Jo Schlesser
A true all-rounder and as brave as they come, Schlesser loved every form of motor sport and competed in as many of them as he possibly could during a career that started in 1952, when he rallied a Panhard. He tried the current French vogue of monomill racing in 1954, but his serious competition activities were then put on hold for three years while he was working in Madagascar. Back in Europe in 1957, he finished second in the Liège-Rome-Liège Rally with a Mercedes, which he soon replaced with a Ferrari 250 GT, but success did not really come until 1960 when he took second in class at the Nürburgring 1000 Km, and second overall in the Rouen GP. This was in contrast to his rather disappointing year in a Formula 2 Cooper, a sixth place at Syracuse his only result worth mentioning. His 1961 season was curtailed by a very big accident during the practice days at Le Mans which left him with a badly broken arm and leg, but he was back in action the following year with a Formula Junior Brabham, putting in some superb drives to become one of the formula's leading protagonists.
The advent of the 1-litre Formula 2 in 1964 gave Jo the chance to pit himself against some of racing's top names, and he became a respected member of the Continental F2 fraternity, joining the Matra works team in 1966 and running the same car under the Ford France banner the following season before setting up a team with his great friend Guy Ligier to race McLarens in 1968. Since 1965 Schlesser had also made something of name for himself at the wheel of powerful sports cars including a Shelby Cobra and then the Ford France GT40, winning the Reims 12-hour race in 1967, paired with Ligier.
However, his Grand Prix experience was limited to just two outings in the Formula 2 class of the German GP when he was invited to race the totally unproven air-cooled Honda in the 1968 French GP - it must be said, much against the wishes of John Surtees. In the opening laps of the race, Schlesser lost control of the car in pouring rain, crashing it into an earth bank, whereupon it burst into flames, swiftly claiming the life of its 41-year-old driver.
