Jochen Mass disproved the saying that good guys end final. An enthralling man who was universally preferred, the German was a race winner in Method 1 and one of many high sportscar drivers of his technology, claiming a victory within the Le Mans 24 Hours. However maybe the German, who has died aged 78 from problems following a stroke, was simply too good to actually make his mark on the pinnacle of the game throughout an F1 profession than stretched over 9 seasons and 105 begins.
Alastair Caldwell, group supervisor at McLaren throughout Mass’s three-and-a-bit-year stint, actually thinks so. “You’d must say looking back that Jochen was too good,” he says. “He was a stunning man, affable, humorous, good firm and considering different issues in life than motor racing, like crusing and his yachts.”
Mass had joined McLaren from Surtees on the again finish of 1974, contesting the ultimate two races within the seat vacated by Mike Hailwood after the latter sustained severe leg accidents on the German Grand Prix. When two-time F1 world champion Emerson Fittipaldi jumped ship on the finish of ’75 to race for the household group began by brother Wilson, Mass appeared to have his huge probability. There have been nonetheless doubts about new team-mate James Hunt, victory within the Dutch GP at Zandvoort with Hesketh in ’75 however.
“I bear in mind flying out to Sao Paolo for the primary race at Interlagos and Jochen asking me on the aircraft who was the primary driver,” remembers Caldwell. “I advised him that whoever is quickest is the primary driver.”
The dye was forged when Hunt put his McLaren-Cosworth M23 on pole in Brazil and once more second day trip at Kyalami in South Africa. McLaren’s de facto new primary would go on to assert the world championship whereas Mass sneaked into the highest 10 within the factors, twice scoring a greatest results of third alongside the best way.
However Mass ought to have received a race that 12 months. He arguably had extra proper to victory on the Nurburgring in ’76 than he did to his one and solely F1 win on the tragic and foreshortened Spanish Grand Prix the earlier 12 months.
Caldwell reveals that it had been agreed that Mass would pull into the pits after the opening lap of the race in protest on the ranges of security on the Montjuic Park road circuit in Barcelona – Fittipaldi had accomplished a handful of laps in observe and already determined to not race. However Mass didn’t keep on with the plan. “When the flag fell, the pink mist got here down,” says Caldwell.
Mass moved his M23 into the lead when Rolf Stommelen crashed the brand-new Hill GH1. He briefly misplaced it to Jacky Ickx’s Lotus earlier than regaining the highest spot. Their battle raged though Stommelen had cleared the limitations after a rear wing failure, his flying automotive killing a spectator, a monitor employee and two photographers. Solely after 4 laps was the race red-flagged and Mass declared the winner. He solely acquired half championship factors as a result of the race was halted previous to the completion of 60% of the scheduled race distance.
Jochen Mass, McLaren M23-Cosworth
Photograph by: Motorsport Photos
If there was luck concerned within the Montjuic victory, misfortune disadvantaged him of one other on the ‘Ring 15 months later. Rain earlier than the race began resulted in everybody taking over wets other than Mass. It was an impressed resolution that may virtually actually have resulted in a victory had the race not been quickly halted after lap two following the crash that left Ferrari driver Niki Lauda with life-threatening accidents.
Caldwell, who engineered Mass’s automotive, revealed that the choice had been made after a dialogue with the motive force of a course automobile despatched out after the rain had began.
“Everybody listened to what the motive force of this super-duper Porsche that had been across the monitor needed to say, after which selected wets,” remembers Caldwell. “However Jochen and I went and had one other phrase with him and we determined that it seemed like solely 5 kilometres [of a track measuring 22km or 14 miles] or so had been really moist. We agreed that we should always take a raffle on slicks.
“I bear in mind Jochen telling me that on the Foxhole [Fuchsrohre] he solely stayed on the street as a result of different vehicles had been banging wheels with him. By the top of the second lap, he had a large lead earlier than the race was stopped. He was going to win that race by a mile as a result of everybody else needed to pit for dry tyres.” He ended up third, practically a minute behind Hunt.
James Hunt, 1st place, Jody Scheckter, 2nd place and Jochen Mass, third place
Photograph by: Sutton Photos
Mass’ eighth and final podium in F1 occurred in his ultimate 12 months with McLaren in ’77 on the Canadian Grand Prix. Hunt’s superiority was introduced into focus across the Mosport circuit: the Briton was on the right track for victory when he tangled together with his team-mate whereas lapping him.
Mass’s profession by no means regained momentum after his departure from McLaren. A season at ATS in ’78 was delivered to a untimely finish with a serious accident in testing at Silverstone, which left him with a damaged leg and a punctured lung. Whereas recovering from his accidents, he was sounded out by Frank Williams about becoming a member of his group for ’79 because it expanded to 2 vehicles. He additionally had a suggestion on the desk from one other promising younger group in Arrows.
