed at the last moment, Herrmann could no longer brake. He and his co-driver Herbert Linge ducked into the cockpit of the flat Porsche 550 Spyder, and the car drove under the barriers just before the train. The result was another class win and sixth place in the overall classification.
Factory driver at Mercedes
For the 1954 Formula 1 season , the Mercedes works team, which had hired the best driver of the era in Juan Manuel Fangio , was looking for a young driver to supplement. Herrmann was invited to take a driver test at the Nürburgring in autumn 1953, where he achieved the best times out of five candidates. As the “third man”, however, he was overshadowed by the Argentine as well as by his older German colleague Karl Kling. New developments such as the undisguised Mercedes-Benz W 196 , which is advantageous for normal racetracks , were only made available to him later. His best performances include the fastest race lap at the French Grand Prix , where he was eliminated, while his teammates achieved a double victory in their debut race, as well as third place at the Swiss Grand Prix in 1954. Since Mercedes had not yet competed in sports car races at the factory in 1954 , he could also compete for Porsche and achieved a highly regarded third place in the Carrera Panamericana with the small-displacement car.
For the 1955 season, Mercedes also signed up Stirling Moss , who was also to compete in the new Mercedes-Benz 300 SLR sports car . At the first Formula 1 race of the year, under extreme heat in Argentina, Herrmann was still the second best Mercedes driver behind Fangio. At the Mille Miglia he was faster at times than the much-acclaimed winner Moss and was second for a while. But when refueling, the gas station attendant forgot to screw on the tank cap, which sprayed fuel into the cockpit. The special fuel threatened to eat away at clothing and skin, so that Herrmann and his co-driver Hermann Eger had to give up on the Futapass .
In an accident during training for the 1955 Monaco Grand Prix , he suffered serious injuries and could no longer compete for Mercedes before the factory withdrew from racing at the end of the season.
Great success as a long-distance driver
Herrmann initially remained a Porsche long-distance driver, but was determined to return to Formula 1. During training for the Targa Florio, he had an accident in a Ferrari . Nevertheless, he was invited to test drives, together with u. a. Wolfgang Graf Berghe von Trips . The race director instructed him to drive carefully, which Herrmann adhered to. The other drivers gave full throttle and posted better times. In retrospect, Herrmann is not at all unhappy about not having become a factory driver for the Italians, as several of them had fatal accidents and others like John Surtees suffered from intrigues within the team.
In the Formula 1 seasons 1957 to 1959 Herrmann was seen with moderate success on Maserati , Cooper and BRM. On the Berlin AVUS 1959, the BRM suffered brake failure at approx. 280 km / h in front of the south bend. Herrmann steered the BRM into the rain-soaked and therefore very heavy straw bales. The car rolled over in a high arc and Herrmann was thrown out. The photo, with the perplexed Herrmann sliding on the floor, the car whirling through the air, earned him the nickname “Hans im Glück” in view of the mild outcome.
In 1957 and 1958, Hans Herrmann also competed in the European Hill Climbing Championship with a Borgward 1500 RS and in 1957 he was runner-up.
He also achieved respectable results in endurance races (third place in the Le Mans 24-hour race in 1958) and in Formula 2 , each with models of the Porsche 718 . In view of the upcoming rule changes, according to which Formula 2 was to become Formula 1 from 1961 , Porsche took part in the 1960 Italian Grand Prix on a test basis with the F2 . With the inferior car, Herrmann did not get beyond sixth place on the high-speed track of Monza with the steep curves that were still used at the time, although the technically leading British teams boycotted the race.
Also in the Formula 1 season in 1961 , he was part of the Porsche teams. However, the somewhat clumsy four-cylinder Porsche 718 , which had been successful in the previous Formula 2, proved inferior to the new, slim designs of the Formula 1 teams. Porsche reduced the number of stakes, Herrmann was less involved, although last year he had overall victories at the Sebring 12-hour race (with Olivier Gendebien ) and at the Targa Florio (with Joakim Bonnier and Graham Hill ). Behind Dan Gurney and Bonnier, who had each won a Grand Prix in 1959, Herrmann saw themselves classified as third with no prospects. He left Porsche during the 1962 season. The Zuffenhausen-based company was able to achieve two Formula 1 victories this year with the new, slim eight-cylinder model Porsche 804 through Gurney (in the world championship round in Rouen-les-Essarts and on the domestic Solitude without world championship status), but it came to an end 1962 back from Formula 1.
