Heinz Schiller

25/1/1930 - 27/3/2007

Record updated 03-Apr-07

Heinz Schiller was a former powerboat champion who switched to cars in the mid-1950s. He finished second in class on the 1957 Mille Miglia. He drove in one World Championship Grand Prix in Germany in 1962, retiring with oil pressure problems after 3 laps.

Heinz Schiller
Heinz Schiller was from Frauenfeld, near Zurich in Switzerland. A former powerboat champion, he switched to cars in the mid-1950s driving a 1.5-liter Porsche, taking second place in his class on the 1957 Mille Miglia.

Early in 1958 he raced his Porsche RS at the Formula 2 Pau GP, circulating steadily to earn a distant sixth place. After hill-climbing in the Porsche Carrera Abarth in 1961, he moved into Formula 1 with Georges Filipinetti's Ecurie Nationale Suisse (Scuderia Fillipinetti) in 1962, mainly driving in non championship races, he was team mate to Jo Siffert.

Heinz normaly drove the team's Porsche 718 but had a single chance in the more competitive Lotus 24-BRM V8 at the German GP when Siffert switched to a Lotus 21. Official records show that Schiller's Lotus-BRM broke down with an oil pressure problem after just 3 laps of the famous 23km Nordschleife.

He made one more single seater appearance for the team driving the Porsche 718 at Pau in 1963, and finished third, five laps adrift of the Lotus duo of Jim Clark and Trevor Taylor.

He continued to race Filipinetti's GT cars, taking second in class at the Nurburgring 1000 Km and also a class win at the Ollon-Villars hillclimb in the Porsche Carrera Abarth.

In 1964 he raced his Porsche 904 in long-distance events with Jo Siffert, and took tenth place (and third in class) at Le Mans in the works car with Gerhard Koch.

After he retired he ran a Porsche dealership in Geneva.



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