Rolf Stommelen

Name: Rolf Stommelen

Nationality: Germany

Date of birth: July 11, 1943 - Siegen

Date of death: April 24, 1983 - Riverside Circuit, California, USA

A product of the Porsche sports car team of the late 1960s, and one of the few drivers capable of taming the early flat-12 Porsche 917, Stommelen entered Formula 1 in 1970 as a member of the Brabham works team with sponsorship from the German magazine Auto Motor und Sport. Third place in the Austrian Grand Prix and fifth in Italy marked Rolf out as a man with great promise, but a switch to Team Surtees in 1971 slowed his career momentum and a detour to drive a specially bodied March in 1972 for German caravan millionaire Heinz Henerici's Eifelland team virtually brought it to a halt. He made up some ground with Brabham in 1973 and then joined Graham Hill's Embassy Lola team the following season, being badly injured in a major accident at Barcelona's Montjuich Park in 1975 when the Hill GH1's carbon-fiber wing support failed. Stommelen was away from Formula 1 until 1978 when he rejoined with the Arrows team although by then he was an also-ran. He switched to sports cars and was killed at the wheel of a Porsche 935 during an IMSA race in California.

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