Jean Behra and the Fatal Insult

Story and photos by Graham Gauld

Had he lived, the great French driver Jean Behra would have been 96 last month (February). I say, “had he lived” because Behra was a hard, tough racing driver who had started out racing on motorcycles and had survived a number of accidents. He repeated this in his car racing career until that sad day when he was due to race his own Formula car, the Behra Porsche, for the first time in a World Championship Grand Prix.

Behra told me, ‘You are a stupid man!’ and slapped me on the face.

It was not to be, for a few hours earlier he chose to compete in a sports car race on the same high-speed banked Avus track in Germany in a Porsche RSK. He slithered on the banking in the wet and hit a pole at the top of the banking and was killed outright.

Just like another driver killed in a Porsche, James Dean, Jean Behra was a bit of a rebel and occasionally bore a chip on his shoulder feeling that the world was against him. Indeed it was this that caused his ignominious departure from Ferrari, as we shall see.

Born in the glamorous town of Nice on the French Riviera in February 1921 and was mad on motorcycles. He had his first race in 1937 at the age of 16 but after World War II he became French Champion in 1948 when he was 27 and was to win the French Motorcycle Championship another four times, overlapping his car racing career, latterly with Moto Guzzi.

His first recorded motoring event was not a circuit meeting but the legendary Mont Ventoux hill climb where he was entered in a Maserati 4CLT entered by Pierre Boncompagni who raced as “Pagnibon” . They shared the car but what is more, Behra won the large capacity class with “Pagnibon” second.

However, what was even more important was that Behra also finished third overall behind the two factory Gordinis of Maurice Trintignant and Robert Manzon.

He clearly impressed Amédée Gordini and two years later Gordini entered Behra alongside four of the Gordini regulars, Trintignant, Manzon, Scaron and Simon for what was to be his first actual circuit race, the Sables d’Olonne. It was run in heats and Behra finished second to Trintignant in the first heat and in the final finished third behind Simon and Manzon and ahead of Trintignant: he was on his way. He was to continue with Gordini for three seasons before being signed up by Maserati for the 1955 season.

Again, fighting against the odds, Behra impressed everyone by winning his first three non-championship Grand Prix races. Then came the Monaco Grand Prix where he and the other major teams faced the powerful Mercedes-Benz team. In practice he was fifth fastest behind Fangio, Ascari, Moss and Castellotti.

Despite a pit stop to give Behra Cesare Perdisa’s car, Behra pressed on only to have the clutch break. However, he was still credited with third place with Perdisa as Perdisa finished the race with the car Behra had started with!

Apart from one sports car race in a Porsche and two races in a BRM Formula 1 car, Behra stayed with Maserati until the end of the 1957 season.

For 1958 he joined Porsche for sports car races and did the European Hill Climb Championship with the RSK. But at the end of that season he was entered by Scuderia Madunina Venezuela – which had been founded by Juan Fangio’s manager – in a Ferrari 250GT for the Grand Prix of Venezuela. It was his first Ferrari drive and he won the race outright.

It was around this time that Behra was approached to drive for Scuderia Ferrari, and he signed for the team alongside Englishman Tony Brooks to replace Peter Collins and Luigi Musso who had both died in accidents during 1958. It was a strange pairing; Behra, the wiry tough Frenchman and the well-educated and more sophisticated Tony Brooks, but what complicated matters was that Enzo Ferrari chose not to specify either as the team leader; a decision that irked Behra.

Indeed he slowly simmered in the background and felt that he was being short changed at the races. It all came to a head at the French Grand Prix of 1959 when his engine expired in the race with a blown piston.

Incensed, he spoke with the racing correspondent of the French daily sports newspaper “L’Equipe” and complained that Ferrari had given him a bad car, that the chassis was not right and the engine was an old one.

The day after the race when “L’Equipe” appeared, Enzo Ferrari personally telephoned team manager Romolo Tavoni and asked why Behra had complained so bitterly in the newspaper.

Some years later Tavoni explained to me what happened: “I was still in Reims waiting to collect our starting money and prize money (Tony Brooks, Phil Hill and Olivier Gendebien had finished first second and fourth) and Mr Ferrari told me to go and see Jean Behra and tell him to immediately apologize and make a correction. I gave Behra Mr Ferrari’s message and Behra told me, ‘You are a stupid man!’ and slapped me on the face. I then called Mr Ferrari and told him what happened and Mr Ferrari told me to tell Behra he was to report to him the next Tuesday in Maranello. I left a message in Behra’s hotel and on the Tuesday Mr Ferrari, Behra and I met in Mr Ferrari’s office.”

“…if only Jean had stayed with Ferrari he might have lived!”

Enzo Ferrari said he was waiting for an Italian newspaper journalist to arrive as well as the correspondent for a French newspaper, when they arrived he would like Behra to make an apology for his remarks.

“Behra said no” Tavoni continued. ” So Mr Ferrari listened and then said ‘Tavoni is my young man and he talks for me. First you apologize to Tavoni then you talk to the journalists and for the second time Behra said no. Mr Ferrari then called in Mr Della Casa, the book keeper, and ordered him to look up Behra’s accounts, pay Behra anything outstanding, and then our contract is ended.”

It was a sad moment made worse by Behra’s death just four weeks later driving in a modest support race to the German Grand Prix at Avus where he was to race his own Formula 1 car, the Behra Porsche. Jean Behra was a tough and mercurial racing driver who drove hard and won often, but temperamentally he could be volatile, as was the case with Ferrari.

There is an ironic footnote to the story of Behra and Ferrari. Sometime after Behra’s death his widow met up with Romolo Tavoni and remarked “…if only Jean had stayed with Ferrari he might have lived!”