Wissel fought against Ronnie Peterson in Formula 3 for much of the late 60’s, and many had the opinion they were equally talented. However, Peterson went on to be successful, and Wissel dropped out of the limelight almost as fast as he got in. He did start early, in 1962, racing mostly in Scandinvia, eventually racing in he Continent, where he won many F-3 races. By 1970, Wissel was racing big bore sports cars for countryman Joakin Bonnier, and was eventually hired to drive in Formula 5000, where he won many races in the late season. Colin Chapman was looking for a talented young driver to replace the vacancy left by Jochen Rindt, and gave Wissel a shot in Watkins Glen, in 1970. The result could not have been better: Wissel raced very sensibly for a rookie, and finished 3rd in his Formula 1 debut, a perfect result for Colin Chapman (as other driver Emerson Fittipaldi had won the race in his fourth GP start). This was followed by a tenth place in Mexico, but there were high hopes for the Lotus duo for 1971. As it turned out, 1971 was not a particularly good year for Lotus. Many other cars had caught up to the 72C, the team was wasting time fooling around with a Turbine concept, and there was little speed coming out of the Gold Leaf cars. Wissel scored four times that year, with a season best 4th place (twice). He normally qualified out of the top ten, so Chapman did not renew his contract for 1972, instead choosing Australian Dave Walker. Wissel still managed to stay in the game, having been hired by the Marlboro BRM armada. The team was trying to field as much as 5 cars per race, and reliability suffered. Among other problems, BRM was one of the few teams that run a proprietary engine, and these were normally in short supply during race weekend. Thus Wissel retired five times out of his 6 BRM outings, mostly with mechanical issues. He qualified tenth twice for the team, which was a big deal for the team that year. Eventually Chapman called him back for the last two races of the year in North America, probably wondering if Wissel could not have been a better teammate than Walker, who failed miserably at Lotus. All the same, Reine did not show much pace in the 72D either, and he was not competing for a race seat in 1973, as Ronnie Peterson had already been hired. From that point on, Wissel became a sporadic Formula 1 driver. He qualified a March for the inaugural Swedish Grand Prix of 1973, but failed to start. The did win a Formula 2 race at the Nurburgring, with the unloved GRD. Then he got an additional F-1 start that year, driving the “stockbroker” March in the French Grand prix, retiring. His final GP was the Swedish race of 1974, in which he raced one of the March works cars, retiring as well. After that, Wissel was seen driving mostly GT cars, last seen racing Camaros in Scandinavia, before retiring for good.

Cars driven outside of Formula 1:

Formula 2: GRD, Chevron, Lotus, Brabham, Surtees

Formula 3: Brabham

Formula 5000: McLaren

Sports-cars: Porsche (911), Chevrolet Camaro, Lola (T70, T280, T282) Chevron, Chevrolet Corvette, Ferrari 512, Mirage

Can-Am: Lola

OTHER SWEDISH DRIVERS:

RONNIE PETERSON