Mike Beuttler

Mike Beuttler

Nation:	United Kingdom
Automobile world championship
First start:	Great Britain Grand Prix 1971
Last start:	1973 USA Grand Prix
Constructors
1971–1973  March (Clarke-Mordaunt-Guthrie Racing)
statistics
World Cup balance:	no World Cup placement
Starts Victories Poles SR 28 - - -
World Cup points :	-
Podiums :	-
Leadership laps :	-

Michael "Mike" Beuttler (born August 13, 1942 in Cairo ( Egypt ), † December 29, 1988 in San Francisco ) was a British racing driver .

Career

Beuttler was born in Cairo during World War II. His father was at the front as an officer in the British Army at the time. When the war ended, the family returned to England. Mike Beuttler worked in a small British racing team in his youth and was also able to sit behind the wheel of a racing car at times.

But it wasn't until the age of 24 that the Briton made his debut in a racing car. He drove in the Formula Libre championship. In 1969 he rose to the British Formula 3 championship . In the following year (1970) he celebrated his first victories and ended up third in the overall standings of the Formula 3 championship. In 1971 he was promoted to the Formula 2 European Championship . Despite a victory in Vallelunga , he only came seventh in the European Championship due to numerous failures due to defects.

March team boss Max Mosley noticed him and provided him with a private March for four races in the 1971 Formula 1 World Championship . Beuttler started for the first time at the Grand Prix of Great Britain in Silverstone on a March 711-Cosworth, but he dropped out in the race. The Grand Prix of Germany, Austria, Italy and Canada did not go well either. For 1972 Beuttler found new sponsors and was able to contest the entire season with his private March. After an excellent second place in the Jim Clark trophy , which is not part of the world championship , Beuttler experienced another unsatisfactory and pointless automobile world championship. His best placement was eighth in the German Grand Prix at the Nürburgring .

In 1973 Mike Beuttler had to contest the season with a model from the previous year ( March 721 ) because he could not find any new sponsors. Nevertheless, at the Spanish Grand Prix in Jarama, he only just missed sixth place and thus one World Championship point. In Anderstorp he came in eighth again. At the Austrian Grand Prix he achieved the best training result of his Formula 1 career with an eleventh place on the grid. But after the start he was kicked out of the race by Mike Hailwood after a collision.

Despite good performances with the defeated March, Beuttler did not find a new cockpit in Formula 1 in 1974. After 28 Grand Prix races, he ended his career in the premier class of motorsport.

In 1974 he still contested a few sports car races with some success. But motorsport had become too dangerous for him - not least because of the many fatal accidents (including Roger Williamson and François Cevert ). So Mike Beuttler decided to end his racing career and retired with his family to California. There the brother-in-law of the politician Alan Clark died on December 29, 1988 after a long illness in a hospital in San Francisco.

statistics

Statistics in the automobile world championship

Single results

season	1	2	3	4th	5	6th	7th	8th	9	10	11	12	13	14th	15th
1971
						DNF	DSQ	NC	DNF	NC
1972
			DNQ	13	DNF	DNF	13	8th	DNF	10	NC	13
1973
	10 *	DNF	NC	7th	11 *	DNF	8th		11	DNF	16	DNF	DNF	DNF	10

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

Individual results in the sports car world championship

season	team	race car	1	2	3	4th	5	6th	7th	8th	9	10
1970	Nick Gold	Porsche 910	DAY	SEB	BRH	MON	TAR	SPA	ONLY	LEM	WAT	ZEL
					11
1974	Paulenco Racing	March 74S	MON	SPA	ONLY	IMO	LEM	ZEL	WAT	LEC	BRH	KYA
											DNF

literature

• Steve Small: Grand Prix Who's Who, 3rd Edition . Travel Publishing, London 2000, ISBN 1-902007-46-8

Web links

Commons : Mike Beuttler  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Mike Beuttler at Racing Sports Cars