#happy bday seppi!!!!!! 💙✨

[a-la-rascasse]

Happy birthday JO SIFFERT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (07/07/1936 - ∞) 💙⚡

Joseph 'Jo' Siffert, nicknamed by his family and friends 'Seppi', was born in Fribourg, Switzerland, to a poor family, his father was a dairy owner and it's thanks to him if Jo got interested in motorsport: at the age of twelve, he took him to Bern, to see the 1948 Swiss Grand Prix; from that day Jo knew that he wanted to become a racing driver. After concluding his mandatory school years, in 1951, he started working as an apprentice in a workshop that mainly repaired cars; there he would meet the swiss driver Benoît Musy, with whom he developed a great friendship (after Benoît's passing, Jo would make a tribute to him with his helmet design).

Like many other racing drivers (von Trips, Surtees, Ickx), the young Seppi, made his motoracing debut in the world of motorbikes in 1957, and quickly made his name known by showing his determination and talent, that later would earn him the Swiss 350 cc motorcycle championship in 1959, before switching to the the world of four-wheel racing by joining the Formula Junior.

After two years, Jo finally made his debut in Formula 1: he took part at the '62 Monaco GP, racing in a Lotus-Climax for a private team, the first of many others, because during his racing, Jo changed a few teams, like in 1964 he joined the Rob Walker racing team, with whom he earned three important victories: he won the '64 and '65 Mediterranean GPs, both were non-championship, but this gp was considered to be very prestigious, and later he would win the '68 British GP, which was the first official victory for the Swiss driver with the private team, that later he would leave in 1970 to join March. His second victory would later come once he joined the BRM team in 1971, at the Austrian GP; but unfortunately that would be his last, that same year Seppi would pass away in a tragic accident during a non-championship race held at Brands Hatch.

Jo always demonstrated to be a very versatile driver: after becoming the lead driver for Porsche, he participated often at the 24 hours of Le Mans, he won the 24 Hours of Daytona and the 12 Hours of Sebring along with Hans Herrmann, and other tricky competitions like the 1000km of Spa and the '70 Targa Florio. Porsche would later choose Seppi to start their new racing programme in the Can-Am series in 1969.

Jo was also known for being the testimonial for the Heuer watches, and used to sell them to his fellow F1 drivers like Graham Hill, Jim Clark, Jochen Rindt and many others. Being the testimonial, in '69 it was released his own personilised version and was called the 'Heuer Autvia': it had an elegant white watch face with light blue details. The watch had a big success, but despite that, after Jo's passing, Jack Heuer, preferred to remove it from trade and never use those colours again.