JEAN BEHRA RETRO1 AUGUST 2019 AUTOSPORT.COM 53Behra’s Testa Rossa
expired while leading
1959 Le MansBehra impressed
in underfunded
Gordini machinerycigarette; a game of cards; more coffee and another cigarette, at the
Albergo Reale; racing; and talking about racing. Mechanics, who saw
him as one of their own, loved him. Engineers valued his technical
expertise; not that they always acted upon his suggestions, to
Behra’s increasing frustration. And the relationship began well:
second places at Sebring and Syracuse sandwiching victory in the
non-championship Aintree 200. He led in Monaco again, too,
until his engine failed.
Often brusque and not universally popular among his peers,
Behra got on OK with team-mates Cliff Allison and Phil Hill, and
unanticipated late arrivals Tony Brooks and Dan Gurney, despite –
or perhaps because of – the language barrier. They in turn held him
in high regard. But, outnumbered and left out of conversations, he
felt compelled increasingly to look after number one. This was his
big chance: no Moss, no Fangio. So why in hell was he up to his neck
in a concurrent privateer Formula 2 Porsche effort that was biting
the hand that fed him? Tensions were beginning to simmer.
When his Testa Rossa, which he was convinced was slower than
its sisters (despite it setting fastest time in practice), refused twice
to fire at the run-and-jump start of the Le Mans 24 Hours, he drove
with panache – and, it must be said, scant heed to an ‘agreed’
rev-limit – to take the lead after just 17 laps. Not until 2am would
smoke from an exhaust signal impending doom.
And when his Dino pecked and stalled on the grid of the GP
d’Europe at Reims, national pride was again pricked and at stake;
Behra raced for La France in the way that Moss did for Britain.
While Brooks, the Scuderia’s new leader in all its senses, kept cool
under a fizzing Champagne sun (even though it boiled the ‘reviving’
orange juice secreted in his cockpit), Behra drove ferociously to be
bidding for second place by half-distance; he overcooked an
ambitious attempt and shot down an escape road. Three laps later
smoke from an exhaust signalled a piston’s collapse.
Behra wasn’t a moaner by nature. Rather, he was inclined to mood
swings. So when Romolo Tavoni, who earlier had stoutly resisted
the gendarmerie in its annual boorish sweep of the grid, pointed the
finger of blame, a red-faced driver hit a team manager wearing
glasses. In landing that first punch, Behra had contested his final
GP. Enzo Ferrari wrote a cheque covering monies owed and,
unapologetic, they parted company. Only now did Behra, allergic
to bullshit and politically naïve, consider employing a manager.
He asked journalist Jabby Crombac and they agreed to talk turkey
after August’s German GP.
He was wanted still. But dear old BRM required more than a
month’s notice. Its boss Raymond Mays thought Behra, garaged in
the next pit along, cut a lonely figure at Avus. But a weekend
without a race would have been intolerable for Behra. That’s why he
brought his trouble-causing F2 Porsche to a unique two-heat affair
that would be dominated by his former Ferrari team-mates, and in
which surely he stood no chance. He was also planning to contest
the Berlin GP support race for 1.5-litre sportscars.
It was while dicing with fellow Porschistes Wolfgang von Trips
and Jo Bonnier for the lead that Behra lost control on the banking’s
bricks, made slicker by rain. Herrmann had tried to convince him
not to start – but ‘Jeannot’ turned a deaf ear. The sliding Porsche
718 RSK crested the unprotected rim and there struck the remains
of a concrete gun emplacement. Behra was flung skyward from the
torn car, and Hill and Gurney watched aghast as that battered body,
eerie in silhouette, snapped a flagpole. The great survivor was dead.
The next day it was decided that a yellow light would render the
North Curve a neutral zone in the event of rain. (And Herrmann
would somehow survive being thrown from his tumbling BRM
after brake failure at the unbanked South Curve.)
Behra would never admit it – though surely he knew it – but
he was not as good as Fangio or Moss. But absolutely he can be
mentioned in the same breath as Chris Amon, a racing driver who
loved the sport for its own sake for as long as he could remember,
and who won hearts without ever mastering the art of winning.“AS DID MOSS, FANGIO KNEW BEHRA’S
WORTH – THOUGH HE THOUGHT HIM
‘PERHAPS TOO BRAVE’”