While most of the top 8W answers drop in during the last days of competition sometimes a good answer arrives very early. That is what happened this month. An answer by Tom Prankerd was so well to the point that every attempt trying to repeat that performance seemed just a waste of time. So I asked our chief editor what to do myself on the subject of one of my all-time favourite drivers. He gave me this answer: “Write what your heart tells you”. And that’s why this text differs a bit from the normal format. A unique answer to honour a unique driver!
Estoril 1985. A race that brings back memories. The rain. Prost spinning in the grass. Senna taking the flag a minute in front of Alboreto with the rest of the field a lap down. For most of you the race will perhaps be remembered as the beginning – the beginning of Senna’s long line of victories. For me who had followed the name Ayrton Senna da Silva in the results lists with interest from March 1981 onwards it was instead an end – the time when I could sit down and relax saying to myself: “I knew it! I was right after all! There were hundreds of drivers to choose from and I picked the right one.” It was perhaps the most satisfying moment ever for me as a Formula 1 fan.
And almost unnoticed to most a certain Tyrrell driver had advanced from his 21st position on the grid to finish sixth for his first “legal” championship points. A sensation? Not really! After all this was the man who won his very first F2 start on a rainy Silverstone, the man who had followed that up with a second F2 victory, a unique achievement in the F2 annals, the man who had challenged Prost and Senna on a rainy Monaco day.
Hardly ever have I looked forward to the season opener as I did in 1984. There was my favourite Niki Lauda who at the last race of 1983 in South Africa had showed that he would be back challenging for the championship. And there were the two newcomers Senna and Bellof, my selection as the stars of the future. Senna started his first race 16th on the grid with a 600bhp Toleman-Hart turbo, Bellof 22th in a 510bhp Tyrrell-Cosworth. At the end of the first lap Senna had advanced to 13th but Bellof was already right behind him and on the second lap the German passed the Brazilian. Just like that.
“There are lies, damned lies and statistics.” Looking in the books I find the following: Stefan Bellof, GP starts 20, GP wins 0, Pole Positions 0, Fastest laps 0, Best qualifying 16th, Points 4. Bah!
There are texts that in a much better way give you Bellof’s Formula 1 career in a nutshell. “Senna was catching Prost but Bellof was catching both of them and could well have won the Monaco Grand Prix if the race had been allowed to run longer.” Variants of that text are to be found in the books whenever Bellof is mentioned. But has it really occurred to you all what it really means?
Bellof had qualified 20th and dead last, 3.5 seconds slower than Prost and over a second slower than Senna. And yet I have never, ever, heard or read anywhere that “he couldn’t have done it”. One can find comments like “he would probably have crashed before the end” or so but never any doubts about that he had the ability to do it. Think about it again. Catching and passing four-times Monaco winner Alain Prost in his McLaren. A piece of cake? And then catching Ayrton Senna… with an inferior car… and pass him… at Monaco… in the rain…
People have sometimes compared Gilles Villeneuve to Bernd Rosemeyer. While we have a good idea of what kind of people modern Grand Prix drivers are and how they look and behave, the image of the old veterans sometimes becomes a bit blurred. Often they remain just names and statistics, sometimes accompanied by a black and white photo. It was therefore with great interest I looked at an old post-race interview with Bernd Rosemeyer (Coppa Acerbo 1937). And my first impression was: Hey! He’s not like Gilles at all! He’s like Stefan Bellof! The same relaxed appearance on the edge of nonchalance, the same shy smile, the laughing, the same almost childish enthusiasm.
Whatever the Fangio, Ickx, or Stewart fans may say, for me Bernd Rosemeyer will forever be the master of Nürburgring. In his Porsche-designed Auto Union he led every time he raced there. It is therefore significant to me that one of my sharpest memories of Bellof is from the last race at the old ‘Ring when he threw the big Porsche around the track in a way that is indescribable. Bellof became sportscar world champion in 1984. The races that year were often decided early, as Bellof used to open up an uncatchable gap on the first stint. At the Nürburgring in 1983 however, he would end up at Pflanzgarten, the car a wreck, the driver standing nearby, smiling as usual.
While every death on the race track is a horrible experience there are some that seem to be even more depressing than the others. You cannot find anything consoling in Clark’s crash at Hockenheim, racing as a backmarker in an insignificant F2 race. Or a highly frustrated Ascari who left the pits without his blue helmet and never returned. Or a bitter Villeneuve at Zolder trying to beat Pironi’s time. Or Rosemeyer at a cold January morning on a deserted German highway forced do a thing he hated and feared.
Or Imola 1994. At least Senna was where he should be, up there, leading the field. A paltry consolation, the only little positive thing from that weekend we can find in our desperate search for something…
To me Bellof’s death came just as a few lines in a newspaper. A hard fact thrown into the face. Later details came and changed part of the grief into amazement. He tried to do what? Trying to pass Jacky Ickx, the master of sportscars, for the lead of the race at Eau Rouge! At Eau Rouge of all places!?
Autocourse tells about the reaction among the Formula 1 teams: “Given Bellof’s exuberant style, there was a reluctant acceptance of what had happened.”
Stefan went through his life with a smile on his lips and I’m sure he that he, unlike the drivers mentioned above, was really enjoying the race to its fullest the moment he went into Eau Rouge. So instead of thinking with grief of what might have been, just try to remember with a smile the moments of brilliance we were fortunate enough to see. I think Stefan Bellof deserves to be remembered that way.
Info from
