|
| |
Swedish
|
| |
1980, 1983 - 1991
|
| |
Shadow , Spirit , Tyrrell , Toleman , Ferrari , McLaren , Ligier , Onyx , AGS , Arrows
|
| |
103
|
| |
0
|
| |
0
|
| |
12
|
| |
0
|
| |
0
|
| |
1980 Argentine Grand Prix
|
| |
|
| |
|
| |
1991 British Grand Prix
|
Johansson participated in 103 grands prix, debuting on
January 13 ,
1980 , achieved 12 podiums, and scored a total of 88 championship points. He joined Tyrrell in 1984 as a mid-season replacement for the injured
Martin Brundle , doing enough to be called up to
Ferrari when
René Arnoux was surprisingly sacked.
His role for the season was to back up
Michele Alboreto 's championship challenge, but in 1986 he often outpaced his
Italian team-mate. For 1987 he moved to
McLaren as
Alain Prost 's #2. Further podium finished followed, but the team always itnended to replace him with
Ayrton Senna in 1988. Despite 11 podiums in 3 seasons, Stefan was still winless, and was not wanted by a top team.
He joined
Ligier , ironically alongside Arnoux, but the car was totally uncompetitive, scoring no points and not always qualifying, even against teams with much smaller budgets such as
AGS and
Rial . Better was to follow in 1989 as he was signed to lead the new
Onyx team. Their car was temperamental and didn't always qualify, but Stefan finished 3rd in Portugal for his last (and the team's only) podium finish. He fell out with new team owner
Peter Monteverdi in early 1990 and was duly sacked, making further appearances for AGS and
Footwork in 1991.
For 1992 he moved over to IndyCars, winning the Rookie of the Year title with two third places, ahead of
Belgium 's
Eric Bachelart . His first pole came at Portland the next year, but as in Formula 1 he never won a race.
Before his
Formula One career Stefan had participated in sports car races such as
24 Hours Of Le Mans , after retiring from
CART at the end of the 1996 season he returned to this type of racing. During 1997 he recorded two major race wins, at the
12 Hours Of Sebring driving a
Ferrari 333 SP and at
Le Mans where he drove a Joest Porsche.
During 1998 & 1999 Stefan raced for various sports car teams (like the unreliable
Audi R8 C Coupé at Le Mans) but in 2000 he started Johansson-Matthews racing with an American businessman called Jim Matthews. They competed in the
American Le Mans Series using a Reynard 2KQ prototype. Unfortunately this wasn't a successful vehicle and the partnership dissolved.
In 2001 Stefan was lucky enough to be able to campaign an
Audi R8 prototype with backing from
Gulf Oil . That year he raced in the
European Le Mans Series , the
American Le Mans Series and at
Le Mans itself. His co-drivers were Guy Smith and Patrick Lemarie.
2002 saw Stefan back in an
Audi R8 but this time one run by the
Miami based Champion Racing team. His co-driver was ex
Formula One driver
Johnny Herbert and they competed in the
American Le Mans Series .
For 2003 he returned to ChampCar as a team owner, running
American Spirit Team Johansson with drivers
Ryan Hunter-Reay and
Jimmy Vasser This was one of many new teams for this season, ironically Bachelart's
Conquest team was another. The team was under-funded, and although it scored a fluke win the wet in Australia, it folded at the end of the season.
After only competing in a couple of celebrity races in 2004 Stefan returned to full time racing in 2005 driving the
Chip Ganassi run New Century Mortgage sponsored ''Lexus Riley Daytona Prototype'' in the American ''
Grand-Am Rolex Sports Car Series''. With co-driver
Cort Wagner he scored his best finish, a 2nd place, at
Mont Tremblant in Canada, they finished the year in 5th place in the championship.
(Note: grands prix in denote '''points scoring''' races.)
