Immediately after the Second World War, Jean-Pierre Wimille, Louis Chiron, Philippe Etancelin, and Raymond Sommer carried France’s colors back into battle on the motor racing circuits of the world. But Wimille crashed his Simca-Gordini and was killed while practicing for the Grand Prix of Buenos Aires on January 28, 1949. Raymond Sommer left us in the Circuit de Cadours in an 1,100-cc Cooper on October 19, 1950. All the while, old campaigners Chiron and Etancelin were winding down their careers. So France was without a Grand Prix gladiator until 1951, when the diminutive, 30-year-old Jean Behra decided to race cars instead of motorcycles, on which he had won four French championships.
Unfortunately, Jean was one of those drivers who put his heart and soul into his motor racing, but did not end up with much to show for it. He started in a Maserati 4CLT San Remo and a 4.5-liter Talbot, but made his name in the sport trying desperately to drag Amedée Gordini’s technically, mechanically and financially below-par little cars to victory, which he did against all odds.
His win in the 1952 Reims Grand Prix driving one of the little blue cars canonized Behra in the minds of French motor racing fans—they felt they had another potential champion at last. Alberto Ascari’s all-conquering Ferrari 500 F2 was in the lead at Reims when it suddenly expired, leaving Behra and his Gordini to take command, which he held to the end. The Frenchman drove so valiantly that afterward Le Sorcier, as the French press christened Amedée Gordini, was accused of installing a rogue 2.5-liter engine in Behra’s car for the race. Although there was a lot of hot air bandied about on the subject at the time, nothing came of it. Behra also turned in another stellar Gordini performance in the 1954 Grand Prix through the streets of the pretty little French town of Pau, at the feet of the Pyrenees, where he put Maurice Trintignant’s Ferrari in its place with a sparklingly victorious drive.
The Germans could hardly believe their eyes when France’s new hero and his Gordini stayed up with the much more powerful and sophisticated new Mercedes-Benz W196 Streamliner, in the 1954 Berlin GP. The Frenchman was a real threat to the seeming invincibility of the Stuttgart car, until the Gordini could not take it any more and exploded. This was one of the drives that briefly tickled the fancy of Alfred Neubauer before he decided against recruiting Behra to campaign a W196 in 1955, a seat that eventually went to Stirling Moss. Instead, Count Orsi invited Behra to join the Maserati works team that year, alongside Sergio Mantovani, Roberto Mieres, and Luigi Musso. That was the start of, perhaps, the Frenchman’s happiest period in motor racing, during which the results came rolling in.
The move to Modena brought Behra more nonchampionship victories at Pau again and in the Bordeaux GP, even if an F1-points victory eluded him and would do so for the rest of his life. He and Cesare Perdisa finished 2nd in a Maserati 250F in the 1955 Grand Prix of Monaco to give Jean one of the best championship finishes of his career. Behra was up there mixing it with the factory Mercedes again in the 1955 Grand Prix of Great Britain at Aintree, but his elegant, if less than efficient, Maserati 250F stopped with mechanical problems after 10 laps of high-pressure racing and, once again, Behra had nothing to show for yet another brilliant performance. Worse was to come at the Dundrod Tourist Trophy on September 17, 1955, when the little Frenchman crashed heavily in a Maserati 300S, a smash that cost him an ear.
Moss joined Maserati from Mercedes-Benz for 1956 and Behra stayed on but as the number two driver, a demotion he swallowed with dignity. This was to be Jean’s best year in the Formula 1 World Championship. He finished 2nd in the opening Grand Prix de la Republica Argentina and 3rd in Monaco, France, Britain, and Germany to end the season 4th in the championship table after winner Juan Manuel Fangio, runner-up Stirling Moss, and 3rd-place Peter Collins.
Still with Maserati, Behra continued his nonchampionship Grand Prix spree in 1957 by winning at Pau again, at Modena and Morocco for the ailing Maserati. He guest-drove the troublesome BRM P25 to victories in the two nontitle Grands Prix at Caen and Silverstone and should, perhaps, have stayed with British Racing Motors, as the car eventually came good and won the 1959 Dutch Grand Prix in the hands of Jo Bonnier.
But 1959 was the year Jean got what he considered was his big break. He was signed by Ferrari to drive alongside Tony Brooks and Cliff Allison, after the team had been devastated by the deaths of Mike Hawthorn, Peter Collins, and Luigi Musso. But Behra was irked by Enzo Ferrari shying away from nominating him number one driver, a job he felt he earned on merit. The Commendatore’s reticence became even more entrenched as Brooks turned in some fine performances in Monaco and France. The Frenchman struggled on, continuing his “speciality” of winning non-championship Grands Prix, this time at Britain’s Aintree circuit in a Dino 246. But tension was always bubbling away just below the surface and things came to a head during the Grand Prix of France. Behra pitted with a melted piston, which team manager Romolo Tavoni said was due to the Frenchman’s overrevving his engine. Behra was incensed by the allegation and punched the usually mild-mannered team boss, for which Jean was fired on the spot.
So with nowhere to go in F1, Behra agreed to drive a Porsche RSK at Avus on August 1, the day before the 1959 Grand Prix of Germany. He lost control of the little car in the pouring rain on the treacherously slippery banking, was thrown into the air, slammed against a flag-pole and died instantly.
France wept the day her hero was buried, but not Ferrari—there was no wreath from Maranello, where Behra’s attack on Tavoni was still bitterly resented.