From 1962 to 1965 Herrmann competed in long distance and hill climbs on the little Abarth without having any chance of overall victories in important races. With the small cars (GT and sports cars, 1000 to 2000 cm³) overall victories could only be achieved in less important circuit races such as the AVUS. Since his car was poorly prepared for the Schauinsland hill climb in August 1965, he did not start; that meant the break with Carlo Abarth .
In 1966, when he returned to the Porsche sports car team, the most successful phase of his career began; In addition to numerous podium finishes in the World Sportscar Championship he won in 1968 , the 24 Hours of Daytona . Overall victory in a 1000 km race on the Nürburgring , in which he had participated every time since the beginning of 1953, was still denied him. After winning the Le Mans 24-hour race by just 100 meters in the Porsche 908 in 1969, he crowned his long-distance career there in 1970 with his first overall victory for Porsche. In the pouring rain, he and Richard Attwood were able to prevail with the Porsche 917 K; only seven vehicles were rated in the end.
The time after the races
After this success, the 42-year-old retired from active racing, as previously promised to his wife. The year before, he wanted to compete in a Formula 2 car at the German Grand Prix at the Nürburgring , but did not start after the fatal training accident of his teammate and Stuttgart neighbor Gerhard Mitter .
Hans Herrmann remained connected to motorsport and promoted the youngsters in Formula Vee . He is a welcome guest at classic car meetings, especially at the wheel of historic racing cars.
On December 13, 1991, Hans Herrmann was kidnapped. He was released for a ransom. The case was reconstructed on film in the series Aktenzeichen XY… unsolved in September 1992, but remained unresolved.
The successful automotive accessories businessman Herrmann has also been a member of the “ Das Goldene Lenkrad ” jury for 30 years .
statistics
Statistics in the automobile world championship
general overview
season | team | chassis | engine | run | Victories | Second | Third | Poles | nice Race laps |
Points | WM-Pos. |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1953 | Hans Herrmann | Veritas Meteor | Veritas 2.0 L6 | 1 | - | - | - | - | - | - | NC |
1954 | Daimler-Benz AG | Mercedes-Benz W196 | Mercedes 2.5 L8 | 5 | - | - | 1 | - | 1 | 8th | 7th |
1955 | Daimler-Benz AG | Mercedes-Benz W196 | Mercedes 2.5 L8 | 1 | - | - | - | - | - | 1 | 22nd |
1957 | Scuderia Centro Sud | Maserati 250F | Maserati 2.5 L6 | 1 | - | - | - | - | - | - | NC |
1958 | Scuderia Centro Sud | Maserati 250F | Maserati 2.5 L6 | 1 | - | - | - | - | - | - | NC |
Jo Bonnier | Maserati 250F | Maserati 2.5 L6 | 2 | - | - | - | - | - | |||
1959 | Scuderia Centro Sud | Cooper T51 | Maserati 2.5 L4 | 1 | - | - | - | - | - | - | NC |
British Racing Partnership | BRM P25 | BRM 2.5 L4 | 1 | - | - | - | - | - | |||
1960 | Porsche System Engineering | Porsche 718 | Porsche 1.5 F4 | 1 | - | - | - | - | - | 1 | 28. |
1961 | Porsche System Engineering | Porsche 718 | Porsche 1.5 F4 | 2 | - | - | - | - | - | - | NC |
Ecurie Maarsbergen | Porsche 718 | Porsche 1.5 F4 | 1 | - | - | - | - | - | |||
1966 | Roy Winkelmann Racing | Brabham BT18 | Ford 1.0 L4 | 1 | - | - | - | - | - | - | NC |
total | 18th | - | - | 1 | - | 1 | 10 |
Single results
season | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4th | 5 | 6th | 7th | 8th | 9 | 10 | 11 |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1953 | |||||||||||
9 | |||||||||||
1954 | |||||||||||
DNF | DNF | 3 | 4th | DNF | |||||||
1955 | |||||||||||
4th | DNQ | ||||||||||
1957 | |||||||||||
DNQ | DNF | ||||||||||
1958 | |||||||||||
DNF | DNF | 9 | |||||||||
1959 | |||||||||||
DNF | DNF | ||||||||||
1960 | |||||||||||
6th | |||||||||||
1961 | |||||||||||
9 | 15th | WD | 13 | ||||||||
1966 | |||||||||||
11 | |||||||||||
1969 | |||||||||||
DNS |
Legend | ||
---|---|---|
