Manfred Winkelhock (6 October 1951 – 12 August 1985) was a German racing driver.
He participated in 56 Formula One Grands Prix (with 47 starts) between 1980 and 1985, driving for Arrows, ATS, Brabham and RAM Racing, with a best finish of fifth at the 1982 Brazilian Grand Prix. Born in Waiblingen on 6 October 1951, Manfred Winkelhock was the older brother of Joachim Winkelhock.
He began racing in Formula Two in 1978 and survived a major crash at Nürburgring Nordschleife circuit, when he flipped his March at the very steep rise-and-fall Flugplatz corner. Winkelhock’s first attempt at qualifying for a Formula One Grand Prix race was in Italy, when he stood in for the injured Jochen Mass at Arrows. He was able to land a drive with ATS in 1982. As BMW became the team’s engine supplier in 1983, he qualified well on several occasions in 1983 and 1984, but the car was rarely reliable, so there were few results and a lot of accidents.
His son, Markus Winkelhock, is also a racing driver. Info from Wiki
Bio by Stephen Latham
Manfred Winkelhock competed in 56 Grands Prix (with 47 starts), driving for Arrows, ATS, Brabham and RAM Racing, with a best finish of fifth in 1982’s Brazilian Grand Prix. Born in Waiblingen, Germany, in 1951, he initially learned his trade in his father’s garage and towing business, then began competing in club events with an NSU. From this he entered the Volkswagen Scirocco Cup and finished as champion. Following this, after beating the field in a celebrity race, he was contacted by Jochen Neerpasch and offered a BMW junior contract.
After driving touring cars he moved to the works March-BMW team for 1978’s F2 season, alongside Marc Surer and Bruno Giacomelli. Having had no single-seater experience, he finished fifth in his first race at Thruxton, and was third at Hockenheim though luckily walked away from major crash at Nürburgring Nordschleife circuit, when he flipped his March. There was a third place finish at the Nürburgring in Manfred Cassani’s Ralt RT1-BMW in 1979, plus at Le Mans that year he raced Herve Poulin’s Andy Warhol painted BMW M1.
He returned to March power for 1980, with ICI Racing, and there would be a third place finish at Enna-Pergusa but he also suffered a major accident at the Nurburgring, when his March flipped. In F2 in 1981, he finished third at Donington and fifth at Spa with Maurer Motorsport, plus took second at Hockenheim in Schafer Racing’s Ralt RT2 (although he may have won if his engine mountings had not failed).
The following year he signed for the ATS F1 team, with a best place finish of fifth in Brazil in their Cosworth-powered ATS D5. There was a return to Le Mans, again racing a BMW M1 but the team retired after six hours. He stayed with ATS for 1983 and there was a reunion of sorts with BMW when they used BMW turbo engines. Swiss tuner Heini Mader looked after the engines and with the handsome Gustav Brunner designed car, the team had high hopes for the season. Sadly for both Manfred and the team, there were no points that year, with ninth in Canada and eighth at Brands Hatch plus was disqualified at Zandvoort for overtaking on the warm-up lap.
He also drove Ford’s C100 (with Klaus Niedzwiedz) at Le Mans but the car was withdrawn during the sixth hour due to electrical maladies. 1984 was another frustrating season with ATS, being disqualified during practice in Brazil plus not starting in Austria and Italy after losing gearboxes in the warm-up. He finished eighth at Canada and Dallas and was joined in several races by Gerhard Berger but by the end of the year he had fallen out with ATS boss Gunter Schmidt. For the season’s penultimate race, he drove at Estoril for Brabham (alongside Nelson Piquet) and finished tenth. Also, late in the year he also did shakedown tests with a new F1 car from Zakspeed.
During the year there had also been a Norisring sprint race with a Kremer-entered Porsche 956-115 For 1985 he joined the Skoal Bandit RAM team (Skoal were a British American Tobacco product and they wanted to promote this brand through racing) with Philippe Alliot. Unfortunately, their Hart engine was competing against big manufacturers, such as Renault, Honda and BMW, and competing with a budget less then a tenth of those of the manufacturers.
It would be a frustrating season and his best finish was twelfth in the French GP at Paul Ricard. During the year, he had combined his F1 racing with sportscar races with Kremer in their 962 Porsche, with Marc Surer. They finished second at Mugello, fourth at Silverstone and won at Monza but then they went to Mosport. In the race his Porsche 962 hit the concrete wall almost head-on and it took over over 40 minutes to release him from the car. Manfred suffered massive head injuries but, despite being airlifted to hospital in Toronto, surgeons were unable to save him and he died the following day. Manfred was a hard charging racer who earned the respect of his contemporaries and Hans Stuck said of him that he was “always fast, always committed. And he was always on the overtaking lane! He was a guy you could have fun with, but he was a guy who was always focussed on his job.” Christian Danner said “Manfred was always a rock in the German racing landscape. He was so brave, I really admired him.”
Team mate Marc Surer told of their exploits together and one time they were doing a test at Goodwood, and had gone out for a meal in Southampton. They were in the port area but got lost and found themselves by the sea and although Marc had stopped, there was a ramp going down into the water and Manfred drove into the back of his car and pushed him into the water. Marc had to climb out through the roof.” On another occasion, they were racing an M1 in the Kyalami 12 Hours but had a problem with the alternator and ran out of power. If the lights were switched off, it would cause a misfire but they were due to run into the dark in the race, and were not allowed to drive without lights. They solved this problem by switching on the lights every time they passed the start/finish but then switched them off afterwards. His younger brother, Jo was also a racing driver plus Manfred’s son, Markus took up racing.
Gallery F1 Other Sport cars F2
