26 replies to this topic

[Fr@nk]

Hi friends,
I'm interested on know more informations (also photos if possible) about fatal accident of Jean Behra (Avus 1959).
I read some articles and reconstructions about this terrible accident, but, definitely, I couldn't understand the accident's dynamic.
I have found, also, many ..interpretations of the facts.
Behra was a Ferrari official driver in the F1 team, but he had troubles with Mr Tavoni at Reims GP just few days before his fatal-crash.
Someone says this troubles have conditioned the french champion in his last race.
He was demostrate his good skill to Mr Ferrari who have just fired him... the slaps to Mr Tavoni in the paddock of French GP
Could you help me to understand the Behra's accident's dynamic ?
I'm fascinated by this driver, but someone says he would be not so fast than I think.
Could you tell me something about him as driver?

Thanks

[llmaurice]

Behra was as hard as nails and brave as a lion . In some ways , I felt similar to Mansell as he didn't head too many popularity lists . Good driver who typified the era.
That Avus race meeting was horrible . Most people didn't want to be there and it was a hell of a problem for some getting through the border controls .
All too much for our poor little Lotus transmissions !

[Ray Bell]

Isn't there a thread on this already?

Or at least a thread about the AVUS banking that kind of includes this?

[Mike Riedner]

Behra slid on the banking and – unlike Richard von Frankenberg who was pulled out of his Porsche Spyder when he flew over the Avus banking by a bush before the car desintegrated in a parking lot – hit a concrete flag pole foundaton on top of the banking. Behra was said to have died imediately.

[WINO]

Wonder if anybody kept his plastic ear as a souvenir.


WINO

[BorderReiver]

I remember reading somewhere (don't ask me where) that poor Behra's car rolled and he was thrown out into the flagpole. Must've been a horrible accident.

[Fr@nk]

Ray,
sorry I can't find any thread about Behra's accident or Avus '59 track, so I'm finding more...
Bye

[fvebr]

North curve was short, with a banking just like a wall... This curve was paved with bricks and was very slidy when wet (and that was the case that day)...

Taken from EQUIPE Mag (writer Bernardet J.)
As Behra said a few hours before :

'With my F2 in that curve, i broke my seat support which was a 22 mm diameter 2mm wide tube'
(excuse my poor english)

On second lap, 1st accident with Doery... His posche spinned and crashed in the little wall just before tribunes... Driver unhurted...

On lap 3, we have Von trips followed by Bonnier, Behra, Walter and Beaufort.. Beaufort in first part of curve starts to slide, and disappear behind the top of the curve... (He will reenter the track through the normal access road with his car (a bit damaged) less than 1 minute after )...Marshall will finally stop him 2 laps later...

4th lap, Von Trips, Bonnier and Behra enter together that curve... But this times it's Behra's car that starts to slide in the middle of the curve... The car is hardly stooped by a Bunker (Old FLAK position), Whole Engine was pushed into the cockpit, Behra thrown out of the car at a height of 10-15 feet hurting a 'Mât' (that piece of wood on the top of which you usually put a flag)
and finally falls in a tree down the other side of the track..


Hope it helped... I can scan you the page i took that from, which includes a look at the pavement in that curve and a shot of Behra's car after the accident...

[snash]

Ask Nigel Roebuck at Autosport...he never passes up an opportunity to spout off about Behra.

[scheivlak]

Earlier thread about Jean Behra: http://forums.atlasf...&highlight=Jean

[Ray Bell]

Originally posted by Fr@nk
Ray,
sorry I can't find any thread about Behra's accident or Avus '59 track, so I'm finding more...
Bye

This is the one I was thinking of...

http://forums.atlasf...&threadid=63734

[sandy]

Insofar as Behra being portrayed as a tough guy, when he partnered Stirling Moss in their 250Fs'at Albert Park in 1956, Australian Motor Sport magazine described Behra as having an appealing little boy look.

Few Aussies then and now can speak French so perhaps he could only nod and smile but he was universally liked and admired over the 2 week race period by all who met him.

[prettyface]

This can only be Behra



The bunkers that fvebr mentions are visible in many banking shots from the 1950's. Can you see the square concrete object at the top, between the two flag poles? Very near the area that Behra went off, BTW; just after the middle of the Banking IIRC.


Detail:


I've seen pictures of events in the 60's where that area is empty of banners, flags, etc. They must have cleared the top of the banking of all objects after Behra's death; just like they stopped using the normal hairpin after Hans Herrmann's accident the same weekend. That must have been one very silly, dangerous circuit!

[Ray Bell]

Originally posted by sandy
Insofar as Behra being portrayed as a tough guy, when he partnered Stirling Moss in their 250Fs'at Albert Park in 1956, Australian Motor Sport magazine described Behra as having an appealing little boy look.

Few Aussies then and now can speak French so perhaps he could only nod and smile but he was universally liked and admired over the 2 week race period by all who met him.

Campbell McLaren, doing the on-circuit commentary at the Grand Prix in 1956, was asked by his co-commentator...

