Germany’s first World Champion? Well, not in Formula One, but who’s to say it would not have happened?

Pure speed born of total commitment and aggression, and lack of fear, marked Stefan as the logical successor to Gilles Villeneuve. Inevitably, some people saw his tendency not to lift as overly reckless, and that he was asking for a major crash. His Grand Prix career was fairly brief, but he had marked himself out as someone who was really going places, particularly as he was thought likely to be taking Stefan Johansson’s place at Ferrari in 1986. On top of all this, he was a very well liked character.

It was a great loss to Germany when Bellof died, as he was thought to be of a standard to take their first championship. Following the successes of the thirties, with Caracciola, Stück, Rosemeyer, von Brauchitsch and Lang, the World Championship era had been largely barren for Germany. The one exception was Wolfgang von Trips, who surely should and would have won the 1961 title with Ferrari, but was killed at Monza. He had gone into that race with a four point lead, knowing that a win would secure the championship with one round remaining, thanks to the dropped scores system. His death meant Phil Hill was able to beat him by one point.

Stefan’s father had competed in rallying with a BMW, and the son débuted in karts at age sixteen, winning many national titles. Six years later he branched into car racing proper and was a champion first time out, in the German Formula Ford 1600 series of 1980. This as well as taking the national kart title in the same season. 1981 saw a full-time single seater racing programme, with F Ford, Super Vee and F3 race wins. In the latter category, he took his Bertram Schafer-run Ralt RT3 to third in the German championship, with three wins from seven starts.

He moved straight into Formula Two for 1982, with the Maurer-BMW team. The season started in unprecedented style, with the rookie winning his first two events at that level, the first in a wet weather battle, and the second from pole position and with fastest lap. Team boss Willy Maurer immediately saw Bellof’s potential, and also took on the role of his driver’s manager at this stage. The remainder of the campaign was less successful, and a second at Enna and a third at Hockenheim were the best results achieved, along with the inevitable fastest laps at the Nürburgring, Vallelunga and Misano. He was ultimately left with fourth in the table, hurt by six non-scoring rounds.

For 1983, after apparently turning down the ATS GP team, he remained with the Maurer team in F2, and was similarly spectacular. Although only scoring from a second at Járama and a fourth at Silverstone, his pace was genuinely felt once again, including two fastest laps. At Pau he started from pole position and, despite three pit stops for a complete change of wheels, he finished only 20 seconds behind the non-stopping leader. Unfortunately his third place was taken away because of his car being underweight. Before this, he had brilliantly made up a number of places on the first lap at the Nürburgring, pulling an amazing lead. He had to coast uphill from the last corner after the throttle cable broke, and yet this stood as twelfth fastest lap of the race.

Following a first sportscar run in 1982, the ’83 season saw him tackle this new discipline at World level in tandem with the F2. He drove a Porsche 956 turbo for the works team, most often in partnership with Derek Bell. In his first event, at Silverstone, he took pole by 2.2s, and they also won the race. Two more wins, at Fuji and Kyalami, were also from pole. Bellof also took five fastest laps in the Porsche. At the Nürburgring, his exuberance may well have cost Bell the World title. With a comfortable lead, the team tried to get Stefan to slow down. This inspired him to go faster, and he soon crashed the car! Bell lost the series by three points, with the new boy fourth overall.

In 1984, he remained teamed with Bell in the Rothmans Porsche outfit, now with the 956B, but also made his start in Grands Prix. Ken Tyrrell’s team of young chargers was made up of Bellof and the British F3 runner-up, Martin Brundle. By this stage, virtually every F1 team was now using turbo-charged engines and, when Arrows switched over during the year, Tyrrell were left as the last users of the normally aspirated Ford Cosworth DFY. Despite the obvious power disadvantage, there were a number of high points for the team. In the final analysis, however, it turned out to be a pretty bleak year.

In sportscars, things carried on as before. Wins came at Monza, the Nürburgring, Spa, Imola (with Stück), Fuji (with Watson) and Sandown Park, four of these from pole. He also started first at Mosport Park, where he had one of his three fastest laps. This dominant form made him the World Endurance Champion, by eleven points from team-mate Jochen Mass. He also took the German title with a Brun entered car.

His Formula One exploits had started impressively, too, and he took a point from only his third event, the Belgian GP at Zolder. Here he had relentlessly hounded Elio de Angelis in the Lotus-Renault, and ran fourth before his pitstop. The next race was Imola, where he came fifth in a race of attrition. It was in round six of the series, however, where he really made his name...and it was a Grand Prix he might have won.

Whilst he might have been bumped from the grid by the lap on which Brundle crashed dramatically, in Tabac corner, Bellof nevertheless scraped into last position. The race itself occurred in torrential rain, which made up for the lack of power, and in fact probably suited the non-turbo Tyrrell. With Nigel Mansell having crashed going away from Alain Prost, the main story was of the progress of Ayrton Senna in the Toleman. Before too long he was up to second and gaining on the leading McLaren. The widely reported case of Prost signalling for the race to be stopped, was in fact the Frenchman frantically trying to indicate that his front brakes were vibrating badly. As conditions deteriorated, the race was stopped at 40% distance when clerk of the course, former rainmaster Jacky Ickx, decided it was too dangerous. This meant Prost kept the win, but only half points.

