14/9/1918 - 23/8/1967
Record updated 23-Aug-06
Belgium racing driver who competed in 2 Grand Prix. Won the Tour de France (Rally) with Willy Mairesse in a Ferrari in 1960. He was killed when he crashed his Porsche 911 during the Marathon de la Route in 1967.
Georges Berger was born in Molenbeek Saint-Jean, near Brussels, Belgium. He was a Formula One driver who raced for the Simca-Gordini and Gordini teams. He initially competed during the 1950s in a Formula 2 BMW-engined Jicey with which he finished third in the Grand Prix des Frontieres at Chimay.
In 1953 he raced a Simca-Gordini Type 15, finishing fifth at Chimay. He entered the same car in the Belgian Grand Prix but retired after only three laps. The following year he raced a Type 16 briefly for the Gordini works team. He finished seventh on the streets of Bordeaux and in the French GP at Reims, he retired early with engine trouble. He then came a fourth at Rouen before eventually disappearing from single-seater racing.
He then turned to racing in sports and GT cars, driving a Maserati, an AC Bristol and a Ferrari 250GT. He often raced the latter car with another ex-Grand Prix driver, Andre Simon. But his greatest success was winning the Tour de France with Willy Mairesse in 1960, again in a Ferrari.
He was killed racing a Porsche 911 in the 1967 Marathon de la Route, an 84-hour endurance race at the Nurburgring.