Jean Behra
Nation: | France | ||||||||
Automobile world championship | |||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
First start: | 1952 Swiss Grand Prix | ||||||||
Last start: | 1959 French Grand Prix | ||||||||
Constructors | |||||||||
1951–1954 Gordini · 1955–1957 Maserati · 1958 BRM · 1959 Ferrari | |||||||||
statistics | |||||||||
World Cup balance: | World Cup fourth ( 1956 ) | ||||||||
|
|||||||||
World Cup points : | 51.143 | ||||||||
Podiums : | 9 | ||||||||
Leadership laps : | 101 over 400 km |
Jean Marie "Jeannot" Behra (born February 16, 1921 in Nice , † August 1, 1959 in Berlin ) was a French motorcycle and automobile racing driver .
Career
Between 1952 and 1959, Jean Behra competed in 52 races for the drivers' and Formula 1 world championships, he reached the podium nine times, but did not achieve first place. In races that were not part of the World Championship, however, he was several times winner.
Behra began his motorsport career in 1937 with motorcycle races . Between 1948 and 1951 he was French road champion four times in a 500 cc Moto Guzzi . In 1950 he made his debut on four wheels in the hill climb on Mont Ventoux . From June 1951 he started for Amédée Gordini's Gordini team . In 1952 he moved into the limelight for the first time when he won the 1952 Grand Prix de Reims, which was not part of the World Cup, in a defeated Simca-Gordini against the Ferrari of Farina and Ascari . At the Swiss Grand Prix in the same year , Behra came third behind the Ferrari of Piero Taruffi and Rudolf Fischer . Further victories in non-World Cup races followed, for example in Pau in 1954 .
From 1955 to the beginning of 1958, Jean Behra drove a Maserati with which he achieved several podium finishes, for example two second places at the 1956 and 1957 Grand Prix of Argentina and a few thirds. He was able to celebrate a number of victories at grands prix that were not part of the World Cup, for example in 1956 in Rome or 1957 in Pau, Modena or Morocco . Because almost all the stars were present in Morocco , this victory is considered his greatest.
In 1958 , Behra switched to BRM with high hopes , but they were bitterly disappointed. He often parked his car - not because it was broken, but simply not fast enough. Apart from a third place at the Dutch Grand Prix in 1958 , there were no good results. He was more successful in sports car races with Porsche , where, in addition to two victories in 1958, he also achieved third place in the Le Mans 24-hour race .
In 1959 Ferrari signed him in place of the resigned Mike Hawthorn . After a series of technical defects, most recently at the French Grand Prix , for which he had high hopes, he insulted and hit Ferrari racing director Romolo Tavoni in a fit of rage and was promptly dismissed.
Then Behra tried to continue as a private driver with his Behra-Porsche, which he had designed in Italy by Valerio Colotti using the Porsche RSK engine and Porsche chassis parts for Formula 2 and which had already been successfully driven by Hans Herrmann was. Behra wanted to start with the car at the German Grand Prix , which this time was held at the AVUS . Many drivers had safety concerns about this high-speed route, which only consisted of two 4 km long straights, a hairpin bend in the south and the steep, brick-walled curve in the north. Behra had a fatal accident in a sports car race on the Saturday before the Grand Prix: his car skidded on the wet north curve and collided with the concrete foundation of an anti-aircraft gun position from the war at the top of the curve. Behra was thrown his head against a flagpole and was dead on the spot.
In his honor, a race track near the French city of Nevers was named Circuit Jean Behra in 1961 . It was renamed Circuit de Nevers Magny-Cours in 1989.
His brother José was also a racing driver.