Mass selected Arrows and Williams turned to veteran Clay Regazzoni, who would rating the group’s first victory on the ’79 British GP at Silverstone within the new FW07. Mass admitted that he kicked himself about that one, his two-year stint at Arrows yielding nothing higher than a fourth place. After a season out of F1, he returned with the RAM March group in 1982, solely to stroll away after a large shunt within the French Grand Prix at Ricard from which he escaped unhurt.
Jochen Mass, Arrows A1B completed the race in twelfth place
Photograph by: David Phipps
Mass’s F1 profession ended within the first season of the Group C guidelines that rejuvenated worldwide sportscar racing. Already a daily with Porsche, he grew to become a stalwart of its manufacturing facility campaigns with the 956 and the 962C, claiming 9 world championship victories between ’82 and ’85.
Derek Bell was a team-mate of Mass’s throughout that point, although on the opposite aspect of the storage, and remembers “a laid-back cuddly man” and “such a pleasant bloke”. He likens him to an enormous teddy bear: “Heat and cuddly, however as sturdy as an ox and as robust as they arrive.”
Mass loved his greatest successes in long-distance racing. His profession break got here for 1970 when he was picked up by Ford for touring vehicles after solely starting racing on the age of 21 following a three-year stint as service provider seaman. He would win the Spa 24 Hours in 1972 with Ford’s Capri RS2600 and the marque facilitated his transfer to Method 2, brokering a deal for Mass to race with the March works group in chosen races in ’72.
He was a daily with Porsche from 1976, scoring victories within the two concurrent world sequence that 12 months: he was 5 occasions a winner aboard the 936 Group 6 prototype within the World Sportscar Championship and thrice within the World Championship of Makes within the 935 Group 5 silhouette racer.
#2 Rothmans Porsche Porsche 956: Jochen Mass, Stefan Bellof
Photograph by: Jean-Philippe Legrand
As Porsche downscaled its manufacturing facility programme, Mass moved over to Mercedes for 1988, although not earlier than profitable 4 rounds of the IMSA GT Championship on the wheel of a Bayside buyer 962 in ’87, the Sebring 12 Hours included. Mercedes had firmed up its relationship with the Sauber group, formally re-entering circuit racing for the primary time because the 1955 Le Mans catastrophe, and its motorsport boss Jochen Neerpasch recruited Mass for a second time – he had been on the helm at Ford practically 20 years earlier than.
Mass would take an extra 10 Group C victories, aboard the Sauber-Mercedes C9 after which the Mercedes C11. He would find yourself with a complete of 32 wins over the assorted iterations of the previous world sportscar championship. That places him solely second to Le Mans legend Ickx within the all-time winners’ listing of a sequence that got here to an finish after 1992.
Not amongst these 32 triumphs was Le Mans 1989. It wasn’t a championship around the 12 months Mass triumphed with Manuel Reuter and Stanley Dickens in a C9. However it was one two years later when, aboard a C11 shared with Jean-Louis Schlesser and Alain Ferte, he was on the right track for a second victory till a freak failure within the twenty second hour. An alternator bracket, a part weakened as a result of it had been anodised to make it look fairly because the ’89 race, failed.
#63 Crew Sauber Mercedes, Sauber C9 Mercedes-Benz: Jochen Mass, Manuel Reuter, Stanley Dickens
Photograph by: Daimler AG
For all his successes with Mercedes and Sauber, the four-year stint racing the Silver Arrows that just about rounded out his profession is arguably greatest remembered for his involvement in nurturing a brand new technology of expertise: his laid-back persona explains why Neerpasch turned to him to be the mentor for the German producer’s junior programme with which Michael Schumacher, Heinz-Harald Frentzen and Karl Wendlinger stepped up from Method 3 to the World Sports activities-Prototype Championship.
The three had been “welcomed with open arms” by the veteran, remembers Wendlinger. “There was by no means any ego: he by no means tried to maintain something from us to provide himself a bonus on lap time,” he explains. “He answered each query we had – there have been by no means any secrets and techniques.
“Jochen made it a simple begin for us as we had been going from a 170bhp F3 automotive to an enormous and highly effective Group C with numerous downforce. That was an essential time in my profession and I’d say Jochen was an enormous motive why it labored so effectively.”
After departing Sauber on the finish of ’91, Mass successfully stepped away from the cockpit. He did, nevertheless, make a one-off return for a twelfth and ultimate Le Mans begin in ’95. Mass was introduced in to share the David Worth Racing-run West Competitors McLaren F1 GTR and might need claimed victory on the French enduro. The automotive led in his and John Nielsen’s fingers for a lot of the primary half of the race in dreadful situations earlier than requiring a change of clutch.
Mass all the time retained a hyperlink with motorsport despite his various pursuits; it shouldn’t be forgotten that he was a companion within the MS-Jet Racing DTM group of the late 80s and early 90s. He was a co-commentator in F1 with RTL within the Nineteen Nineties and subsequently grew to become an envoy for Mercedes.
On this article
Gary Watkins
Method 1
Le Mans
WEC
Jochen Mass
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