colour | abbreviation | meaning |
gold | - | victory |
silver | - | 2nd place |
bronze | - | 3rd place |
green | - | Placement in the points |
blue | - | Classified outside the point ranks |
violet | DNF | Race not finished (did not finish) |
NC | not classified | |
red | DNQ | did not qualify |
DNPQ | failed in pre-qualification (did not pre-qualify) | |
black | DSQ | disqualified |
White | DNS | not at the start (did not start) |
WD | withdrawn | |
Light Blue | PO | only participated in the training (practiced only) |
TD | Friday test driver | |
without | DNP | did not participate in the training (did not practice) |
INJ | injured or sick | |
EX | excluded | |
DNA | did not arrive | |
C. | Race canceled | |
no participation in the World Cup | ||
other | P / bold | Pole position |
SR / italic | Fastest race lap | |
* | not at the finish, but counted due to the distance covered |
|
() | Streak results | |
underlined | Leader in the overall standings |
Le Mans results
year | team | vehicle | Teammate | placement | Failure reason |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
1953 | Porsche KG | Porsche 550 Coupe | Glöckler helmet | Rank 16 | |
1954 | Porsche KG | Porsche 550/4 RS 1500 Coupé | Helmut Polensky | failure | Engine failure |
1956 | Porsche KG | Porsche 550A / 4 | Umberto Maglioli | failure | Engine failure |
1957 | Porsche KG | Porsche 550A RS | Richard von Frankenberg | failure | ignition |
1958 | Porsche KG | Porsche 718 RSK Spyder | Jean Behra | 3rd place and class win | |
1959 | Porsche KG | Porsche 718 RSK | Umberto Maglioli | failure | ignition |
1960 | Porsche KG | Porsche 718/4 | Maurice Trintignant | failure | ignition |
1961 | Porsche System Engineering | Porsche 718/4 RS Spyder | Edgar Barth | Rank 7 | |
1962 | Porsche System Engineering | Porsche 356B Abarth | Edgar Barth | Rank 7 and class win | |
1966 | Porsche System Engineering | Porsche 906 / 6L Carrera 6 | Herbert Linge | Rank 5 | |
1967 | Porsche System Engineering | Porsche 907 / 6L | Joseph Siffert | 5th place and class win | |
1968 | Porsche System Engineering | Porsche 908 | Joseph Siffert | failure | Clutch damage |
1969 | Porsche System Engineering | Porsche 908L | Gérard Larrousse | Rank 2 and class win | |
1970 | Porsche Austria | Porsche 917K | Richard Attwood | Overall victory |
Sebring results
year | team | vehicle | Teammate | Teammate | placement | Failure reason |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1956 | Porsche KG | Porsche 550 Spyder | Wolfgang von Trips | Rank 6 and class win | ||
1957 | Porsche Company | Porsche 550 RS | Jack McAfee | failure | Gearbox damage | |
1960 | Joakim Bonnier | Porsche 718 RS | Olivier Gendebien | Overall victory | ||
1961 | Porsche car | Porsche 718 RS 61 | Edgar Barth | failure | Engine failure | |
1963 | Abarth Corse | Abarth-Simca 1300 Bialbero | Mauro Bianchi | failure | Engine failure | |
1966 | Porsche System Engineering | Porsche 906 | Joe Buzzetta | 4th place and class win | ||
1967 | Porsche car | Porsche 910 | Joseph Siffert | Rank 4 | ||
1968 | Porsche Automobile Co. | Porsche 907 2.2 | Joseph Siffert | Overall victory | ||
1969 | Porsche System Engineering Ltd. | Porsche 908/02 | Kurt Ahrens | Rolf Stommelen | failure | Chassis broken |
1970 | Porsche Audi | Porsche 917K | Rudi Lins | failure | accident |
Individual results in the sports car world championship
literature
- Frank Wiesner: Hans Herrmann story. Motorbuch-Verlag, Stuttgart 2008, ISBN 978-3-613-02871-5 .
- Bernhard Völker, Tobias Aichele (Ed.): Hans Herrmann. A life for racing. Motorbuch Verlag, Stuttgart 1998, ISBN 3-613-01880-2 .
- Helmut Sohre, Hans Herrmann: Hans Herrmann - I survived. Motorbuch Verlag, Stuttgart 1971.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ ( page no longer available , search in web archives: faszination-oldtimer.de )
personal data | |
---|---|
SURNAME | Herrmann, Hans |
BRIEF DESCRIPTION | German racing driver |
DATE OF BIRTH | February 23, 1928 |
PLACE OF BIRTH | Stuttgart |