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| Jan Lammers preparing to drive a 1971 Porsche 911T 2.7l at Speed Classic Cape Town. PHOTO CREDIT: Speed Classic Cape Town. |
To a degree, Lammers will be remembered as the talented Dutchman whose Formula 1 career never quite blossomed. To others, he is the man who conquered the 24 Hours of Le Mans with Jaguar, a victory that truly secured his place among the endurance racing elite.
The younger generation will know him as the sporting director who helped lead the return of Formula 1 to the Netherlands after a 36-year absence, playing a pivotal role in restoring the Dutch Grand Prix to the calendar at a time when the country's passion for the sport had reached unprecedented heights through Max Verstappen's success.
If you asked the 70-year-old Dutchman to reflect on a career spanning more than five decades. He doesn’t dwell on the statistics, missed opportunities, or even his greatest victories. Instead, he talks about people, mindset, and the lessons learned. For a driver who experienced the highest highs and lowest lows motorsport could throw at you, success was never measured solely by trophies, but by a career rooted in humble beginnings.
"Well, no racing family at all, you know, just a working-class family. I was the youngest of seven kids. I have five brothers and one sister. Money, I always say we were a very wealthy family without money, so all the important things were right, brought up here along the coastline, next to the racetrack, the dunes and everything, so actually everything a young boy or girl can wish for," he said.
Growing up in Zandvoort, the circuit that would eventually become synonymous with both his own career and Dutch motorsport, Lammers' introduction to racing bears little resemblance to the routes available to aspiring Formula 1 drivers today. At the time, no karting academies, junior programmes, or simulator sessions waited for him. Instead, opportunities came through hard work and the belief of a man who saw something special in the Dutchman.
Rob Slotemaker was already a household name in the Netherlands. A renowned driving instructor whose car-control demonstrations even appeared in Steve McQueen's iconic film Le Mans, Slotemaker took Lammers under his wing long before he ever climbed into a racing car.
"I ended up being a handyman or whatever at a skid control school we had in those days, and it was owned by Rob Slotemaker. He was quite a skid control, car control expert. I wouldn't say, like Ken Block of those days, but something similar. He did all the skidding demos in the movie of Steve McQueen about the 24 Hours of Le Mans, so in doing so, he took me to Le Mans when I was 14. He was quite a celebrity in Holland, and really helped to teach me everything I know. He bought my first racing car. He also took a mortgage on his house to pay for my first deposit, the first payment on my Formula 1 year in 1979, but basically, I just went through the grounds at the skid school, you know, just dampening the skid pan and washing the cars, cleaning the toilets, making the coffee, frying the eggs, you name it," he said.
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Whilst working as an instructor at the skid school, the Dutchman began racing at 16, steadily progressing through Dutch touring cars before moving into Formula Ford and Formula 3. His breakthrough came in 1978 when he won the European Formula 3 Championship, defeating a field packed with future Grand Prix talent. More than four decades later, he remains the only Dutch driver to have won the championship.
"Still, I'm the only one who’s ever won the European Formula 3 Championship. From there, I went into Formula 1, and yeah, that was with ups and downs, you know, never really did anything meaningful. So, I think I had probably 98% or 97% of what it takes to be a world champion, but anyway, I got close enough to enjoy it," he says.
Like many young drivers, Lammers’ ambitions evolved naturally as each milestone was achieved, because Formula 1 itself was never truly a goal.
"Well, I didn't have that pretense to begin with, because, you know, you start with a little touring car. And so, then in those days, it's all about the next corner, the next lap, the race and the championship,” he explained. “So, you know, you start off with realistic goals. But then after those goals were achieved, after the short-term goals, you know, it's like stepping on stairs; you do one step at a time. But after about, yeah, I did the Dutch championship. I started in Formula 4 and Formula 3, particularly after winning the European Formula 3 title. I really thought, like, well, you know, why not? So, I felt that I was as good, or as bad as, the people around me. So, I thought it was a fair, yeah, realistic goal to make it to Formula 1. But then you had to be with the right team. The difference in equipment in those days was probably bigger than the difference in drivers."
Making his Formula 1 debut in 1979 with Shadow Racing Cars, Lammers entered the championship during one of its most fiercely competitive eras. But rather than joining an established front-running team, he spent much of his Grand Prix career driving for teams fighting simply to qualify.
