Gerhard Berger is still actively involved in F1, more than a decade after his retirement from Grand Prix racing.
Gerhard Berger is a familiar face in Formula 1 paddocks. The Austrian owns half of the Toro Rosso team and, prior to that, was Competitions Director for BMW. Before both of those positions Berger had a long and successful career as a driver himself.
Berger’s Grand Prix debut came in 1984, after graduating from Formula 3. Driving for the small ATS team he managed a sixth place at Monza. The following season brought a move to Arrows where he improved slightly, ending the year with three World Championship points. His career really got started in 1986 when Berger moved to Benetton, whose cars were powered by the formidable BMW turbo engines, perhaps the most powerful Formula 1 engines of all time.
Berger scored his first Grand Prix victory at the 1986 Mexican Grand Prix and finished the year seventh in the World Championship. His efforts had been enough to attract the attention of Ferrari who secured his services for 1987.
Any hope of challenging for the title in 1987 was blighted by appalling reliability as Berger retired from nine races. The car did last the distance for the final two Grands Prix of the year and Berger demonstrated his ability by winning both of them. Nevertheless, fifth place in the World Championship was not what he had been hoping for.
The dominance of McLaren throughout 1988 meant that the other teams were left to fight for the minor placings. The only highlight came at Monza, Ferrari’s home race. After Ayrton Senna collided with Jean-Louis Schlesser’s Williams while trying to lap it, Berger was left to cross the line first, just ahead of team-mate Michele Alboreto. It was an emotionally charged victory, occurring just a few weeks after the death of company founder Enzo Ferrari.
Berger stayed with Ferrari for the 1989 season but was fortunate to survive a horrifying crash during the San Marino Grand Prix when his car went straight on at the Tamburello curve, ploughed into a concrete wall and caught fire. Excellent work by the marshals saw Berger escape relatively unscathed. His only win of the year came in the Portugese Grand Prix.
A new challenge awaited in 1990 as Berger changed teams, becoming Ayrton Senna’s team-mate at McLaren. Despite out-qualifying Senna at the first round the mercurial Brazilian soon exerted his authority as undisputed number one. Once Berger had accepted that Senna was rather special the two became close friends. Over the next three seasons together Berger would often infuriate Senna with his practical jokes. These included throwing the Brazilian’s briefcase out of a helicopter while in flight and replacing his passport photograph with a lewd picture, resulting in Senna being detained by airport security for a considerable time.
1993 saw a return to Ferrari with Jean Alesi as his team-mate, but the team was still in the doldrums. Berger did manage to win at Hockenheim in 1994 but, that aside, results were thin on the ground. For 1996 both Berger and Alesi moved to Benetton. At the 1997 German Grand Prix Berger scored a highly emotional victory, coming shortly after the death of his father. It was to be the final win of his career and also the final win for Benetton. Gerhard Berger had therefore scored the team’s first and last victories in Formula 1. At the end of 1997 Berger retired permanently from Form
