F1 and bike race legend John Surtees dies aged 82

HE was the only man to have won a world championship on two wheels as well as four.

John Surtees, pictured, whose motorsport career saw him win titles in both Formula One and Grand Prix motorcycle racing, has died aged 83.

Surtees, who as Formula One world champion survived a life-threatening crash during practice in 1965, had spent a short time in intensive care at St Georges Hospital due to a respiratory condition, his family said last night.

By the time he was presented with an MBE in 1959, Surtees had won four world championships, riding 350cc and 500cc motorcycles, in a career that spanned 13 years. In addition to his motorcycling titles, in 1964 Surtees added a Formula One World Championship win to his tally while driving for Ferrari. He was awarded a CBE in the 2016 New Year’s Honours list.

In 1965 Surtees, was left with spinal injuries, a split pelvis and ruptured kidneys after he flipped a Chevrolet he was driving in Ontario, Canada.

Reflecting on the crash, in a 2015 interview, he said: ‘Once everything started to heal up, because of the damaged pelvis, I was four inches shorter on one side than the other. So my surgeon took one end and the senior registrar, a beefy lad, took the other, and they pulled like hell.

‘They got the difference down to about half an inch, and it’s still that today.’ But while Surtees survive his crash, his 18-year-old son Henry died in 2009, racing in Formula Two. A statement, released by the Surtees family yesterday, said: ‘John was a loving husband, father, brother and friend. He was also one of the true greats of motorsport.’ He is survived by wife Jane and daughters Leonora and Edwina.