Top 5 German F1 drivers of all time

Wolfgang Von Tripps

Zu früh gegangen ( Gone too soon)

Apart from being a sport that grows on you, Formula 1 happens to be a contest that can turn one into an unabashed postulator.

To this day, one can't help but wonder whether Wolfgang Von Tripps, 1928 to 1961, would've become an icon had the fatal events at Monza in 1961 not had happened? Wondering why?

It's rather hair-raising to think that Von Tripps, who was leading the 1961 world championships at that time (driving a Ferrari) collided with the Lotus of Jim Clark only to go airborne colliding into the side of a barrier.

The impact and the ferocity of the accident would kill the German instantly. Von Tripps would score 33 of his 56 points in his final-ever year in Formula 1. And despite leading a bitterly small life, Wolfgang Von Tripps managed to clinch 6 overall podiums, of which 4 were sealed in his final-ever season in a sport that took him away from doting fans.

Interestingly, the Cologne-born driver would never score a third in any of his podium finishes in 1961, winning the Dutch and British Grands Prix while scoring a second at Belgium and the German Grand Prix, held at the great Nurburgring.