Background
He was born in Derryhennett, County Armagh, Northern Ireland, however he immigrated to New Zealand at 13 years of age.
He was born in Derryhennett, County Armagh, Northern Ireland, however he immigrated to New Zealand at 13 years of age.
Hawthorne had started racing in the mid-to-late 1960s with a Ford Anglia. After moving to Europe to work as a racing mechanic at Ron Tauranac"s Brabham factory. He planned to bring home a competitive race car which he could use.
He then built a Brabham BT21 and had it shipped back to New Zealand.
He returned to New Zealand himself and raced in the National Formula category for twin-cam, 1600 cm3 engines. He came close to a man named Allan McCall, who was impressed with Hawthorne"s race talent.
Hawthorne then went over to the United Kingdom again, this time to race, in Formula 3 with a limited budget. However he did not continue with Brabham, and decided to link up again with McCall, who was developing Formula 2, under the banner Leda Engineering.
Hawthorne"s first Formula 2 race was the Jochen Rindt Memorial Trophy in Thruxton, which was valid for both the British and European Formula 2 Championship.
Hawthorne was killed in the following round of the European Championship, in the Jim Clark Memorial Race. Bert was driving Allan McCall"s TUI car. He was racing with German driver Bernd Terbeck when Hawthorne"s car slowed.
Terbeck could not swerve and hit Hawthorne at speed, pitching it head-on against the barriers.
His car skidded along the guard-rail, pulling out security uprights. lieutenant came to rest on fire.
At the track, it was known that both Terbeck and Hawthorne were missing, but the incident wasn"t known till two laps later, when Niki Lauda pulled in to the pits. He then asked why nothing was apparently being done about a car on fire on the circuit.
lieutenant was later confirmed that Hawthorne had been killed instantly from serious head injuries.