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Musical chairs

10. Jan 2021 
by Pierre Van Vliet
6621 views

Stefan Johansson had completed the 1984 season at Toleman next to Ayrton Senna. While the Brazilian moved to Lotus, the Swede prolonged with the team, but without a tire supply contract for the beginning of the 1985 season, Toleman had no choice but to free its driver.

Good timing: in the Rio paddock, Ken Tyrrell was looking for a substitute for Stefan Bellof, suspended because of a dispute about some personal sponsoring, and Johansson inherited the Tyrrell (picture above) that he drove to a nice seventh place (the first of the atmospheric cars) in front of team mate Martin Brundle.

For the next race at Estoril, Stefan did not recuperate the Toleman… but was promoted to Ferrari, replacing René Arnoux! The Frenchman had been excluded by the Scuderia for reasons secret to this day (some sources at the time talked about drug related problems) and the blond Swede then raced for two seasons in red colours (picture below, Austria 1985, 4th).

Source: DR

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