Remembering Manfred Winkelhock

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It was on this day in 1985 that the sport lost one of its less-known unsung talents when German driver Manfred Winkelhock died after suffering a heavy crash in the Budweiser 1000km World Endurance Championship event.

Winkelhock was driving a Porsche 962C for Kremer Racing when he crashed in turn 2 at Mosport Park located near Toronto, Ontario in Canada.

The 33-year-old had been in the middle of racing a full season in Formula One with the Skoal Bandit-sponsored RAM Racing team. It was his fourth full season in Grand Prix racing, after having spent three years with Team ATS.

A fast but erratic driver, in 47 starts he sadly never managed to finish on the podium. His best result was fifth place in Brazil in 1982, in what was only his third Formula One race start at the time.

Here he is at the wheel of the ATS D6, powered by a BMW M12 L4t engine, taking part in the 1983 Canadian Grand Prix in which he went on to finish just inside the top ten.

Andrew Lewin

Andrew first became a fan of Formula 1 during the time when Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill were stepping into the limelight after the era of Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell and Aryton Senna. He's been addicted ever since, and has been writing about the sport now for nearly a quarter of a century for a number of online news sites. He's also written professionally about GP2 (now Formula 2), GP3, IndyCar, World Rally Championship, MotoGP and NASCAR. In his other professional life, Andrew is a freelance writer, social media consultant, web developer/programmer, and digital specialist in the fields of accessibility, usability, IA, online communities and public sector procurement. He worked for many years in magazine production at Bauer Media, and for over a decade he was part of the digital media team at the UK government's communications department. Born and raised in Essex, Andrew currently lives and works in south-west London.