One-time Formula 1 podium finisher Philippe Streiff has died aged 67.
The Frenchman started 53 F1 races and raced for Renault, Ligier, Tyrrell and AGS during his F1 career which spanned from 1984 until a pre-season testing accident in 1989 curtailed his racing career.
He picked up his first (and only) F1 podium in only his sixth F1 start in the 1985 season finale at Adelaide. Prior to that, he was a race winner in Formula Two and a part of the class-winning squad 1981 edition of the Le Mans 24 Hours.
Mark Hughes on Philippe Streiff
Philippe Streiff was a driver of some promise in the mid-late 1980s, his F1 career was brutally curtailed with a paralysing testing accident at Rio in 1989.
He was driving at the time for the little AGS team with which he’d carved out his reputation in F2 and returned to as it made the jump to F1 in ’88.
By this time Streiff already had two seasons at Tyrrell under his belt alongside Martin Brundle and Jonathan Palmer, with a best of sixth at his home grand prix at Paul Ricard in ‘87.
He was actually given his F1 debut in a third Renault in Estoril at the end of ’84. As a stand-in at Ligier for the fired Andrea de Cesaris in 1985 he finished third in the season finale but did so on three wheels after colliding with team-mate Jacques Laffite.
He later organised the annual Masters karting event at Paris, Bercy where in the 1990s and 2000s F1 drivers and current karters competed for the prestigious prize – including the final Ayrton Senna versus Alain Prost duel.
