Obituary: F1 and Le Mans winner Jochen Mass, 1946-2025

Jochen Mass, 1970s F1 star and winner of the 1975 Spanish Grand Prix for McLaren, has died, aged 78.

Mass enjoyed a long sportscar career during and after his F1 stint (which spanned 1973-1982) and was an early mentor of Michael Schumacher when they raced together at the Sauber-Mercedes team in the late-80s. Mass partnered Stanley Dickens and Manuel Reuter in winning the 1989 Le Mans 24 Hours for the team.

After some success in Touring Cars and F2, he had made his F1 debut at the 1973 British Grand Prix, driving for the Surtees team, a partnership which continued into 1974 until he was picked up by McLaren for the last race of the season in preparation for his position at the team in 1975 as the retiring Denny Hulme’s replacement.

He achieved some promising results there as number 2 to Emerson Fittipaldi, including what would be the only Grand Prix victory of his career at the tragic race in Montjuich - which was called short of half-distance after Rolf Stommelen’s car crashed into the crowd, killing four spectators. Mass was leading at the time the race was stopped and was declared the winner, with the race carrying only half-points.

A sensitive personality, he admitted finding things difficult when the extrovert James Hunt arrived at the team in 1976 as Fittipaldi’s replacement. Mass was nonetheless dominating the German Grand Prix at the 14-mile Nurburgring - having made a brave gamble to start on slick tyres – when the race was stopped for Niki Lauda’s fiery accident.

He was following close in the wheel tracks of Hunt in the Fuji title-decider when he aquaplaned out of second. He subsequently raced for ATS, Arrows and Ram as a reliable, safe pair of hands.

When driving slowly to the pits during qualifying for the 1982 Belgian Grand Prix at Zolder, his car was struck by a flat-out Gilles Villeneuve, the Ferrari driver being killed after being ejected from the car. It lost Mass any appetite he'd held for F1 - and he left at the end of the season.

A keen sailor, Mass had amazing upper body strength, demonstrated to spectacular effect when he appeared on the multi-discipline Superstars competition against other athletes. In the medicine ball contest, with a heavy ball thrown from a sitting position and the gym floor marked out in distances, Mass’ ball didn’t even touch the floor - but hit the opposite wall.

A real gentleman, he will be greatly missed.