Hans no longer ruled by the clock

Former Formula 1 competitor and Le Mans legend Hans-Joachim Stuck celebrates his birthday on January 1. Along with his racing father, the German is part of what fans in the Nordschleife forests call ‘die Stuckrennfahrerdynastie’.

In a classic Lunch With… from our archive, the younger Stuck explains how his father caught the racing bug after a bet involved him driving his car backwards up a mountain faster than his friends could forward. “He switched the gearbox so he had one forward gear and four reverse gears,” Stuck told Simon Taylor.

Heading in the correct direction, his old man became a GP hero by winning races for Auto Union in the 1930s against the likes of Bernd Rosemeyer and Rudolf Carraciola.

Later on, Stuck Sr did what any respectable racing dad would do and let his nine-year-old loose in a full-size road car at his local racing school.

Once the kid had made it to F1, he had to barter with Bernie Ecclestone on contracts and race for the wildly eccentric Gunther Schmidt before competing against GP heroes in sports cars too. “For 43 years the stopwatch ruled my life,” he said. “Now I only use a stopwatch to boil an egg.”

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