Jochen Rindt: Formula One's Austrian Wonder
Born in the German city of Mainz on 18th April, 1942, Karl Jochen Rindt grew up in Graz, Austria, under the guardianship of his grandparents after his affluent parents died (a legacy of World War II) when Jochen was only a baby. A venturesome lad, Jochen appeared resolute on challenging the rules from a very young age as he unceasingly looked for ways to satiate his ever expanding thirst for pace and contention. Karl Jochen injured himself more than once in school sporting competitions, and later when he took up motor sporting, initially on a moped and then on bikes, the aspiring Austrian either triumphed or collided. On public roadways, Jochen was a road hog who very often found himself on the wrong side of the police rule book. The Austrian’s reckless spirit instigated his suspension from quite a few private schools and his conservative and cultured grandparents feared for their daredevil grandson’s future.
Jochen Rindt contrived to take on a studiously dishevelled appearance and had a demeanour that could sometimes border on the caustic. The Austrian would often tie his bedraggled shoes with bits of string rather than laces. His blunt conversation style together with his facial appearance made Karl Jochen come across as a rather disconcerting personality. Extr-ordinarily self-assured and highly driven, the Austrian determined to soar to the very zenith of motorsport while he was still a teenager.
Jochen Rindt grew up idolising Count Wolfgang von Trips, the upper-class German motor-racer whose untimely death in 1961 at the Monza grid did little to pacify Rindt’s passion. He started competing on touring cars and then advanced to single-seaters, where Rindt smashed around regularly and became a frequent causality at hospitals. Yet such impediments merely strengthened the Austrian’s resolve to improve hone his skills further. Rindt’s initial stint at more meaningful formula cars came courtesy of his own funds. The Austrian made a trip to Britain in 1964 and purchased himself a Formula Two Brabham for a staggering 4000 pounds. It was Rindt’s second Formula Two outing when the British media announced the renowned Graham Hill to have been humbled by “an unknown Austrian” at Crystal Park.
The boisterous Rindt soon became a force to be reckoned with in the cut-throat competitive Formula Two series. In 1965 he joined hands with the Cooper Formula One squad on a three-year deal. While the Cooper cars were far from state-of-art for that era, the Ferrari sports machines undoubtedly were. Paired alongside Masten Gregory from America, Rindt raced a Ferrari 250LM to triumph at the Le Mans 24 Hour race in 1965.
The Austrian dragged the incompetent Coopers for two more years before embarking on a one year spell on the equally unpredictable Brabham. In 1969, Rindt made a move to Colin Chapman’s Lotus where was to race alongside prevailing World Champion Graham Hill. The Austrian was able to overshadow his teammate immediately, but the Lotus 49’s impressive speed was paralleled by its notable fragility. The Austrian was at the forefront of the competition at the 1969 Spanish Grand Prix when a broken component from his vehicle sent both the driver and the car smashing into the shattered remains of his teammate’s Lotus which had become victim to similar circumstances only a while earlier in the race. Whereas Hill had emerged from his accident wholly unscathed, Rindt was not so lucky and experienced a concussion. However, he recovered from the incident quickly to seal his first championship triumph at the 1969 U.S. event at Watkins Glen.
Rindt recorded his initial win of the 1970 run at the Monaco Grand Prix in the outmoded Lotus 49, for the latest 72 make was not yet fit for competition. In a thriller of a run, the Austrian wrecked the defences to take the most significant victory of his brief career before going on to emulate the feat at season’s French, German and British Grand Prix’s. This was followed by the ill-omened 5th September, 1970, qualifying session at Monza where Jochen Rindt’s Lotus unaccountably collided into the guardrail, taking his life. But even though the Austrian virtuoso was no more, nothing could deny him the 1970 World Championship title which he so richly merited.
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