Shadow, ATS, Ensign and Theodore rarely had the resources to compete against the dominant manufacturers of the day, leaving promising drivers with little chance to demonstrate their full potential. Lammers, though, achieved his best Formula 1 race result in his debut season with Shadow, a ninth-place finish at the 1979 Canadian Grand Prix.
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| Jan Lammers on track at Circuit de Monaco in the ATS. PHOTO CREDIT: Jan Lammers. |
"It's like going to the bad school, and people tell you all the wrong things. Whereas as a student, you don't know what is wrong or right. You only find out later how limited you are compared to the competition around you," he explained.
Since then, Formula 1 has evolved dramatically with modern-day simulators, data analysis, and driver academies, which have narrowed the gap between competitors, making outright speed less of a differentiator than it once was.
"These days, the difference between drivers, I mean, there is, in my opinion, Max Verstappen and the rest of the world. But everything underneath, there is so little difference. I mean, the difference now between the drivers is minimal these days; it's all about the third digit behind the comma. So, I think it's the attitude and the character that will make the difference," the 70-year-old said.
Regardless of all the advancements in technology, one challenge remains stubbornly unchanged, and that is finances; the money element, if you will. He believes that financial backing still influences careers at every level of motorsport today, often proving decisive when talent alone cannot separate two equally capable drivers.
"One of the boxes is also like financial stability. And, if there is a big question mark and you are as good as the next guy, but he does have financial stability, they still tend to go for that person," he said.
However, for the Dutchman, dwelling on these circumstances is beyond your control and serves little purpose. Having experienced the realities of chasing sponsorship himself, Lammers argues that determination and creativity remain the most valuable currencies a young driver can possess.
"If you have the funds at hand to really make use of the opportunity you have now, then it's a little bit easier. But on the other hand, if you don't, there's no point in whinging about it. Just get up, get going and just pick up the thing that cannot be done and do it," he said.
The Dutchman has often been asked whether he looks back on Formula 1 wondering what might have been. After all, few drivers arrive in the championship as reigning European Formula 3 champion only to spend the majority of their careers in machinery incapable of challenging the sport's established front-runners.
"Well, no, nothing, nothing really. Because, you know, I couldn't; it's impossible to be 16 and know what I know now. You know, I wasn't any wiser. I made a lot of decisions that, when I look back at them, and yeah, it's almost like a puzzle, like, you know, what could I have done better? Then that's basically a printout of like what knowledge you lacked at that moment," he explained.
Rather than viewing his career through the lens of missed opportunities, he prefers to see it as a learning process. Every wrong turn, every disappointing result and every difficult decision simply reflected the experience he was yet to build.
To explain his perspective, the 70-year-old Dutchman provided an interesting analogy that has little to do with motorsport itself.
"I really feel it's like hang gliding, you know, you have to find the right thermal. And then you do the same thing. The only thing is that the hot air just lifts you up. So, there's nothing you do differently; only if you don't find that thermal of success, then, you know, you can do what you want, but eventually you'll be on the ground," he explains.
Perhaps it’s one of the most informative insights into how Lammers interprets not only his own career but success in general. Talent matters, but so does the environment around you. So, surround yourself with the right people, in the right place, at the right time, and opportunities will begin to appear that simply don't exist elsewhere.
"That is the same thing in life. You have to find that thermal of success, which is the people, the facilities, you know, it could be where you live, where you move to, but it's up to you to find that thermal. And, once you hit that, it feels so easy, because everything around you, you see support and cooperation, and you name it. And, you have people around you that have all the answers to the questions you have. And if you put yourself in the wrong environment, you're at a standstill," he said.
That way of thinking also explains why he is reluctant to attribute a driver's success purely to influential management or fortunate circumstances.
Sir Lewis Hamilton's rise through McLaren's junior programme is often cited as an example of being spotted by the right people at the right time. Still, the Dutchman believes that overlooks the years of dedication and hard work that came beforehand.
"They had to get to that level, because Lewis Hamilton's father and Lewis himself, they worked very hard, and meticulously to get where they are. And it's a cliché that Lewis' father had two jobs, and yeah, a trailer behind his car to go from kart track to kart track. So, they worked very, very hard," he said.
For the former F1 driver, life mirrors a qualifying lap. Drivers cannot spend an entire lap worrying about the finish line. Instead, they must focus on the corner directly in front of them, trusting that enough good decisions will eventually produce the desired result.
