Érik Comas

Érik Comas

Comas in 2005
Born	(1963-09-28) 28 September 1963 Romans-sur-Isère, Drôme, France
Formula One World Championship career
Nationality	French
Active years	1991–1994
Teams	Ligier, Larrousse
Entries	63 (59 starts)
Championships	0
Wins	0
Podiums	0
Career points	7
Pole positions	0
Fastest laps	0
First entry	1991 United States Grand Prix
Last entry	1994 Japanese Grand Prix

Érik Comas (born 28 September 1963) is a French former Formula One driver. He was French Formula 3 champion in 1988, and then Formula 3000 champion in 1990, after scoring the same number of points as Jean Alesi in 1989 but losing on a count-back of positions. He participated in 63 Grands Prix, debuting on 10 March 1991. He scored a total of 7 championship points. His last point, in the 1994 German Grand Prix, was also the last one for the Larrousse team.

Career

Formula One

At the 1994 San Marino Grand Prix Comas was mistakenly waved out of the pits and drove onto the circuit during the red flag which followed the fatal crash of Ayrton Senna. Marshals frantically tried to flag Comas down through the Tamburello corner and he only narrowly avoided rescue workers and vehicles, including an aid helicopter which had landed at the scene, before bringing his Larrousse to a stop. He retired from the race following the incident, due to the distressing scenes he witnessed as medical staff tried to revive Senna. It had been Senna who saved Comas' life at Spa in 1992 after Comas had a terrible crash at the Blanchimont corner during Friday qualifying. Senna jumped from his own car, ran over to Comas, shut down his engine and held Comas' head in a stable position until the doctors could arrive.^[1] When Senna died at Imola in 1994, Comas was so shocked he decided to not participate in the restart of the race, mainly because of what happened at Spa two years earlier.

After Formula One

After ending a disappointing Formula One career at the end of the 1994 season, he went to Japan to continue his racing career in the All-Japan Grand Touring Car Championship (JGTC), Japan's premiere racing series. Soon enough, he won the GT500 title in 1998 and 1999, and earned runner-up in the standings in 2000, all three years driving for Nissan in a factory Nismo-prepared Skyline GT-R. He left the Nismo team in 2002 to join the factory Toyota team the following year. By the end of the 2003 season, he was the most successful driver in the history of the series, with the most career championship points ever scored by a single driver. This was eventually surpassed by another Nismo driver, Satoshi Motoyama.

After a decent run with Toyota, Comas spent the 2004/2005 seasons with Masahiro Hasemi's privateer Hasemi Sport team, running non-factory Nissan 350Zs in GT500, including inheriting the team's only win (co-driving with Toshihiro Kaneishi) thus far on the evening of 18 December 2004 at the "All-Star 200" exhibition race on California Speedway's combined oval/road course after the unofficial winners were penalized 60 seconds on their finishing time for a pit window infraction. Unfortunately, the race was a non-points scoring event and as such does not count towards the drivers' or team's official win record.

In the 2006 Super GT championship season (formerly JGTC) he raced for former JGTC driver and 24 Hours of Le Mans team owner Masahiko Kondo's all new privateer Nissan 350Z racing team. He also branched out into rallying, competing in various events around the world. Along with this, he created Comas Racing Management (CRM), a firm that focuses on the management and development of young up and coming drivers, primarily from his home country of France.

At 5th race of the 2006 season at Sportsland SUGO, Comas was replaced with later Pokka 1000 km third driver Seiji Ara due to what the CRM website referred on as "ill health."^[2] After coming back for the Pokka 1000 km, on 5 September 2006, Comas announced on his website that because of his health, he would not compete in the final 3 races of the season.^[3]

Comas was known for not wearing a tinted visor, preferring to wear sunglasses underneath his visor. His son, Anthony used to compete in the Formula BMW UK series for Carlin Motorsport.

Comas has now effectively retired from all forms of racing. He spends his time these days running Comas Historic Racing, which provides for paying customers to enter historic rallies driving cars from his fleet of blue Alpine automobiles.^[4]

In 2010 and 2011, he won the electric vehicle category of the Rallye Monte Carlo des Véhicules à Énergie Alternative (the opening event of the FIA Alternative Energies Cup) with a Tesla Roadster.^[5]

Racing record

Complete International Formula 3000 results

(key) (Races in bold indicate pole position; races in italics indicate fastest lap.)

Complete Formula One results

(key)

Complete JGTC/Super GT results

(key) (Races in bold indicate pole position) (Races in italics indicate fastest lap)

References

1. ↑ YouTube.com
2. ↑ ErikComas.com Archived February 5, 2012 at the Wayback Machine
3. ↑ ErikComas.com Archived February 5, 2012 at the Wayback Machine
4. ↑ comashistoric.com Archived July 19, 2009 at the Wayback Machine
5. ↑ Rallye Monte Carlo des Énergies Nouvelles et Électrique, in ACM.mc.

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Érik Comas.

• Eric Comas/CRM Official Site
• Comas Historic Racing