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Jochen Rindt doing some Brabham ‘grass cutting’ at the Tulln-Langenlebarn airfield circuit in 1967 with the flair and precision for which he was famous…

There are the ‘thinking drivers’ of course but it’s the ones with mesmerising, other worldly driving skills that ultimately excite.

The high priests amongst these fellows are the likes of Nuvolari, Fangio, Peterson, Villeneuve and of course Jochen Rindt. Only two of these chaps died in bed. In the days when racing cars and the geography in which they raced could and did bite, the law of averages, especially if you played with the extremes of the laws of physics too often could bring you undone.

Rindt made his name in F2- he was the dominant player in the class from the time he entered it in 1964 until the time he left planet earth in 1970. For much of that period he raced Brabhams- the chuckability of which were tailor made for the plucky Austrians balls to the wall, tail out, crowd pleasing style. Check out this article about Jochen and the F1 Lotus 72 Ford; https://primotipo.com/2017/05/19/designers-original-intent/

The BT23 family of cars, Tasman and F2/FB variants were ripper cars. They were up there with the very best of customer Brabhams designed by Ron Tauranac, fettled by Jack as to baseline chassis setup and built by Motor Racing Developments in large numbers.

The photos in this article are of Rindt at Tulln-Langenlebaln, Vienna and Thruxton. At TL Rindt’s Winkelmann BT23 FVA won in 1967 from Jack Brabham’s works machine and Jean-Pierre Beltoise’ Matra MS5 FVA , and ‘winged in 1968 from JPB and Henri Pescarolo both aboard  works Matra MS7 FVA’s.

At Thruxton (below) in 1968 he won from JPB in an MS7 FVA and Derek Bell in a BT23C FVA. Jochen also raced a BT23C in ’68, again Winkelmann entered.

Bibliography…

F2 Index

Photo Credits…

Unattributed

Tailpiece: Rindt, on it, as usual, BT23C, Tulln-Langenlebaln, Vienna, 14 July 1968…