Gerhard Mitter

Who was Gerhard Mitter?

Gerhard Karl Mitter was a German Formula One and sportscar driver.

Mitter was born in Schönlinde in Czechoslovakia, 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.

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, e.g. the 1966-1968 European Hillclimb Championships against Ferrari, the 1968 24 Hours of Daytona and the 1969 Targa Florio 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. Udo Schütz, his driving partner at Porsche in the 1969 World Sportscar Championship season which whom he had won the Targa three months earlier, had survived a bad crash at the 1969 24 Hours of Le Mans, and retired.