1 production class in the 1973 Dutch Touring Car Championship. At 16 years of age, young Lammers wins his first-ever car race and takes the title at his first go to become the youngest Dutch national champion in history. Two more years in the Simca follow in a revised 8,000-10,000 guilder class, Lammers taking four more wins in 1974 but narrowly missing out on a title repeat. Wins elude him in 1975 but his name is already made. In 1976, he switches to an Opel Dealer Team Holland-run Opel Kadett GT/E to lift his second Dutch title. Road to Formula One Formula Ford Dovetailing his 1976 touring-car campaign with a first season in Formula Ford, Lammers quickly realises his future is in single-seaters. Driving a Crosslé in the Benelux, German and European Championship, the touring-car boy wonder surprises everyone by grabbing pole position at his first race, winning at the Jyllandring and Mengen and shining in the soaking wet finale of the Formula Ford Festival at Brands Hatch. Formula 3 Stepping up with Hawke to Formula 3 in 1977 proves to be a false dawn, as the Hawke proves no match for the Marches and the Ralts. For 1978, he switches to the Racing Team Holland outfit run by Alan Docking, with fellow future Formula 1 driver Huub Rothengatter and later Indy 500 winner Arie Luyendijk as his team mates. This is an inspired move as it leads to Lammers winning the 1978 European Formula 3 Championship after a close battle with Swede Anders Olofsson, while beating highly touted rivals such as Alain Prost, Nelson Piquet and Nigel Mansell. Lammers takes wins at Zandvoort, Magny-Cours, Karlskoga and in the famous Lotteria race at Monza to lift the crown. At the time, leading British magazine Autosport predicts: "He just has to be a World Champion of the eighties." Formula 2 Having received an offer from the works March Formula 2 team, Lammers decides to jump the category to go straight into Formula One with Shadow in 1979. He will make his single Formula 2 appearance in 1980, driving a March-BMW in his home race at Zandvoort, where he retires from third place. Formula One Lammers spends four seasons in Formula One, racing largely uncompetitive machinery and failing to score a World Championship point in any of his 41 appearances. His talent is universally recognised, though, and the Dutchman only narrowly misses