'Gerhard Karl Mitter' (born
30 August 1935 - died
1 August 1969 [1]) was a
German Formula One and sportscar driver.

Gerhard Mitter
Mitter was born in
Schönlinde in the
Sudetenland, but his family was
expelled from there, to
Leonberg near
Stuttgart.
After racing motorbikes, he switched to
Formula Junior, becoming the best German driver with 40 victories. In addition, he sold Two-Stroke-Engines for FJ. In 1963, Gerhard Mitter won the
Formula Junior Eifelrennen at the
Nürburgring.

Gerhard Mitter driving Lotus in 1965 at the Nürburgring
Mitter also participated in seven
Grands Prix, debuting on
23 June 1963. He scored a total of three championship points in his home
1963 German Grand Prix with an old
Porsche 718 from 1961. Impressed by this,
Team Lotus gave him a chance in the following years.
In
sportscar racing and
hillclimbing for
Porsche, he scored many wins, eg. the 1966-1968
European Hillclimb Championships against
Ferrari, the 1968
24 Hours of Daytona (
Porsche 907) and the 1969
Targa Florio (
Porsche 908) as his final major win.
Due to the long
Nürburgring track, it was possible to take part in the
German Grand Prix with
Formula 2 cars that were classified in their own contest. Mitter was killed there at ''Schwedenkreuz'' while practising for the
1969 German Grand Prix with
BMW's ''269'' F2 project. As a suspension or steering failure was suspected, the BMW team with
Hubert Hahne and
Dieter Quester withdrew from the race, as did Mitter's teammate at Porsche,
Hans Herrmann.
Complete Formula One World Championship Results
() (Races in 'bold' indicate pole position)
External links
★ http://www.motorsport-stats.com/f1/drivers/gmitter/index.html Bio
★ http://www.motorsport-stats.com/f1/drivers/gmitter/results.html Results
References
1. The World Championship drivers - Where are they now?