Wolfgang Seidel

Wolfgang Seidel, a German driver born in 1926, made twelve Formula 1 World Championship starts scattered across nearly a decade, from 1953 to 1962. Few careers of the period were as intermittent: he appeared in five separate seasons, often with long gaps in between.

He debuted in 1953 at the wheel of a Veritas, one of the German constructors active in the championship's early years, and did not reappear until 1958, when he drove a Maserati. Another gap followed before a run of entries in the early 1960s, with a Cooper-Climax in 1960, a Lotus-Climax in 1961 and an Emeryson in 1962.

In all, Seidel's entries covered seven different car and engine combinations, including Cooper and Lotus-BRM machinery, almost all of it privately run equipment rather than works drives. None of it was competitive enough to bring championship points, and he was never classified in the drivers' standings.

His record of twelve starts, five seasons and no points is characteristic of the committed privateer of that era, a driver who kept finding ways onto the grid over ten years without ever having the machinery to challenge for results.