Otto Stuppacher (3 March 1947 – 13 August 2001) was a

racing driver Auto racing (also known as car racing, motor racing, or automobile racing) is a motorsport involving the racing of automobiles for competition. Auto racing has existed since the invention of the automobile. Races of various sorts were organise ...

from

Vienna en, Viennese , iso_code = AT-9 , registration_plate = W , postal_code_type = Postal code , postal_code = , timezone = CET , utc_offset = +1 , timezone_DST ...

Austria Austria, , bar, Östareich officially the Republic of Austria, is a country in the southern part of Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine states, one of which is the capital, Vienna, the most populous ...

. He competed in hill-climbs and

sports car racing Sports car racing is a form of motorsport road racing which utilises sports cars that have two seats and enclosed wheels. They may be purpose-built prototypes or grand tourers based on road-going models. Broadly speaking, sports car racing is ...

before entering 3

Formula One Formula One (also known as Formula 1 or F1) is the highest class of international racing for open-wheel single-seater formula racing cars sanctioned by the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA). The World Drivers' Championship, ...

Grands Prix with the ÖASC Racing Team in , with a Tyrrell 007. He was refused entry to the

1976 Austrian Grand Prix The 1976 Austrian Grand Prix was a Formula One motor race held at the Österreichring on 15 August 1976. It was the eleventh race of the 1976 World Championship of F1 Drivers and the 1976 International Cup for F1 Constructors. The 54-lap race was ...

, along with teammate

Karl Oppitzhauser Karl Oppitzhauser (born 4 October 1941) is a former racing driver from Austria. He is chiefly known for his optimistic attempt to enter the 1976 Formula One Austrian Grand Prix. Career Oppitzhauser began his career in Formula Vee in the 1960s, an ...

, despite trying to raise a petition from the other teams. At the 1976 Italian Grand Prix he failed to qualify by a considerable margin, but subsequently he was promoted up the order when three other cars had their times disallowed due to fuel irregularities. Unfortunately, Stuppacher had already left the circuit and returned home, and was unable to get back to the circuit in time to race. The three demoted runners were eventually re-admitted after the withdrawal of Stuppacher,

Arturo Merzario Arturo Francesco "Art" Merzario (born 11 March 1943 in Civenna, Como) (erroneously registered as Arturio on his birth certificate) is a racing driver from Italy. He participated in 85 Formula One World Championship Grands Prix, debuting at the ...

, and

Guy Edwards Guy Richard Goronwy Edwards, QGM (born 30 December 1942) is a former racing driver from England. Best known for his sportscar and British Formula One career, as well as for brokering sponsorship deals, Edwards participated in 17 World Champion ...

. Stuppacher failed to qualify at his other two attempts in 1976, the 1976 Canadian Grand Prix and the 1976 USA East Grand Prix, the latter seeing him over 27 seconds off the time of pole-sitter

James Hunt James Simon Wallis Hunt (29 August 1947 – 15 June 1993) ''Autocourse Grand Prix Archive'', 14 October 2007. Retrieved 4 November 2007. was a British racing driver who won the Formula One World Championship in . After retiring from racing in ...

. To date, this gap between pole-position time and slowest time during qualifying in an official Formula One race is a record that still stands today. It is not clear how much racing he did after 1976, and very little is known about him until he was found dead in his Vienna flat in 2001. He has a sister who raced in

harness racing Harness racing is a form of horse racing in which the horses race at a specific gait (a trot or a pace). They usually pull a two-wheeled cart called a sulky, or spider, or chariot occupied by a driver. In Europe, and less frequently in Australi ...

as Elisabeth Stuppacher, who was the Austrian champion from 1993 to 2000.

Complete Formula One World Championship participations

(

key Key or The Key may refer to: Common meanings * Key (cryptography), a piece of information that controls the operation of a cryptography algorithm * Key (lock), device used to control access to places or facilities restricted by a lock * Key (map ...

)

External links

Biography at F1 Rejects

References

Austrian racing drivers Austrian Formula One drivers 1947 births 2001 deaths Sportspeople from Vienna 24 Hours of Le Mans drivers World Sportscar Championship drivers {{Europe-autoracing-bio-stub