Surtees, John

John Surtees, (born February 11, 1934, Tatsfield, Surrey, England—died March 10, 2017, London), British motorsport racer who was the only competitor to have won world championships while racing motorcycles and automobiles, with seven motorcycle-racing world championships in two classes (1956–60) and one Formula One drivers’ championship (1964).

Surtees’s parents owned a motorcycle shop and were active in motorcycle racing. He began racing as a teenager. Surtees first made a name for himself in British races, and in 1956 he signed with Italy’s MV Augusta team. Later that year he won the world championship in the 500-cubic-centimeter- (cc-) engine class. In 1958, 1959, and 1960 he captured the world title in both the 350-cc and 500-cc classes, a run of success that earned him the Italian nickname figlio del vento (“son of the wind”).

By 1960 Surtees was feeling confined by his agreement with MV Augusta, and he therefore added automobile racing to his skill set. He made an impressive debut in a Formula Junior race in England before starting on the Formula One circuit, where he quickly proved his worth, coming in second in the 1960 British Grand Prix. In 1963 Surtees joined Ferrari, and that year he won the German Grand Prix. Another victory in the German Grand Prix in 1964, followed by a first-place finish in the Italian Grand Prix, put Surtees in contention for the drivers’ title, and in a dramatic race in Mexico City he did well enough to secure a one-point advantage over his nearest competitor and capture the championship.

He was less successful in 1965, and in September that year he suffered massive and life-threatening injuries when his Lola T70 sports car hit a barrier and overturned on top of him during a practice race in Ontario, Canada. Remarkably, he was able to return to Formula One racing by the start of the 1966 season, and he was victorious in that year’s Belgian Grand Prix. However, he left Ferrari halfway through the season because of a dispute with the team manager. Thereafter he raced mostly for Honda, and he won his final Grand Prix race in Italy with that team in 1967.

In 1970 Surtees formed his own team and drove for it until 1972. Team Surtees was underfunded, however, and it disbanded in 1978. After the 2009 death of his son in an automobile racing accident, he helped establish the Henry Surtees Foundation to raise funds for the assistance of people with brain or other physical injuries and to provide training in motorsports. Surtees was inducted in 1996 into the International Motorsports Hall of Fame and was appointed CBE in 2016.