Whilst Senna would soon have caught the leader, had the race continued (and he was very angry that it didn’t), Bellof at this stage was placed third. Not only that, but he had been gaining on both the cars ahead, and would have been likely to get the lead for himself. He had already pulled exciting manoeuvres to get where he was, going past Keke Rosberg into the harbour front chicane and, by way of the pavement, diving impossibly past René Arnoux on the inside at the Mirabeau. With the race halted when it was, the German earned only two points from all his spectacular work.

After this, it was only really on the street circuits where the Tyrrells could achieve anything much. In both Detroit and Dallas, Stefan got his car inside the top seventeen on the grid - everywhere else it was usually worse than twentieth. In fact, he was particularly good at the first of these venues, where he was an outstanding second fastest in the race morning warm-up session. During the race itself, he was running in sixth position, and just behind Brundle, when he clipped the wall at the chicane and was out. His team-mate went on to finish as the runner-up, and less than a second behind Nélson Piquet’s winning Brabham.

It was after this race that Tyrrell’s season was turned upside down. A sample from the water injection reservoir of Brundle’s car was found to have a minuscule hydrocarbon content, and this was deemed to be an illegal fuel additive. As well as this, very small lead balls were found in the rubber bag water tank, used for cooling the fuel injection system, and it was felt that these constituted unsecured ballast. Also, topping up this water during the race was seen as illegal refuelling! As well as disqualifying the Englishman from the race, FISA went on to exclude the Tyrrell team from the entire championship, with all previous results being annulled.

Naturally, the team appealed against this excessively harsh (and surely unwarranted) penalty, but the main result was a further charge against illegal holes in the car’s flat bottom. In the meantime, there were five races before this appeal was heard, and Tyrrell were allowed to compete as normal, although not officially recognised. Bellof missed the German GP to race his Porsche in Canada, but his best GP result in this period was ninth at Zandvoort, and he didn’t even make it into the Austrian race.

Stefan had earned five points (and Brundle eight), but all in vain as they were disallowed. Cynics suggested that the Tyrrell affair conveniently allowed for the fuel limit regulations to be changed. The rules agreed had meant the maximum limit would be reduced for 1985. This didn’t suit the turbo-charged teams, who proposed an extension of the existing situation. For this to happen, total consensus from the teams was needed, and Ken Tyrrell was the only dissenter. Without him agreement was reached...

This effectively meant that Tyrrell were going to have to switch to turbos to remain competitive, something they had resisted for a long time, due to the costs involved. For 1985, they kept the same driver line-up, but phased in use of the Renault V6 t/c, already supplied to the works team, Lotus and Ligier. Before this, Bellof nearly got a further F1 run at the end of ’84. With Tyrrell not entering the last two races, the German was obviously available. For the season closer in Portugal, the Brabham team needed a replacement driver in their number two car. It had originally been shared by the Fabi brothers, with Teo missing some events whilst pursuing a simultaneous IndyCar career. As his father had just died, the Italian was unavailable, and this inevitably applied to Corrado as well. Bernie Ecclestone had tried to contact Bellof, but with no success. He turned to Manfred Winkelhock instead.

In 1985, Stefan carried on his sportscar career, now with a Brun Motorsport-entered Porsche 956B or 962 turbo, teamed with Thierry Boutsen. Ken Tyrrell would have preferred him to stick with just the F1, but he loved racing these cars. In Mugello they were third, and Hockenheim saw another fastest lap. In Grands Prix, he missed the opening Brazilian race, suspended following an outburst from Maurer. Johansson, who had filled in after Brundle broke his ankles later in ’84, was the substitute. When Bellof reappeared for the team, he was again spectacular in the under-powered Cosworth car.

In the torrentially affected Estoril race, scene of Senna’s first victory, he scored his first official point. Then, more impressively, he was fourth in Detroit. He first drove the Renault-powered 014 in Germany, finishing eighth, and was classified seventh in Austria, though out of fuel. At Zandvoort, he managed to spin it through three complete rotations when he attacked a corner and hit some dropped oil, but missed the barriers and drove on. It was his last Grand Prix.

Seven days later, he was racing the Porsche 956B at Spa-Francorchamps, where he’d won the year before. Qualifying the car third of thirty-three, he ran second to one of the other Porsches early on. Boutsen got them into the lead a while later, but they lost this at the next change over, as a brake pad needed changing. Bellof came out and charged after Jacky Ickx, whose 962C led after the car ahead made it’s pitstop. The German caught the leader, and on lap 78 attempted to go around the outside through the daunting 140 mph Eau Rouge corner. Ickx had nowhere to go, and the two cars collided. Stefan went head on into the wall and was killed instantly. He was 27.

Tyrrell filled his seat with first Ivan Capelli, then Philippe Streiff, but it wasn’t until 1989 that he found his next big star - one Jean Alesi.