Sticker of the Day No.6: Lola Switzerland, Jo Bonnier 1972
By Marcus Pye
Swiss-based Swede Joakim ‘Jo’ Bonnier scored BRM’s first F1 World Championship race victory, driving a P25 in the 1959 Dutch GP at Zandvoort. A top sportscar racer, he became Lola founder Eric Broadley’s urbane European agent. After winning the 1970 European 2-litre Sportscar drivers’ championship in a T210 Ecurie Bonnier expanded. The beautiful T290 of ’72 and its 3-litre Cosworth DFV-motivated T280 sister were superb chassis and sold well. Bonnier attracted backing from Switzerland’s cheese marketing board, but tragically, in the Le Mans 24 Hours, his T280 was launched into the trees by an amateur’s Ferrari 365 GTB4 with fatal consequences.
