Willi Faust

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BMW RS 54 replica

Willi Faust (born January 1, 1924 in Oberbimbach ; † November 27, 1992 in Fulda ) was a German motorcycle racer .

Together with Karl Remmert (1925–1956) he started on a BMW in the sidecar class .

Career

Willi Faust came from Oberbimbach near Fulda . After attending elementary and technical school, he completed an apprenticeship as a locksmith and discovered his enthusiasm for motorcycles . After his return from the war in which he was serving in the Navy, Faust began racing motorcycle races. He started successfully in the first unofficial races in Dipperz and around Petersberg . In 1951 he started with Karl Remmert in Kassel for the first time as an ID driver in a team. In 1953, the two of them moved to the license driver camp and competed on a machine that they had bought for 3,000  marks from Wilhelm Noll , who wanted to stop racing at the time.

1954 saw the breakthrough for Faust / Remmert. The Fulda motorsport legend Hans Kahrmann had managed to convince BMW of the qualities of the two and to get them to deliver an RS 54 . Faust / Remmert made their debut in the motorcycle world championship at the 1954 Swiss Grand Prix in Bremgarten . They immediately took third place behind their German BMW brand colleagues Wilhelm Noll / Fritz Cron and the British Cyril Smith / Bob Clements ( Norton ). A little later, at the Grand Prix of Nations on the Monza high-speed railway , the sequence at the finish was the same. Faust / Remmert secured third place in the world championship behind Noll / Cron and Smith / Clements.

In the German championship the two finished second behind Noll / Cron and in front of Fritz Hillebrand / Manfred Grunwald. At the Feldberg race they drove series tires from the Fulda tire works and came third. The last two races of the championship, Rund um Schotten and the Eilenriederennen , were won by Faust / Remmert. At the run in Schotten, the duo relegated the BMW works teams Walter Schneider / Hans Strauss and Noll / Cron to their places in the drizzle.

Her great success year was 1955. Although Faust / Remmert early June at the Isle of Man TT had a serious accident, they both German Champion (Victory in Schotten, when were Solitude race on the Solitude in Stuttgart and at the Norisring ) and world champion before Noll / Cron and Schneider / Strauss or Manfred Grunwald, all on BMW. Three Grand Prix victories went to her account: at the Spanish Grand Prix in Montjuïc , at Germany on the south loop of the Nürburgring and at the Dutch TT in Assen, the Netherlands .

Faust was not superior to the other team drivers because of better material, but because of his driving style. He knew how to leave his competitors behind by drifting heavily into curves.

However, Willi Faust and Karl Remmert could not enjoy their success for long. On April 20, 1956, they tried out a new BMW trailer prototype at the Hockenheimring . The front wheel was equipped with a new, more powerful brake system that was not yet coordinated with the brakes on the rear wheel and sidecar. The fully faired machine blocked on the third test drive on a straight, level stretch. Faust and Remmert were thrown out, the machine whirled through the air. While Faust was flying over a lane boundary fence, Remmert fell into the wire fence and was dead on the spot. Faust survived seriously injured, was in a coma for six weeks and never competed in a race again.

Then Willi Faust ran a petrol station in Fulda until 1973. He died in 1992 at the age of 68.

statistics

title

In the motorcycle world championship

season class machine Co-driver Victories Podiums Points Result
1954 Sidecar BMW GermanyGermany Karl Remmert 0 2 8th 6th
1955 Sidecar BMW GermanyGermany Karl Remmert 3 4th 30th World Champion

literature

  • Michael Mott : World motorcycle champions Willi Faust and Karl Remmert, in: "Fuldaer Köpfe" (Vol. I), Parzellers Buchverlag Fulda, 2007; ISBN 978-3-7900-0396-3 , pp. 288-291.

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Faust, Willi
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German motorcycle racer and world champion
DATE OF BIRTH January 1, 1924
PLACE OF BIRTH Oberbimbach
DATE OF DEATH November 27, 1992
Place of death Fulda