"Life there is just like a qualifying lap. You know, you can't focus on the lap… You have to figure out what is the next right thing to do. And you have to focus on the next corner, you know, or actually the very corner that you are in. That's where you have to focus," he explains.
Ironically, only after the Formula 1 opportunity had passed did he begin developing the mindset that would define the second half of his career. However, he admits that he was still thinking about Formula 1.
"Formula 1 was almost like, whatever, you know, something irresistible in your head... So, for a time, you are not at your best, even in the sports cars, because you are in the sports car where your mind is frustrated, because you want to be in Formula 1. And it's tough to let go of your ambitions," he says.
Even as he established himself within endurance racing, the dream of returning to Formula 1 never quite vanished. That persistence eventually resulted in one of the longest gaps between Grand Prix appearances in history, when Lammers returned to race with March in 1992, for two Grand Prix.
During a stint racing in the United States of America, Lammers confronted an uncomfortable truth whilst racing for Dan Gurney’s team. If the same frustrations followed him from one team to another, perhaps the common denominator was himself.
"If you end up in the same situation time and time again, there must be something that I am doing wrong myself. And, if it wasn't the driving skills, then I have to smarten up a bit," he said.
Long before sports psychology became a common place in motorsport, the Dutchman immersed himself in books on mind control methods. He began treating preparation with the same seriousness as driving itself, determined to understand not just how to drive faster, but how to think better.
“I started reading some books about mind control methods from [Jose] Silva. It's a fantastic book. After that, yeah, Three Magic Words was also a fantastic book that I read. It really helped me. I got a little bit into meditation, which is really nothing more, nothing less than taking the time to really leave the world around you for what it is. And just focus on who you really are and what you really want. And how do you think you can achieve it? What to focus on doing and not doing, you know, so really, it's like programming the chip before the task, like, okay, what do I need to concentrate on, etc. So, I became a little bit more mentally methodical about my whole approach to racing,” he says.
Joining Jaguar's factory sports car programme, Lammers found himself sharing machinery with some of the finest drivers of the era, including Martin Brundle, Derek Warwick, Eddie Cheever, Danny Sullivan, and later, Eddie Irvine and a young Jacques Villeneuve.
Realizing that he was on par with those drivers really helped him mentally.
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| Jan Lammers, Johnny Dumfries and Andy Wallace pictured above on the 1988 LeMans podium. PHOTO CREDIT: Jan Lammers. |
Reflecting on that race, the Dutchman explained that they knew the gearbox would be the weak link. But rather than convincing himself everything would be fine, he deliberately approached the race assuming something would go wrong.
“You can say, like, everything will be fine. And we're going to win this race. Yeah, but, you know, special achievements you don't meet by coincidence. You have to really make a proper plan," he said.
Assuming the gearbox would eventually fail, every decision they made throughout the race became focused on protecting it.
“When you start the race [with the mindset], that everything will be fine. That's wishful thinking; that's being naive. You know, but if you start the race knowing, like, okay, this gearbox is going to break. From the moment we get the green flag to start the race, we have to really, really run this race in a reverse attitude. Like, we have to start off, you know, very, very careful with the [gear]box, as if it's already broken. And it still did break, and we were very lucky to bring it home. But yeah, sometimes you can start something, and you can be on pole position. And you can tell yourself, like, okay, I am going to lose this race. People can call you a negative thinker then. But if you say I am going to lose this race unless I do this, this, this, and that; I pay attention to X, Y, and Z. Unless I am very alert to the advice of my engineer, very alert to the weather. And if you start like that, that is a very positive mindset, because that puts you on maximum alert. And the guy that just gets in there and says, I'm on a pole, I'm going to beat all these guys, no problem, he might overlook some details,” Lammers explains.
That approach perfectly encapsulates Lammers' outlook on motorsport and life. Optimism, in his view, should never come at the expense of preparation.
Reflecting on a career that took him from Formula 1 to Le Mans, from American open-wheel racing to helping restore the Dutch Grand Prix, it is evident that Jan Lammers' legacy extends far beyond the statistics sheets.
He may never have become a Formula 1 World Champion or race winner, but very few drivers have extracted so much wisdom from the journey they have traveled.
For the Dutchman, success was never about reaching the finish line first every time. It was about continuing to learn, surrounding yourself with the right people, embracing setbacks as opportunities for growth and, above all else, focusing on what he calls "the next right thing."
A special thank you to Daniel Roodt, aka Daniel-san, for the interview.
