An endurance racing specialist with two Le Mans victories to his credit, plus 74 grand prix starts during a battling Formula 1 career. His story is as endearing as he is.

INTERVIEW: ROB WIDDOWS

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Hans Stuck Snr drove for Auto Union prior to World War II. Here he is in action at AVUS in 1934

Hans Joachim Stuck Junior had a hard act to follow. His father had famously raced for the mighty Auto Union team in the 1930s and been hailed in his native Germany as the king of the long mountain hillclimbs. Hans Junior inherited the passion for racing as a child, watching, learning from his father, and having his first taste of a race track at the Nürburgring where his father taught at the racing school. He won his first 24-hour race there when he was just 19 years old, quickly forging a reputation as one of the sport’s best long-distance drivers with BMW and Porsche, winning Le Mans twice for Porsche in 1986 and ’87. He always preferred closed cars but achieved his dream of F1, racing for March, Brabham, Shadow and ATS in the 1970s. Hans raced for almost 50 years before retiring to take up his position with Volkswagen testing and refining both competition and road cars, a role that he continues to this day. He looks back on a long and varied career.

Motor Sport: We know a lot about your father’s success but what was he like as a man? How did he influence your early years?

HS: He was an outstanding person. As a child I went with him to races and hillclimbs and saw the respect, the admiration of his talent. Even today people say he was a real gentleman, friendly to everyone, and he told me ‘Little boy, if you are friendly then everyone will be friendly to you too’. My mum was the tough one, but on the race track my dad knew what he had to do, a great competitor. He was a great example to me, I have tried to live up to him in my life.

Those guys were so brave; when I drive the Auto Union I cannot imagine how they did a race of 300 kilometres round the Nürburgring at over 200mph. They were not only brave, no seat belts, no proper helmet, a bad seating position so close to the steering wheel, it was also physically demanding. When you drive those cars you are sitting so far up front it’s really difficult to feel what the car is doing, especially with all that power and skinny tyres. I can only raise my hat to him and all those drivers.

Hans Stuck Jnr takes a phone call overseen by his father at their family home

What did you learn about driving, and racing from such an illustrious father?

HS: Not so much, really, but at the start of my career I was famous for going sideways and he told me ‘don’t go so much sideways, be more careful with the tyres’. I said ‘But Daddy, I love it...’ so I don’t think it helped. People say he must have been a hard act to follow but it was never like that for me, I only had positive energy, he was such a nice guy. There were expectations, of course; my success was not as much as he had, but it wasn’t bad, so that’s ok with me. I tell you, I have one record: he was married three times, I am four times, so I win that one! My time in racing was when sex was safe and racing was dangerous.