statistics
Statistics in the automobile world championship
general overview
season | team | chassis | engine | run | Victories | Second | Third | Poles | nice Race laps |
Points | WM-Pos. |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1952 | Equipe Gordini | Gordini T16 | Gordini 2.0 L6 | 6th | - | - | 1 | - | - | 6th | 11. |
1953 | Equipe Gordini | Gordini T16 | Gordini 2.0 L6 | 6th | - | - | - | - | - | - | NC |
1954 | Equipe Gordini | Gordini T16 | Gordini 2.5 L6 | 8th | - | - | - | - | 1 | 0.14 | 26th |
1955 | Officine Alfieri Maserati | Maserati 250F | Maserati 2.5 L6 | 6th | - | - | 1 | - | - | 6th | 9. |
1956 | Officine Alfieri Maserati | Maserati 250F | Maserati 2.5 L6 | 7th | - | 1 | 4th | - | - | 22nd | 4th |
1957 | Officine Alfieri Maserati | Maserati 250F | Maserati 2.5 L6 | 5 | - | 1 | - | - | - | 6th | 11. |
Maserati 2.5 V12 | 1 | - | - | - | - | - | |||||
1958 | Ken Kavanagh | Maserati 250F | Maserati 2.5 L6 | 1 | - | - | - | - | - | 9 | 11. |
Owen Racing Organization | BRM P25 | BRM 2.5 L4 | 9 | - | - | 1 | - | - | |||
1959 | Scuderia Ferrari | Ferrari Dino 246F1 | Ferrari 2.4 V6 | 3 | - | - | - | - | - | 2 | 17th |
total | 52 | - | 2 | 7th | - | 1 | 51.14 |
Single results
season | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4th | 5 | 6th | 7th | 8th | 9 | 10 | 11 |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1952 | |||||||||||
3 | DNF | 7th | 5 | DNF | DNF | ||||||
1953 | |||||||||||
6th | DNF | 10 | DNF | DNF | DNF | ||||||
1954 | |||||||||||
DSQ | DNF | 6th | DNF | 10 | DNF | DNF | DNF | ||||
1955 | |||||||||||
DNF / DNF / 6 | DNF / DNF | DNF / 5 | 6th | DNF | 4th | ||||||
1956 | |||||||||||
2 | 3 | 7th | 3 | 3 | 3 | DNF / DNF | |||||
1957 | |||||||||||
2 | 5 | DNF | 6th | DNF | DNF | ||||||
1958 | |||||||||||
5 | DNF | 3 | DNF | DNF | DNF | DNF | 4th | DNF | DNF | ||
1959 | |||||||||||
DNF | 5 | DNF | 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 |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
1950 | Automobiles Gordini | Gordini T15S | Roger Loyer | failure | ignition |
1951 | Equipe Gordini | Gordini T15S | Maurice Trintignant | failure | Engine failure |
1952 | Automobiles Gordini | Gordini T15S | Robert Manzon | failure | Brake defect |
1953 | Automobiles Gordini | Gordini T15S | Roberto Mieres | failure | Gearbox damage |
1954 | Automobiles Gordini | Gordini T24S | André Simon | failure | Ignition damage |
1956 | Automobiles Talbot | Talbot 2500 Sport | Louis Rosier | failure | accident |
1957 | Officine Alfieri Maserati | Maserati 450S | André Simon | failure | accident |
1958 | Porsche KG | Porsche 718 RSK Spyder | Hans Herrmann | 3rd place and class win | |
1959 | Scuderia Ferrari | Ferrari 250TR 59 | Dan Gurney | failure | Gearbox damage |
Sebring results
year | team | vehicle | Teammate | Teammate | placement | Failure reason |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1956 | Officine Alfieri Maserati | Maserati 300S | Piero Taruffi | Cesare Perdisa | Rank 5 | |
1957 | Maserati Factory | Maserati 300S | Juan Manuel Fangio | Overall victory | ||
1958 | Porsche KG | Porsche 718 RSK | Edgar Barth | failure | Power transmission | |
1959 | Scuderia Ferrari | Ferrari 250TR59 | Cliff Allison | Rank 2 |
Individual results in the sports car world championship
season | team | race car | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4th | 5 | 6th | 7th |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1953 |
Gordini Club Francia Amigos de la Panamericana |
Gordini T15S Gordini T24S |
SEB | MIM | LEM | SPA | ONLY | RTT | CAP |
DNF | DNF | ||||||||
1954 | Gordini | Gordini T24S | BUA | SEB | MIM | LEM | RTT | CAP | |
DNF | DNF | ||||||||
1955 | Maserati | Maserati 300S | BUA | SEB | MIM | LEM | RTT | TAR | |
DNF | |||||||||
1956 | Maserati |
Maserati 300S Maserati 150S |
BUA | SEB | MIM | ONLY | KRI | ||
3 | 5 | 20th | 1 | DNF | |||||
1957 | Maserati |
Maserati 300S Maserati 450S |
BUA | SEB | MIM | ONLY | LEM | KRI | CAR |
2 | 1 | DNF | 1 | DNF | |||||
1958 |
Fritz Huschke from Hanstein Porsche |
Porsche 550 Porsche 718 RSK |
BUA | SEB | TAR | ONLY | LEM | RTT | |
3 | DNF | 2 | DNF | 3 | 4th | ||||
1959 | Scuderia Ferrari | Ferrari 250TR | SEB | TAR | ONLY | LEM | RTT | ||
2 | DNF | 3 | DNF |
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Lothar Boschen, Jürgen Barth: The big book of Porsche special types and constructions. Technology on land, on water and in the air. From 1931 until today. Motorbuch-Verlag, Stuttgart 1984, ISBN 3-87943-805-6 , p. 19 u. 20th
- ↑ Helmut Sohre: Autosport. Stories and fortunes of the greats in auto racing. Friedr. Bassermann'sche Verlagsbuchhandlung, Munich 1967, p. 35 u. 36.
personal data | |
---|---|
SURNAME | Behra, Jean |
ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Behra, Jeannot |
BRIEF DESCRIPTION | French racing driver |
DATE OF BIRTH | February 16, 1921 |
PLACE OF BIRTH | Nice |
DATE OF DEATH | August 1, 1959 |
Place of death | Berlin |