1. Jean Marie Behra was a French racing driver, who competed in Formula One from 1952 to 1959.
43 Facts About Jean Behra
1. 2.
Jean Behra achieved nine podiums and one fastest lap, finishing fourth in the 1956 World Drivers' Championships with Maserati.
3.
Jean Behra was small in stature, stocky, and weighed 178 pounds.
4.
Jean Behra had big shoulders and was scarred from 12 crashes.
5.
Jean Behra sometimes drove magnificently, while at other times he drove with a lack of enthusiasm.
6.
Jean Behra was known for being hard-charging and temperamental, which led to confrontations with Ferrari team managers after being accused of overstressing engines at the 24 Hours of Le Mans and the Reims Grand Prix race in 1959.
7.
Jean Behra was dismissed from the Ferrari team after assaulting a team manager, shortly before his death.
8.
Jean Behra raced motorcycles for Moto Guzzi prior to changing to sports cars and Grand Prix racing.
9.
Jean Behra hit the headlines when he won the non-title 1952 Reims Grand Prix.
10.
Jean Behra was in a Gordini in the Panamericana road race in the Mexican state of Oaxaca in November 1952.
11.
Jean Behra won the first stage of the five-day race from Mexico's southern border to the United States border at Ciudad Juarez near El Paso.
12.
Jean Behra started 19th and finished with a time of 3 hours, 41 minutes, and 44 seconds.
13.
Jean Behra finished 200 yards ahead of Maurice Trintignant after having to make many pit stops due to mechanical trouble.
14.
Jean Behra finished first at the Grand Prix de Pau for a second consecutive year, this time at the wheel of a Maserati.
15.
Jean Behra had surgery on his leg in June 1956, forcing him to miss a 1,000 kilometer Monza Grand Prix.
16.
Jean Behra earned the pole position for the Rouen GP, a non-championship race for 3000cc sports cars, in July 1956.
17.
Jean Behra's Maserati was clocked at an average speed of nearly 155.46 kilometers per hour.
18.
Jean Behra drove a Maserati to capture the Grand Prix of Rome, a 2000cc sports car event, in October 1956.
19.
Jean Behra covered one lap in 2 minutes, 16.9 seconds, to average 174.003 kilometers an hour.
20.
Jean Behra had his best season in the Formula One World Championship in 1956, finishing 4th overall in the championship, with 5 podiums out of 7 starts.
21.
Jean Behra circuited the 2.77 meter course in 1 minute 35.7 seconds, which was a half second slower than his lap record time.
22.
Jean Behra was injured while testing a car for the Mille Miglia in May 1957.
23.
Jean Behra was triumphant in a Maserati at Kristianstad, Sweden in August 1957.
24.
Jean Behra drove in a Swedish 6-hour Grand Prix at the Rabelov, 6,537 meter, asphalt track.
25.
Jean Behra drove a Porsche to victory in the 6th Rouen Grand Prix.
26.
Jean Behra bested the British drivers, Graham Hill and Alan Stacey.
27.
Jean Behra took 4th place at Porto in the 1958 Portuguese Grand Prix, driving for BRM.
28.
Jean Behra finished 4th at Riverside International Raceway in a small Porsche RSK, in October 1958.
29.
Jean Behra made a quick exit and took an airplane to Europe, where he left for the Grand Prix of Morocco at Casablanca.
30.
Jean Behra was in such a hurry that he left Riverside, California in an ambulance to make his flight.
31.
Jean Behra won a 200-mile international race of Formula One cars at Aintree, in April 1959.
32.
Jean Behra averaged 88.7 miles per hour in an event in which Brooks took second place, 10 seconds behind.
33.
The team, known as Jean Behra-Porsche, entered the 1959 Monaco Grand Prix with Maria Teresa de Filippis at the wheel but did not qualify.
34.
In so doing, Jean Behra had beaten Scuderia Ferrari's own F2 entries, enraging Enzo Ferrari and doing little to ease tensions in an already strained relationship with the team.
35.
Jean Behra was involved in a strong discussion in a restaurant in which he punched team manager Romolo Tavoni and another patron, and was instantly dismissed from the team.
36.
Jean Behra was thrown from his car and fatally injured when he hit a flagpole, causing a skull fracture.
37.
Jean Behra was thrown out and for a fleeting moment he could be seen against the background of the sky, with his arms outstretched as though attempting to fly.
38.
Jean Behra impacted one of eight flagpoles arranged at the summit of the embankment which bore the flags of the competing nations.
39.
The flagpole toppled over when Jean Behra collided with it, about halfway to its top.
40.
Jean Behra came down into trees and rolled almost into a street where drivers and cars often waited in a paddock to practice.
41.
Jean Behra had three funeral services: one in Berlin, another in Paris, and a final one in Nice.
42.
Jean Behra's demise left only Maurice Trintignant among living French drivers of fame.
43.
Jean Behra dropped Behra as a factory driver ten days before his death when he learned that Behra was going to race a Porsche at Avus in breach of their agreement and sent no remembrance to the funeral masses.