Marc Surer

Marc Surer (born 18 September 1951) is a Swiss former racing driver and broadcaster, who competed in Formula One from 1979 to 1986.

Born in Arisdorf, Surer began kart racing aged 20. He moved to Germany in 1974 to compete in Formula Vee, as motor racing was banned in Switzerland following the 1955 Le Mans disaster. After finishing runner-up in the 1976 German Formula Three Championship, Surer progressed to European Formula Two, winning the title in 1979 with the BMW Junior Team. Making his Formula One debut at the Italian Grand Prix that year with Ensign, Surer signed for ATS in 1980. He participated in 88 Formula One Grands Prix, scoring 17 championship points.

Surer started his career in karting in 1972. Due to the racing ban established in Switzerland after the 1955 Le Mans disaster, he moved to Germany in 1974, where he finished second in the local Formula Vee Championship. In 1976, he switched to European Formula 3, where he was noticed by Jochen Neerpasch, who hired him as a member of the BMW Junior Team alongside Eddie Cheever and Manfred Winkelhock. In 1978, he finished second in the Formula 2 Championship, eventually winning the series the following year in a works March-BMW.

Surer's debut in Formula 1 took place at the end of 1979 and was somewhat troubled. He broke his legs in qualifying at the South African Grand Prix in an ATS at Kyalami in 1980 and again racing there in 1981 for Ensign. He recovered to give Ensign their best result with a 4th-place finish at the 1981 Brazilian Grand Prix, also setting the fastest lap of the race. He later drove for Theodore before establishing himself at Arrows for a couple of seasons, until BMW's support earned him a seat at Brabham for 1985. Surer returned to Arrows in 1986 but eventually retired from Formula One halfway through the season due to a serious accident at the 1986 ADAC Hessen-Rallye in his Ford RS200 that severely injured him and killed his co-driver and friend Michel Wyder. BMW retained him as a driver, coach and later director of motorsport activities. In 1994 and 1995, Surer, alongside Johnny Cecotto and Jo Winkelhock, won the German Super Touring Car Championship.

In 1996, Surer began working as a television commentator at all Formula 1 events for Sky Sport (Germany) (formerly known as DF1 and Premiere) next to the lead commentator Jacques Schulz. After Schulz's withdrawal prior to the 2013 season, he remained as a commentator alongside Sascha Roos until 2017.

In 2016, in an academic paper that reported a mathematical modeling study that assessed the relative influence of driver and machine, Surer was ranked the 17th best Formula One driver of all time.^[1]

Surer has been married twice to former Playboy models, first to Playmate Jolanda Egger, and then to Christina Surer between 1997 and 2000. On 3 December 2011 he married his longtime partner Silvia Renée Arias.^[2]

^† As Surer was a guest driver, he was ineligible for championship points.

(key) (Races in bold indicate pole position; races in italics indicate fastest lap)

(key) (races in italics indicate fastest lap)

• Profile at www.grandprix.com