Hans Herrmann

Herrmann, who was a baker by trade, began a racing career that spanned from cooperation with pre-war legends like Alfred Neubauer to the beginning of Porsche's dominance at Le Mans. He took part in legendary road races including the Mille Miglia, Targa Florio, and Carrera Panamericana, and was one of the few remaining witnesses of that era. Known as Hans im Glück (lucky John), he escaped from several spectacular incidents.

Herrmann had a remarkable Mille Miglia in 1954, when the gates of a railroad crossing were lowered at the last moment before the fast train to Rome passed. Driving a very low Porsche 550 Spyder, Herrmann decided it was too late to brake, knocked on the back of the helmet of his navigator Herbert Linge to make him duck, and they barely passed below the gates and before the train, to the surprise of the spectators.

From 1954 to 1955, Herrmann was part of the Mercedes-Benz factory team, as a junior driver behind Juan Manuel Fangio, Karl Kling, Hermann Lang, and later Stirling Moss. When the Silver Arrows returned for the 1954 French Grand Prix to score a 1–2 win, Herrmann drove the fastest lap but had to retire. A podium finish at the 1954 Swiss Grand Prix was his best result that year, though he had to use older versions of the Mercedes-Benz W196 or the least reliable car.

In the 1955 Argentine Grand Prix, teammates Kling and Moss had to abandon early due to extremely hot conditions in January. Herrmann was called in to share his car with them for a 4th-place finish, giving one point each. Fangio won with two laps more. Herrmann was quick in the 1955 Mille Miglia with the Mercedes-Benz 300 SLR, comparably or even faster than Moss, but had to abandon the race. A crash in practice for the 1955 Monaco Grand Prix put him out for the remainder of the ill-fated 1955 season, even though a comeback in the Targa Florio had been intended.

The following years saw Herrmann racing for many marques, in F1 for Cooper, Maserati, and BRM. At Berlin's AVUS during the 1959 German Grand Prix, the brakes of his BRM failed; he crashed in a spectacular way, being thrown out of the car and sliding along the track while the car somersaulted in the air.

With different versions of the Porsche 718 used both as a sportscar and as a Formula Two car, Herrmann scored some wins for Porsche, mainly the 1960 12 Hours of Sebring and Targa Florio. When the open-wheeled single-seater version of the Porsche 718 became eligible for Formula One in 1961 due to rule changes, the F1 results were disappointing. Herrmann finished 15th (last) in the 1961 Dutch Grand Prix, which was the first ever F1 World Championship race to have no retirements. He left Porsche at the start of the 1962 season, feeling that as a local from Stuttgart he was "No Prophet In His Own Land" compared to Californian Dan Gurney and Jo Bonnier from Sweden. Gurney scored two F1 wins (one non-championship) with the new Porsche 804, but Porsche retired from F1 at the end of 1962 regardless.

From 1962 to 1965, Herrmann drove the small cars of the Italian Abarth marque in minor races and hillclimbing events. He took outright wins only in lesser sports car racing events, such as at AVUS or the 500 km Nürburgring. The Abarths were hard to beat in their classes from 850cc to 1600cc. Being the only professional driver in a small team, Herrmann learned much about testing and developing, which helped him later. Dissatisfied with the preparation of his car for the 1965 Schauinsland practice, Hans went home to witness the birth of his son Dino. At the end of the year he left Abarth to return to the manufacturer closer to home.

In 1966, Herrmann returned to Porsche for a comeback in the World Sportscar Championship, as Porsche began a serious effort there. Following several podium finishes with the still-underpowered two-litre Porsche 906 and later models, he won the 1968 24 Hours of Daytona in a 907, and the Sebring 12 Hours again, now together with Swiss driver Jo Siffert. The overall win of the 1000 km Nürburgring always eluded him, even though Herrmann had taken part in each of those races since they were introduced in 1953, finishing second three times in a row from 1968 to 1970, behind teammates Jo Siffert and/or Vic Elford.

Herrmann missed the win at the 1969 24 Hours of Le Mans with a Porsche 908 by only 120 metres. It was he who finally scored the long-awaited first overall victory at Le Mans for Porsche in 1970. He was assigned to Porsche Salzburg, the Austria-based factory-backed team owned by the Porsche family, which mainly entered cars painted red and white in the Austrian colours. In heavy rain, Herrmann and teammate Richard Attwood survived with their Porsche 917K #23 as the best of only seven finishers.

Half jokingly, Herrmann had promised his wife before the Le Mans race that he would retire if he won. Having witnessed fatal accidents of colleagues too many times — including the death of his teammate and neighbour Gerhard Mitter before the 1969 German Grand Prix — the 42-year-old announced his retirement on TV, after having driven the winning car in a parade through Stuttgart from the factory to the town hall. To get out of his contract with Porsche Salzburg, Herrmann had to recommend a replacement driver to Louise Piëch.

Using his contacts, Herrmann built a successful company for automotive supplies. He was kidnapped once in the 1990s and kept in a car trunk for many hours before escaping. Herrmann remained engaged in the racing community through his retirement, demonstrating historical cars at events such as the Solitude-Revival. He died on 9 January 2026, at the age of 97.

This article is based solely on the supplied corpus. No external sources were consulted; claims that could not be substantiated against the corpus were omitted under the drop-the-claim rule.