A Life on the Limit: Revisiting Jochen Rindt’s Remarkable Rise and Tragic Fall

During his tragically brief life, Jochen Rindt’s rich talent, on-the-edge style, and magnetic charisma captured the admiration of the media, fans, and his peers alike.   

His was a violent era. Driver life expectancy was short, making for fatalistic attitudes and a cavalier approach to life. Rindt once said, “Maybe I’ll not reach the age of forty…”  

He didn’t make 30.  

“Nobody knows how long they will live,” Rindt added. “So, you have to do as much as you can, as fast as you can.”  

He certainly accomplished that.

Born April 18, 1942, in Mainz, Germany, his parents died in a 1943 Allied bombing raid. Spoiled by the doting grandparents who raised him, he became a mischief-making hellion with no interest in higher learning. And he had a wingman for his hell raising. 

Rindt and Helmut Marko, now Red Bull’s motorsport consultant and the architect of their driver development program, so terrorized their school that administrators offered them passing certificates if they transferred to another school.  

They transferred.  

Hoping to instill discipline, Rindt’s grandparents packed him off to England to complete his education. He did no better there. He did, however, discover auto racing. 

Beginning with hill climbs, he then transitioned to saloons, and for the 1963 season, he bought a near-obsolete Formula Junior Cooper. With it, he won consistently against more experienced drivers racing better equipment in the Italian Formula Junior Championship.  

The following year, he jumped to Formula Two, putting together a team with Ford of Austria’s backing. Running a Brabham-Cosworth, he startled Europeans by winning against Jim Clark, Graham Hill, and Denny Hulme in the prestigious London Trophy race. 

By 1965, a mere three years after first stepping into a race car, he’d scored a Formula One ride.   

However, his three-season F1 run with the Cooper Racing team was bleak. The cars were uncompetitive and unreliable. Still, he managed 10 points-paying finishes despite completing only 13 of the 29 races Cooper entered. 

While Formula One proved disappointing, Rindt excelled elsewhere. He remained virtually unbeatable in Formula Two, a series permeated with Formula One drivers. He won Le Mans in 1965 and made two consecutive appearances at Indianapolis, in 1967-68. 

In 1968, Rindt switched to Brabham’s Formula One team. Reliability remained an issue. He finished only two races. However, he was always competitive and finished second in both events he completed. 

That caught the attention of Lotus creator, Colin Chapman, who was searching for Jim Clark’s replacement, after Clark’s fatal crash at Hockenheim.   

Lotus was the gold standard, with Chapman’s imaginative designs revolutionizing racing. But his cars also bore a reputation for being dangerously fragile. That troubled Rindt. 

By this time, he’d personally matured. He’d married Finnish model, Nina Lincoln, and they’d started a family with the birth of a baby daughter. He hesitated at accepting Chapman’s offer. 

His friend, future F1 czar Bernie Ecclestone, finally convinced Rindt that he needed Lotus to become a World Champion. Still harboring reservations, Rindt signed with the team for 1969.  

“I will either become World Champion or get killed in a Lotus,” he insisted.  

Initially, Rindt fared no better with Lotus than his previous teams, falling out of the season’s first four races. In Spain, a wing strut broke, and he crashed horrendously. He was left with a concussion and with increased reservations about Lotus’s safety. 

He recovered, however, and went on to score his first Formula One victory at Watkins Glen.    

For 1970, Chapman unveiled perhaps the most significant car in racing history. The Lotus 72. Rindt was not happy with it, however, and stuck with the older Lotus 49C to win Monaco on the last corner of the final lap.   

Chapman soon had the 72’s teething problems resolved with the 72C, a tremendous improvement over the original. Rindt went on a tear, winning four consecutive Grand Prix before suffering a mechanical failure in Austria. 

Then came Monza. 

Rindt had the 1970 World Championship all but sewn up. During practice on September 5th, he charged into the infamously fast Parabolica, and the brake system failed. The car burrowed under the Armco barrier. Rindt died instantly.         

A dark pall blanketed the storied track. Jackie Stewart sat in his car and wept. Chapman withdrew the remaining Lotuses. A dazed Eccelstone lovingly recovered Rindt’s helmet and one of his shoes, ripped off as the car violently disintegrated.    

Rindt was crowned World Champion posthumously.  

55 years on, the memory of Jochen Rindt’s exceptional talent and ability has dimmed. Jackie Ickx, who finished second to Rindt in the 1970 championship, perhaps described that mastery best, “He won because, in the end, he was simply better than the rest. He was unbelievable.”