Hans Herrmann was one of the last witnesses to the beginnings of Formula 1. The 1970 Le Mans winner truly earned his nickname “Hans im Glück”. Now the racing world has to say goodbye to an incomparable.
His wife Madeleine worked diligently towards Hans Herrmann’s resignation with a pile of paperwork. In 1969, the man from Stuttgart missed overall victory in the 24-hour classic by just a few meters against Jacky Ickx at Le Mans. The sons Dino and Kai were still small; Hans Herrmann had seen far too many racing drivers have fatal accidents.
“My wife insisted that I break up,” the German PS icon once said. Before each race, Madeleine gave the Porsche mechanics pieces of paper that were supposed to remind her husband of her greatest wish. “She worked with everything she could to get me away from racing.”
At the garden gate, Herrmann promised his wife that he would quit if he won Le Mans in 1970. And what a career end it was! Herrmann shared the red-white-red 917 with the Englishman Richard Attwood in the classic. In the early hours of June 14th, her Porsche took the lead for the first time. The race had long since become horsepower madness in the torrential rain.
In the afternoon, Herrmann and Attwood were crowned winners; it was Porsche’s first overall victory. “I didn’t want to strain fate any longer,” said Herrmann, remembering his glorious farewell. “I realized how lucky I had been with so many friends lost over the years.”
Herrmann has now died at the age of 97, as Porsche and Mercedes announced on Friday, citing his family.
One of the many strange twists in his life is that Herrmann actually shouldn’t have become a racing driver. His parents owned a coffee house in Stuttgart, so he had to do an apprenticeship as a pastry chef. But Herrmann only had racing on his mind, stole his mother’s only gold chain and invested the money in a speedster. It turned out to be a worthwhile investment.
Hans Herrmann drove alongside Juan Manuel Fangio and Stirling Moss
Porsche hired the talent as a works driver in 1953. After class victories at the Mille Miglia and Le Mans, Mercedes became aware of him – one of Germany’s most successful racing careers really took off. The legendary race director Alfred Neubauer took the promising youngster into the Formula 1 team in 1954 when the Silver Arrows made their comeback.
“Benjamin,” as Neubauer called him, impressed in his first Grand Prix season, finishing sixth overall with third place in Switzerland and fourth place in Italy. Herrmann completed 18 Grand Prix in the 1950s and drove alongside the legends Juan Manuel Fangio and Stirling Moss in Mercedes, among others.
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But Herrmann also learned about the dark side. He had a serious accident at the 1955 Monaco Grand Prix. “I was closer to death than to life. If a doctor from Stuttgart, a specialist in heart and circulatory diseases, hadn’t happened to be in Monaco as a race-goer, I would have died,” Herrmann recalled the horror crash in his book “I survived”. The fact that he survived a rollover on the Berlin Avus in 1959 with only scratches is nothing short of a miracle.
Herrmann’s nickname “Hans im Glück” came from this bitter time. Despite several serious accidents, he mostly escaped with shock and minor injuries. “I’ve always been extremely lucky,” said Herrmann with relief.
Like all good pilots at that time, Herrmann drove almost everything with four wheels in his 18-year career: from hill climbs to Formula 1. He only quickly gave up on rallies. His premiere at the Hessian Winter Tour ended miserably: the then 24-year-old newcomer got lost. “It was night and we had no idea where we were. I knew then that rallies weren’t for me,” he said, describing the failure.
According to his own calculations, Herrmann celebrated 23 victories in exactly 100 long-distance races. Among other things, he also became German racing champion three times. As a supplier in Sindelfingen for the automotive industry, Herrmann later remained loyal to four wheels. Most recently, he drove around the region in a Smart and remained mobile with an electric wheelchair.
“Fast racing drivers come and go. Anyone who impresses as a personality lives permanently in people’s hearts,” said long-time Daimler boss Jürgen Hubbert. And the four-time Formula 1 world champion Sebastian Vettel also expressed his admiration for Herrmann and the time in the specialist magazine “Auto, Motor und Sport”.
“What fascinates me about it is the technology of these cars, it was absolutely high-tech at the time,” said Vettel. “But without a belt, with a seat cushion, the tank around the driver, that must have been crazy.”
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