Ferrari 512

I was involved in racing in a very interesting time, when a lot of good things happened and a lot of bad things. I was co-driving with Her­bert Mueller. After Zeltweg in 1971, we were asked by Rico Steineman, the Porsche racing manager, if we had a car for Pedro Rodriguez for the Norisring. He felt that none of the private Porsche 917s were as good or as safe as our 512s. The car Pedro drove was rebuilt by the factory only two races earlier. Manfredini and Moretti had driven it at Monza, finishing 6th and I raced that car myself at Vila Real just the week after Zeltweg, the week before Norisring, where Pedro had his accident. Herbert and I decided that Pedro was the best of the whole bunch, so we thought we should give him our best car to race. The rest is history. Pedro was very fast with the car and he was leading easily when the accident happened. That was pretty much the end of our team.

I wasn’t at that race because I was driving the factory BMW in the 6 Hours of Nürburgring. I did that race twice for BMW with either Lauda or Dieter Basche. I went back to Zurich after the Ring and switched on the TV and saw the picture of the car and knew immediately it was my car. I knew the cars well, because Herbert and I had bought three cars from Steve McQueen’s Solar Productions. We immediately sold one car and had the other two converted to M specifications at the factory for the 1971 season. The car I usually drove with Herbert was prepared by our mechanic and he thought it was the better car, but even today I think the car which Pedro raced (chassis 1008) was superior. I drove it at Vila Real and was leading before I ran out of petrol. I remember taking the gamble because if I stopped I was going to lose anyway.