John Surtees

John Norman Surtees (11 February 1934 – 10 March 2017) was a British racing driver and motorcycle road racer who competed in Grand Prix motorcycle racing from to , and Formula One from to . Surtees was a seven-time Grand Prix motorcycle World Champion, with four titles in the premier 500cc class with MV Agusta. Surtees won the Formula One World Drivers' Championship in with Ferrari, and remains the only driver to win World Championships on both two- and four-wheels; he won 38 motorcycle Grands Prix and six Formula One Grands Prix.

On his way to become a seven-time Grand Prix motorcycle World Champion, Surtees won his first title in 1956, and followed with three consecutive doubles between 1958 and 1960, winning six World Championships in both the 500 and 350cc classes. Surtees then made the move to the pinnacle of four-wheeled motorsport, the Formula One World Championship, and in 1964 made motor racing history by becoming the Formula One World Champion. He founded the Surtees Racing Organisation team that competed as a constructor in Formula One, Formula 2 and Formula 5000 from 1970 to 1978. He was also the ambassador of the Racing Steps Foundation.

Motorcycle racing career Surtees was the son of a south-London motorcycle dealer. His father Jack Surtees was an accomplished grasstrack competitor and in 1948 was the South Eastern Centre Sidecar Champion. He had his first professional outing, which they won, in the sidecar of his father's Vincent at the age of 14. He first gained prominence in 1951 when he gave Norton star Geoff Duke a strong challenge in an ACU race at the Thruxton Circuit.

In 1956, Surtees won the 500 cc world championship, MV Agusta's first in the senior class. In the 1957 season, the MV Agustas were no match for the Gileras and Surtees battled to a third-place finish aboard a 1957 MV Agusta 500 Quattro.

When Gilera and Moto Guzzi withdrew from Grand Prix racing at the end of 1957, Surtees and MV Agusta went on to dominate the competition in the two larger displacement classes.

Auto racing career

While still racing motorcycles full-time, Surtees performed a test drive in Aston Martin's DBR1 sports car in front of team manager Reg Parnell. He however continued on two wheels and did not enter car racing until the following year.

In 1960, at the age of 26, Surtees switched from motorcycles to cars full-time, making his Formula 1 debut racing in the 1960 BRDC International Trophy at Silverstone for Team Lotus. He made an immediate impact with a second-place finish in only his second Formula One World Championship race, at the 1960 British Grand Prix, and a pole position at his third, the 1960 Portuguese Grand Prix.

On 25 September 1965, Surtees had a life-threatening accident at the Mosport Park Circuit (Ontario, Canada) while practising in a Lola T70 sports racing car. Doctors set most of the breaks nonsurgically, in part by physically stretching his shattered body until the right-left discrepancy was under an inch – and there it stayed.

The 1966 season saw the introduction of new, larger 3-litre engines to Formula One. Surtees's debut with Ferrari's new F1 car was at the 1966 BRDC International Trophy at Silverstone, where he qualified and finished a close second behind Jack Brabham's 3-litre Brabham BT19. A few weeks later, Surtees led the Monaco Grand Prix, pulling away from Jackie Stewart's 2-litre BRM on the straights, before the engine failed. A fortnight later Surtees survived the first lap rainstorm which eliminated half the field and won the Belgian Grand Prix.

Due to perennial strikes in Italy, Ferrari could afford to enter only two cars (Ferrari P3s) for the 1966 24 Hours of Le Mans instead of its usual entry of three prototypes. Uncertainty and confusion surrounds subsequent events and their consequences, and a number of different explanations have been offered in the decades since. The narrative explained by Ferrari at the time states that under Le Mans rules in 1966 each car was allowed only two drivers. Dragoni denied Surtees's request and insisted that Scarfiotti take the start, supposedly to please Fiat chairman Gianni Agnelli, Scarfiotti's uncle, who was in attendance as a spectator. This decision likely cost both Ferrari and Surtees the Formula 1 Championship in 1966. Ferrari finished second to Brabham-Repco in the Constructors' Championship and Surtees finished second to Jack Brabham in the Drivers' Championship. Surtees finished the season driving for the Cooper-Maserati team, winning the last race of the season.

Surtees competed with a T70 in the inaugural 1966 Can-Am season, winning three races of six to become champion over other winners Dan Gurney (Lola), Mark Donohue (Lola) and Phil Hill (Chaparral) as well as the likes of Bruce McLaren and Chris Amon (both in McLarens).

In December 1966, Surtees signed for Honda. After a promising third place in the first race in South Africa, the Honda RA273 hit a series of mechanical problems. The car was replaced by the Honda RA300 for the Italian Grand Prix, where Surtees slipstreamed Jack Brabham to take Honda's second F1 victory by 0.2 seconds. Surtees finished fourth in the 1967 Drivers' Championship.

