Leaving childhood behind

In 1977, Jochen Neerpasch, the first managing director of BMW Motorsport GmbH, came up with a ground-braking idea: to train young drivers professionally and send them on to the race track as a junior team.

BMW had entered three promising newcomers – Swiss Marc Surer, German Manfred Winkelhock and American Eddie Cheever (picture above), for the first round of the 1977 DRM championship in Zolder. Driving the mighty Group 5 BMW 320s the trio fought furiously to secure 1st, 3rd, and 5th in class respectively. Nice starting point.

Jochen Neerpasch remembers: “We wanted the Junior Team to drive disrespectfully – they weren’t disciplined, and that was fine for me. There was no strategy and certainly no team orders. That was the only way they could develop.”

“These really were the good old times,” commented Surer. “I’d love every driver to experience what we did – it was about being faster than your teammate, even if the cars touched. It was cheer freedom to race.”

Along with the Swiss, American Eddie Cheever was part of the original Junior Team. “That was our our first chance to prove ourselves as drivers. BMW provided the cars and Jochen Neerspasch was a serious and methodical teacher who thought us so much. We left our childhood behind us.”

Thanks to the BMW Junior Team, Surer, Winkelhock (picture below), and Cheever built on these foundations and climbed the ladder through Formula 2, and all three soon became Formula One drivers.