The Champion That Never Saw the Final Flag Fall

By
at Internationaled.org

Published: January 15, 2011

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Many unenviable statistics exist in Formula 1. David Kennedy holds the record of the most DNQ's without ever managing to qualifying. Claudio Langes holds the record for the most DNPQ's without qualifying.

There are some tragic statistics exist too with more than a driver per season being killed for the first two decades of the sport as a championship. My focus for this piece is a statistic that, considering the sports well earned reputation for danger is surprising and tragic.

In the whole history of the sport there has only ever been one posthumous world driver's champion. The man was Jochen Rindt and he was the 1970 World Formula One drivers champion. His death prevented him from taking part in the last four races of the thirteen race season.

Yet, he still won the championship by five points.

The way Rindt drove is illustrated by his career statistics. Out of his 60 race starts, he retired 35 times. He was fast but did make mistakes and put a lot of pressure of his machinery. He was always fast and that is a hallmark of a champion.

Before his championship winning season Rindt only had two season of any real note. In 1966 he was a consistent runner securing a couple of podiums but never won. He finished third in the title race in his Cooper and people had taken notice.

In 1969 he earned his first career win for the Lotus team winning at the United States Grand Prix. 1969 was plagued with retirements like many of his other seasons but that first win did seem to give him some extra confidence heading into 1970.

In the other seasons of his career which began in with a single outing in Austria in 1964 nearly all the time his season was destroyed by his consistent failure to make it to the end

The Austrian, Rindt, won five races in 1970 in Holland, Britain, France, Germany and Monaco. Incredibly that was the only po...
Article Source: Bleacher Report - Formula 1

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