In 1970, Surtees formed his own race team, the Surtees Racing Organisation, and spent nine seasons competing in Formula 5000, Formula 2 and Formula 1 as a constructor. The team was finally disbanded at the end of 1978.

After Formula One

For a while in the 1970s Surtees ran a motorcycle shop in West Wickham, Kent, and a Honda car dealership in Edenbridge, Kent. He continued his involvement in motorcycling, participating in classic events with bikes from his stable of vintage racing machines. He also remained involved in single-seater racing cars and held the position of chairman of A1 Team Great Britain, in the A1 Grand Prix racing series from 2005 to 2007. before he died while racing in the Formula 2 championship at Brands Hatch on 19 July 2009. In 2010, Surtees founded the Henry Surtees Foundation in his son's memory, as a charitable organization to assist victims of accidental brain injuries and to promote safety in driving and motorsport.

Surtees was the subject of This Is Your Life in 1992 when he was surprised by Michael Aspel.

In 1996, Surtees was inducted into the International Motorsports Hall of Fame. The FIM honoured him as a Grand Prix "Legend" in 2003. Already a Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE), he was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 2008 Birthday Honours and a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 2016 New Year Honours for services to motorsport.

In 2013, Surtees was awarded the 2012 Segrave Trophy in recognition of multiple world championships, and being the only person to win world titles on 2 and 4 wheels.

In 2015, Surtees was awarded the honorary degree of Doctor of Engineering by Oxford Brookes University.

Surtees was inducted into the Motorsports Hall of Fame of America in 2024.

Personal life and death Surtees married three times, first to Patricia Burke in 1962; the couple divorced in 1979. His second wife was Janis Sheara, whom he married in 1979 and they divorced in 1982. Jane Sparrow was his third wife, whom he married in 1987, and with whom he had three children, including Henry. Henry would later become a racing driver, but was killed at Brands Hatch in the 2009 FIA Formula Two Championship.

Surtees died of respiratory failure on 10 March 2017 at St George's Hospital in London, at the age of 83. He was buried, next to his son Henry, at St Peter and St Paul's Church in Lingfield, Surrey.

A tribute to Surtees was held at the Goodwood Members Meeting on 19 March 2017.

Racing record

Motorcycle Grand Prix results Position 1 2 3 4 5 6 Points 8 6 4 3 2 1

(key) (Races in bold indicate pole position; races in italics indicate fastest lap)

Year Class Team 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Points Rank Wins 1952 500cc Norton SUI IOM NED BEL GER ULS NAT ESP 1 18th 0 1953 125cc EMC IOM NED GER ULS NAT ESP 0 – 0 350cc Norton IOM NED BEL GER FRA ULS SUI NAT 0 – 0 500cc Norton IOM NED BEL GER FRA ULS SUI NAT ESP 0 – 0 1954 350cc Norton FRA IOM ULS BEL NED GER SUI NAT ESP 0 – 0 500cc Norton FRA IOM ULS 5 † BEL NED GER SUI NAT ESP 0 – 0 1955 250cc NSU FRA IOM GER NED ULS NAT 8 7th 1 350cc Norton IOM GER BEL NED ULS NAT 11 6th 0 500cc Norton ESP FRA IOM BEL NED ULS NAT 0 – 0 BMW GER 1956 350cc MV Agusta IOM NED BEL GER ULS NAT 14 4th 1 500cc MV Agusta IOM NED BEL GER ULS NAT 24 1st 3 1957 350cc MV Agusta GER IOM NED BEL ULS NAT 3 10th 0 500cc MV Agusta GER IOM NED BEL ULS NAT 17 3rd 1 1958 350cc MV Agusta IOM NED BEL GER SWE ULS NAT 48 1st 6 500cc MV Agusta IOM NED BEL GER SWE ULS NAT 48 1st 6 1959 350cc MV Agusta FRA IOM GER SWE ULS NAT 48 1st 6 500cc MV Agusta FRA IOM GER NED BEL ULS NAT 56 1st 7 1960 350cc MV Agusta FRA IOM NED ULS NAT 26 1st 2 500cc MV Agusta FRA IOM NED BEL GER ULS NAT 46 1st 5

Non-championship Formula One results (key) (Races in bold indicate pole position) (Races in italics indicate fastest lap)

Complete 24 Hours of Le Mans results

Complete European Formula Two Championship results (key) (Races in bold indicate pole position; races in italics indicate fastest lap) Year Entrant Chassis Engine 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 Pts Lola Racing Lola T100 Ford SNE SIL BRH VAL NC 0 BMW NÜR HOC TUL JAR ZAN PER Team Surtees Surtees TS10 Ford MAL THR HOC PAU PAL HOC ROU ÖST IMO MAN PER SAL ALB HOC NC 0