...At one point, as we drove past the Italian team managers, I shouted that if they weren’t going to take care of it, I was going to kick everyone out…
The 1967 World Championship was on 3 rounds. The first was a “home” race for me, in Vevey, Switzerland, and it didn’t go so well: the seat support broke during the final.
The seat was rubbing against the ground, so I had to keep myself lifted up as much as possible to keep it from flattening out completely and also to avoid getting my butt burnt, because the seat was on fire from all the friction! I know, not a pretty sight!
The second round was in Düsseldorf, Germany. I won the first two heats and did a nice start in the final.
Too bad that Massimo Nava, who was added to Team Italy just to play against us Swiss (this is a well known fact), got in my way and slowed me down.
At one point, as we drove past the Italian team managers, I shouted that if they weren’t going to take care of it, I was going to kick everyone out…
They pulled Nava out on the next lap and I started to “pull” like mad to recover and ended up with a seized engine. My dad convinced me to get back out and keep going.
I drove the rest of the way with my hand over the carburetor to keep it as rich as possible and placed third.
When we got to the final act in Montecarlo, there were 5 of us in contention for the title…