Driver Profile: Helmut Marko

[Londoner]

Evening everyone!

We've got a behemoth of a Driver Profile to kick off 2022. A man more known nowadays for his ridiculous media outbursts and drill sergeant like behaviour towards Red Bull Juniors, Helmut Marko was a successful young driver in his own right in the late 60s and early 70s. A compadre of the late Jochen Rindt, Marko made it to Formula One but as you can quite clearly tell, failed to escape Rejectdom before his racing career was sadly cut short.

Our profile maestro Rob Dylan has taken up the war of words to record Marko in the pages of GPR folklore forever, and you can read it right here!

Driver Profile: Helmut Marko

[CoopsII]

Good stuff. More F1 'fans' should probably read this, particularly if they're prone to "I hayt marko cuz he sakced a drivr I licked!!" posts online. It certainly caused me to, perhaps, reassess my opinion of him. He's clearly a man out of time in some ways and his perceived ruthlessness probably wouldn't have made headlines in the 1970s the way is has more recently. We've all read stories about how rapidly team bosses would hire replacement drivers after a fatality, after all.

[Rob Dylan]

Good stuff. More F1 'fans' should probably read this, particularly if they're prone to "I hayt marko cuz he sakced a drivr I licked!!" posts online. It certainly caused me to, perhaps, reassess my opinion of him. He's clearly a man out of time in some ways and his perceived ruthlessness probably wouldn't have made headlines in the 1970s the way is has more recently. We've all read stories about how rapidly team bosses would hire replacement drivers after a fatality, after all.

Thanks for the feedback. Even as the author I had a strong change of heart regarding Marko as a character while I was researching. I think, to hear him talk about his relationship with Jochen Rindt really betrays a lot of his personality and why he acts the way that he does. Probably the most fascinating character study I've had the pleasure of reading about so far.

[yannicksamlad]

Thanks, a great read. Particularly filling in some of the picture of the early years - late 60s and pre-BRM of which I knew nothing really (until now).

And although many us disagree with his unsupportable comments on various things, you're right to remind us of his excellent record in promoting drivers careers ..which is more important than a few strange utterances and occasional mystifying attitudes

[Rob Dylan]

Thanks, a great read. Particularly filling in some of the picture of the early years - late 60s and pre-BRM of which I knew nothing really (until now).

And although many us disagree with his unsupportable comments on various things, you're right to remind us of his excellent record in promoting drivers careers ..which is more important than a few strange utterances and occasional mystifying attitudes

Thanks very much for saying that, that was my primary intention with this piece. I wanted to take someone who is so contemporary and people have such strong opinions on, and attempt to totally change people's perspectives on their career and who they are. My own respect for the guy went up considerably after doing some research on him.