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Hans Heyer is a former German driver born in 1943 who started with karting and then drove in endurance and touring car races. He was crowned winner of the European Touring Car Championship in 1974, winner of the DRM (Deutsche Rennsport Meisterschaft) championship in 1975, 1976 and 1980.
A good track record, which allowed him to glimpse his ultimate dream, that of driving in F1. He had this chance in 1977 when he was hired by the new German team ATS of Gunther Schmid to drive the second ATS Penske PC4-Ford for the German GP. However, he was not lucky enough to qualify with a half-second lead, he achieved the 27th time out of 30 while only the 24 best times are allowed to take the time difference the next day for the race. He was then the third reserve, which meant that he would only have the chance to race if three drivers retired. Luck was not on his side and his dream of participating in an F1 Grand Prix became nothing more than a mirage. He had to pack his bags to go home, but we do not know how he managed to extend his stay in F1 by an extra day by making his way into Sunday's race!
Whatever he thought, seeing his dream melt like snow in the sun, Heyer would force his destiny, he decided to start the race anyway, leaving the pits and joining the pack without the officials realizing it, perhaps helped by the confusion surrounding the failure of the starting lights, but the real reason was that he had developed a daring plan that he would later recount: "I put my car in a strategic place and I maintained it. The grid girls were karting drivers at the time, and I knew most of them well. I said: Girls, when you come back from the grid, stay around my car and give me some privacy. No sooner said than done: the peloton sets off, shortly afterwards – to the cheers of the fans – a third German driver enters the track after Hans Stuck in the Brabham-Alfa and Jochen Mass in the McLaren-Ford!
Heyer was then realising his dream of driving in F1, and he climbed up the rankings to 19th position, helped by various retirements and mechanical problems of his competitors of the day; the odds seemed to have changed sides!
Final turnaround, nine laps after committing his forfeit, his gearbox gave up and the German returned to the pits to retire.
Imagine, the officials still hadn't noticed his presence on the track despite nine passes in front of the control tower!
It was only on his return to the garage that Heyer was caught. The driver was given a Grand Prix suspension for his insubordination but the sanction proved useless since the German ended his F1 career that same evening. Ironically, ATS replaced him with another Hans, Hans Binder, born in the mountains of Tyrol!
Heyer was unmasked and was disqualified and given a lifetime ban from driving in Formula 1.
In any case, Hans Heyer, through sheer nerve, will realize his dream of driving in an F1 GP and will go down in history by being the only driver to be credited with a DNQ (Did Not Qualify), DNF (Did Not Finish) and DSQ (Disqualified) in the same race, and all in a single participation, an unprecedented record.
In the high-security wing of today's Formula 1, this is an impossibility.
For us, this fits into the atypical charm of the races of the 70s and 80s where everything is possible, a story that begins an extraordinary series of this crazy era.
Hans Heyer retired from racing in 1989 after competing in 999 races, but returned to make his 1,000th start in a Volkswagen Polo Cup race at the Norisring in 2004.
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