Racing Drivers’ Death Roll Rises

Press, Volume XCVIII, Issue 28963, 3 August 1959, Page 11

Racing Drivers’ Death Roll Rises

(Rec. 10 p.m.) LONDON, August 2. The racing drivers’ death roll rose again yesterday when two leading drivers died. At Berlin, the Frenchman Jean Behra was killed when his Porsche car left the track on a bend, went into a spin and crashed into a flat post. At Clermont Ferrand, in France, the British driver Ivor Bueb died from injuries he received in a crash last Sunday.

Behra and Bueb bring the racing death roll to at least 11 in the last four years. Other leading drivers who have been killed include Alberto Ascari (killed 1955); Ken Wharton, the Marquis de Portago (1957): Archie ScottBrown, Luigi Musso, Peter Collins, Peter Whitehead and Stuart Lewis-Evans <1958); and Mike Hawthorn (1959) Behra left the Avus track on the steep northern bend during the Grand Prix of Berlin race for sports cars up to 1500 c.c. His car went into a spin and was seen burning by spectators on the grandstand about 250 yards away The track was wet after drizzling rain. The German Grand Prix course is said to be one of the fastest in Europe, consisting of two long parallel stretches of autobahn. The steep banks at the end of the courst.which are nearly vertical have been dubbed “the wall of death” by racing drivers. dace officials said Behra’s car crashed onto a flog post on top of the northern curve and then fell down on the other side of the bend. Behra was dead before reaching the nearby hospital. People on the grandstand shouted “Schluss, schluss” (“put

an end to it”) when Behra’s car crashed, but the race went on. Stirling Moss, the British driver, told Reuters in reply to questions earlier this afternoon that the Avus track was not suited for world championships. “I think it is boring and dangerous; the northern bend is especially dangerous,” he said. A hospital doctor said Behra died instantaneously of a fractured skull Most of his ribs had been broken. The Porsche driven by Behra had been privately entered. Immediately after the crash the race organisers went into a closed meeting and refused to comment. The race was won by Graf Berhe von Trips in a Porsche 150 u c.c.

Before the race was half over only six of the total of 12 cars which started were left. Bueb died in hospital last night from injuries received when he crashed while driving a Cooper Borgward in a Formula II race at the Auvergne circuit on July 26. Bueb, who was 35, was rushed to hospital with internal injuries and had been on the danger list throughout the week. In 1955 he was co-driver with the late Mike Hawthorn in winning the Le Mans 24-hour race.