On This Day: Formula One racing driver Jo Siffert dies after crash at Brands Hatch

NOVEMBER 1, 1971: Swiss racing driver Jo Siffert dies at Brands Hatch

Formula One driver Jo Siffert was laid to rest on this day in 1971 a week after after dying when his car hit a bank at and burst into flames at Brands Hatch.

The Swiss racer, who was affectionately known as Seppi, crashed during the 15th lap when his suspension snapped on October 24.

It had been damaged in lap one when he clipped the vehicle of legendary Swede Ronnie Peterson, who seven years later would also die in an F1 race.

British Pathé footage shows Siffert roaring around the Kent circuit in the non-championship race, which was to be the celebratory finale to an epic season in which British hero Jackie Stewart won the drivers’ title by an astonishing 29-point margin.

But just as the 1970 season, which had finished with Germany’s Jochen Rindt winning the championship posthumously, 1971 would also end in tragedy.

The video filmed a burst of flames and a huge plume of smoke just after the cars screamed come around the bend at Hawthorn Hill, the fastest section of the circuit.

The married father-of-two, who had been victorious that year’s Austrian Grand  Prix and had won the British title at Brands Hatch in 1968, ploughed into an earth bank.

It later emerged that Siffert, a British Racing Motors team member, had died from smoke inhalation and had only suffered a broken leg as a result of the impact.

His funeral, held in his hometown of Fribourg, Switzerland, was attended by 50,000 fans and the procession was led by a Porsche 917 like the one he began his career in.

His death prompted racing chiefs to demand drivers wore more fire-retardant overalls.

But, in an era when drivers were expected to dice with death while earning in their careers what
Lewis Hamilton makes in a race, fatal crashes were still fairly typical.

By the early 1970s, race organizer had only just begun to think about how they might make the sport safe.

However, they had failed to take many steps until the end of the 1960s, a decade that saw 14 F1 drivers die.

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Change came with the death of Jim Clark, a highly charismatic star who was probably the best-loved racer of that era.

The death toll slowly began to fall, with 12 drivers dying in the 1970s and four in the 1980s.

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No racer has died in a grand prix since Brazilian world champion Ayrton Senna lost his life after a crash at San Marino in 1994.

Altogether, 49 F1 drivers have lost their lives in race cars.