John Surtees received a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) honors, but no knighthood.
As an all-rounder, John Surtees is difficult to beat. From 1956 through 1966, Surtees gained seven FIM motorcycle championships, including four in the 500cc class, equivalent to today’s Moto GP; a 1964 F1 world championship for Ferrari; and a 1966 Can-Am championship that came after a crash nearly ended his racing career. Previously awarded MBE and OBE honors for his contributions to motorsport, Surtees was named a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) on the 2016 New Year’s Honors list by Queen Elizabeth II.
Surtees proved adept at motorcycling from an early age, winning his first grass-track races at age 15. At age 21 he was a member of the Norton factory team, where he bested reigning world champion Geoff Duke at Silverstone and Brands Hatch. Hired by MV Augusta for 1956, Surtees delivered his first 500cc class championship for the Italian brand in his debut year.
Surtees motorcycling champion.
From 1958 through 1960, Surtees utterly dominated the sport of motorcycle racing, racking up 32 victories in 39 races and capturing both the 350cc and 500cc world championships in all three years. As if this feat weren’t impressive enough, Surtees claimed 500cc victories at the Isle of Man TT in all three years, adding 350cc class wins in two out of the three years as well. However, in 1959 Surtees began his career as an open-wheel driver in an F3 car owned by Ken Tyrrell.
Surtees finished second to a young Jim Clark that day, and his performance earned him a four-race trial with Lotus in 1960. DNFs plagued Surtees at Lotus (and later, at Yeoman Credit Racing and Bowmaker-Yeoman Racing), but his assertive driving style landed him a role at Ferrari in 1963. Here, he’d deliver his first F1 victory at the Nürburgring in 1963, followed by an F1 World Championship the following year 1964.
A testing crash at Mosport in 1965, behind the wheel of a Lola T70 Can-Am car, nearly ended Surtees’s driving career, and ultimately led to his departure from Ferrari two races into the 1966 season. He’d return with the Cooper team for the very next race, delivering a win and two podium finishes throughout the season’s remaining seven races. Despite his earlier mishap in the Lola T70, Surtees would also capture the 1966 Can-Am championship, beating Mark Donohue, Bruce McLaren and Phil Hill in the process.
Surtees would continue racing in F1 into the 1972 season, competing for Honda, BRM, and eventually, Team Surtees. Started in 1970, the management of Team Surtees, which ran cars in both F1 and F2, took an ever increasing amount of his time, prompting his semi-retirement as a driver late in the 1972 season. Eventually, Surtees would leave racing behind, opting for the less complex and less political world of motorcycle and automobile retailing.
In 1959, Surtees was awarded Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) honors for his contributions to motorsport, and in 2008 he was granted Officer of the Order of the British Empire honors for the same reason. His latest achievement, Commander of the Order of the British Empire, is just one step below knighthood, an honor that Surtees’s fans have long been petitioning for. (For me, Surtees is more eligible for a knighthood than Stirling Moss for example.)
Surtees also had personal tragedy when his son Henry was killed in a race in the UK in 2009.
John Surtees wasn’t the only motorsport figure acknowledged during the 2016 New Year Honors celebration, either. Paddy Hopkirk, best known for winning the 1964 Monte Carlo Rally behind the wheel of a Mini Cooper S, received MBE honors for both his contributions to motorsport and his work with charity SKIDZ, which provided youth training in mechanics until its July 2015 liquidation.
