Jurgen Lassig 1943-2022
Jurgen Lassig was an amateur sportscar driver regarded as a safe pair of hands, who achieved successes that would be unthinkable today. The German, who has died aged 79, finished second at the Le Mans 24 Hours in 1987 and triumphed at the Daytona 24 Hours eight years later.
Lassig, whose wealth was founded on his property interests, was a fixture at Le Mans for the majority of the 1980s and deep into the 1990s, starting the race no fewer than 16 times. Ten of those came with the Obermaier Porsche squad he helped found, and it was while driving Porsches under the direction of Hans Obermaier that he notched up six of his seven top-10 finishes, the 1987 runnerup spot in a 962C shared with Bernard de Dryver and Pierre Yver included.
His allegiances switched in 1993 to Kremer Racing, with which he scored his biggest success sharing the winning 962-based K8 with Christophe Bouchut, Marco Werner and Giovanni Lavaggi at Daytona in 1995. He was more than a bit-part player in that victory, remembers long-time Kremer team manager Achim Stroth.
“He did more laps than Bouchut and Werner,” says Stroth. “Jurgen was very consistent and very reliable. He was humble and very teamorientated. A good guy.”