"And who is that attractive young lady standing next to the Maserati in the pits, I wonder? And who is that she's talking to?"

"The driver is the Frenchman, Jean Behra," answered Campbell, "and the attractive young lady he's having the animated conversation with is my fiance!"

Campbell and his wife remember the man with some fondness...

[Fr@nk]

Hi "prettyface",
thanks for photos !
A very bad accident , poor Jean !
When I see photos like these I can understand how they could race in some condition !?
The Avus track seems really a nightmare !
If I've understood in the same race of Behra's accident it happened also :

a) Carel Godin de Beaufort accident
b) Hans Hermann accident

Am I right ?

[Ray Bell]

Hans Hermann's accident was at the other end of the circuit... at a kink leading into a flat hairpin as I recall...

There's a whole thread dealing with it too.

[scheivlak]

Originally posted by Fr@nk

Hi "prettyface",
thanks for photos !
A very bad accident , poor Jean !
When I see photos like these I can understand how they could race in some condition !?
The Avus track seems really a nightmare !
If I've understood in the same race of Behra's accident it happened also :

a) Carel Godin de Beaufort accident
b) Hans Hermann accident

Am I right ?

Hans Herrmann's crash was in the Formula 1 GP, a day later.
Great report in http://www.atlasf1.c...spn/mirror.html ..........

[Stefan Schmidt]

Very strange... that Patrick Depailler, who was a big fan of Behra dies exactly 21 years later, also in Germany

[Anders Torp]

Originally posted by WINO
Wonder if anybody kept his plastic ear as a souvenir.


WINO

[xkssFrankOpalka]

For years Comp Press/ Autoweek used a logo of Behra helmet on their paper, Denise McLuggage was a great fan of his.

[Fr@nk]

Well done guys !
Now I know a bit much about Behra's accident. and about Behra in general.

• "Behra was as hard as nails and brave as a lion" and he was "like Mansell" (llmaurice)
• Now I know the dynamic about the accident
  
  

  4th lap, Von Trips, Bonnier and Behra enter together that curve... But this times it's Behra's car that starts to slide in the middle of the curve... The car is hardly stooped by a Bunker (Old FLAK position), Whole Engine was pushed into the cockpit, Behra thrown out of the car at a height of 10-15 feet hurting a 'Mât' (that piece of wood on the top of which you usually put a flag)

  
  ...thanks to "fvebr" and his Equipe I would like it to have the scan of...
• I have now also some photos of Avus track and a photo also of Behra's accident
  ...thanks to prettyface
  
• Now I know :

[list=a]
[*]Avus track was like a terrible trap
[*]In the same race there was two accidents more (Carel Godin de Beaufort, Doery).
[*]the day after Hans Hermann crashed on the "flat hairpin" in the Avus German F1 GP (thank you scheivlak)
[*]"Patrick Depailler, who was a big fan of Behra dies exactly 21 years later, also in Germany" (thanks to Stefan Schmidt )
[/list=a]

Thanks also to : Ray Bell, BorderReiver and Sandy for useful ugrades.

Two question more :

Carel Godin de Beaufort's accident dynamic is unbelievable, it isn't ?
"Wonder if anybody kept his plastic ear as a souvenir." what does it means WINO ?

Bye

[D-Type]

Originally posted by Fr@nk
~"Wonder if anybody kept his plastic ear as a souvenir." what does it means?

As a result of an accident in a Maserati in the 1955 Tourist Trophy Behra lost an ear. After that he wore a plastic one.

[Twin Window]

Originally posted by Stefan Schmidt

Very strange... that Patrick Depailler, who was a big fan of Behra dies exactly 21 years later, also in Germany

That really is quite spooky, isn't it...

[WINO]

Jeannot used to make practical jokes with his plastic ear. He did not wear it under his helmet, but when some young fan would come up to him for an autograph before a race, he would take his ear off and give it to the startled youth.

Otherwise he was tough as nails and extremely brave. Definitely one of my favorites.

WINO

[theunions]

Originally posted by xkssFrankOpalka
For years Comp Press/ Autoweek used a logo of Behra helmet on their paper, Denise McLuggage was a great fan of his.

It's still there - i.e., the upper left corner of the Nov. 1 cover which arrived in my mailbox today.

[vivafroilan!]

Welcome, Mr. Riedner! (from one who loved the Doppelsieg book)

[Hieronymus]

Originally posted by Stefan Schmidt
Very strange... that Patrick Depailler, who was a big fan of Behra dies exactly 21 years later, also in Germany

Allow me to quote from William Court's excellent book, GRAND PRIX REQUIEM:

"Although their births were separated by two decades Jean Behra and Patrick Depailler seemed more like two peas from the same pod: as French as frites, garlic and Gauloises, lively as crickets, brave as lions and, as some may add, mad as March hares. Wonderful value for the spectator, great fun as companions and brimful with those traditional French qualities of 'cran' and 'elan'. Unmistakeable, too, in their outward appearances, and alike in their passion for racing."