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(Motorsport-Total.com) – Jochen Rindt’s death during training for the Italian Grand Prix in 1970 was exactly 50 years ago. Formula 1 has dedicated a special edition of the ‘Beyond the Grid’ podcast to its only world champion posthumously honored to date, in which some of Rindt’s teammates at the time give their opinion.
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Friends Far Beyond Death: Jochen Rindt and Jackie Stewart Focus
Jackie Stewart, whose wife Helen is still best friends with Rindt’s widow Nina, was moved in the interview with Tom Clarkson even 50 years after the Monza tragedy. And in two places on the podcast: first, when he says that Ken Tyrrell forced him to drive the race. And secondly with the question of how he will remember Rindt on the day of his death.
“Probably not,” Stewart says. Suddenly her voice breaks: “I won’t go to a party. I won’t go to church. I don’t know either.” You can feel how close the 81-year-old is to the loss of his friend today. Then the tears flow: “It feels like yesterday. When someone told me it was 50 years ago, I couldn’t believe it!”
All the stories about Jochen Rindt have been told in recent years, especially in the days of his death. There are movies and books about the Austrian Formula 1 pop star. The city of Graz honors its eldest son with numerous measures in the year of commemoration. Among other things, a whole square is named after Rindt.
Photo Gallery: Jochen Rindt: Impressions from the Life of a Formula 1 Pop Star
With a cigarette in his mouth: this is how Jochen Rindt was known and it was not for nothing that he was nicknamed “James Dean of Formula 1”. His myth lives even 50 years after the death of the native of Mainz.
Photo gallery
But the feelings that his death still awakens in his friends back then are much stronger than any plaque that is placed anywhere. Marko also gets emotional when he talks about his childhood friend. That could already be felt in a special ServusTV broadcast on the subject, and it can also be felt when listening to ‘Beyond the Grid’.
Today he still thinks “very often” of Rindt, admits Marko and says: “At that time we could not imagine that there would still be a life above 30. It has all the fantastic moments that I have lived in these 50 years”. lost. “Rindt was only 28 years old when he died on September 5, 1970 in Monza.
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Nina Rindt (left) is Helen Stewart’s best friend to this day (right) Focus
“The world outside of motorsports, no stress, just enjoy life. He had the money, he had the personality. He often thought, ‘Poor Jochen, you haven’t gotten to know anything about this.’ But sadly it is. Much was lost. It’s a shame, “laments the 77-year-old.
“Even if he had resigned, he would have been a colorful personality not only for Austrian sports, but for the whole country. He had a German passport. But his heart, his language, everything was Austrian.”
