Louis Chiron
Chiron in Montlhéry in 1927 | |||||||||||
Born |
Louis Alexandre Chiron 3 August 1899 Monte Carlo, Monaco | ||||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Died |
22 June 1979 79) Monte Carlo, Monaco | (aged||||||||||
Formula One World Championship career | |||||||||||
Nationality | Monégasque | ||||||||||
Active years | 1950–1951, 1953, 1955–1956, 1958 | ||||||||||
Teams |
Maserati Ecurie Rosier Private Lancia Scuderia Centro Sud | ||||||||||
Entries | 19 (15 starts) | ||||||||||
Championships | 0 | ||||||||||
Wins | 0 | ||||||||||
Podiums | 1 | ||||||||||
Career points | 4 | ||||||||||
Pole positions | 0 | ||||||||||
Fastest laps | 0 | ||||||||||
First entry | 1950 British Grand Prix | ||||||||||
Last entry | 1958 Monaco Grand Prix | ||||||||||
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Louis Alexandre Chiron (3 August 1899 – 22 June 1979) was a Monégasque racing driver who competed in rallies, sports car races, and Grands Prix. He is the oldest driver ever to have raced in Formula One, having taken 6th place in the 1955 Monaco Grand Prix when he was 55.
Career
Louis Chiron gained interest in cars and racing when he was a teenager. He started driving in Grand Prix races after World War I, in which he was seconded from an artillery regiment as a driver for Maréchal Pétain and Maréchal Foch.
He won his first local race, the Grand Prix de Comminges of 1926, at Saint-Gaudens, near Toulouse, and went on to drive a Bugatti and an Alfa Romeo P3 to victories in the Marseille Grand Prix, the Circuit of Masaryk, and the Spanish Grand Prix. In the Indianapolis 500 of 1929, he drove a Delage to 7th place. He won the 1931 Monaco Grand Prix—the only Monaco-born driver to have done so—and in 1933 he partnered with specialist endurance racer Luigi Chinetti to win the Spa 24 hours race.
Chiron retired in 1938, and World War II curtailed motor racing a year later. When racing resumed after the War, he came out of retirement and drove a Talbot-Lago to victory in two French Grands Prix.
According to a Los Angeles Times review of fellow driver Hellé Nice's biography, Chiron accused her, at a 1949 party in Monaco to celebrate the first postwar Monte Carlo Rally, of "collaborating with the Nazis". The review says biographer Miranda Seymour is "circumspect on Nice's guilt".[1] A review of the same book in The New York Times says Nice was accused of being a "Gestapo agent"; that Seymour "rebuts" the charge; and that it made Nice "unemployable".[2] Seymour's book says that in a letter to Antony Noghes, the head of the Monte Carlo Rally committee, Hellé Nice "protested her innocence"; that she told him she would appeal to the Monaco court unless Chiron wrote an apology; that no letter from Chiron has been found; and that the court has no record of such a case between 1949 and 1955.[3]
Paired with the Swiss driver Ciro Basadonna, Chiron won the 1954 Monte Carlo Rally, and achieved podium finishes in the fifteen Formula One races he entered that year. His last race was in 1955,[4] when he took a Lancia D50 to sixth place in the Monaco Grand Prix a few weeks before his 56th birthday,[5] becoming the oldest driver to compete in a Formula One race.[4] He is also the oldest driver ever to have entered for a Formula One race, taking part in practice for the 1958 Monaco Grand Prix when he was 58.
Racing record
Major career victories
- Belgian Grand Prix – 1930
- Czechoslovakian Grand Prix – 1931, 1932, 1933
- French Grand Prix – 1931, 1934, 1937, 1947, 1949 (Reims)
- German Grand Prix – 1929
- Italian Grand Prix – 1928
- Spanish Grand Prix – 1928, 1929, 1933
- Monaco Grand Prix – 1931
- Moroccan Grand Prix– 1934
- Grand Prix du Comminges – 1947
- Grand Prix de Marseilles – 1933
- Grand Prix de Nice – 1932
- Spa 24 hours – 1933
- Rome Grand Prix – 1928
- Marne Grand Prix – 1928
24 Hours of Le Mans results
Year | Team | Co-Drivers | Car | Class | Laps | Pos. | Class Pos. |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1928 | Privateer | Cyril de Vere | Chrysler 72 | 5.0 | 6 | DNF | DNF |
1929 | C. T. Weymann | Édouard Brisson | Stutz DV32 | 8.0 | 65 | ||
1931 | Equipe Bugatti | Achille Varzi | Bugatti Type 50S | 5.0 | 20 | ||
1932 | Guy Bouriat | Guy Bouriat | Bugatti Type 55 | 3.0 | 23 | ||
1933 | Capt. G.E.T. Eyston | Franco Cortese | Alfa Romeo 8C 2300MM | 3.0 | 177 | ||
1937 | Luigi Chinetti | Luigi Chinetti | Talbot T150C | 5.0 | 7 | ||
1938 | Ecurie Bleue | René Dreyfus | Delahaye 145 | 5.0 | 7 | ||
1951 | Luigi Chinetti | Pierre-Louis Dreyfus | Ferrari 340 America Barchetta | S 5.0 |
29 | DSQ | DSQ |
1953 | Scuderia Lancia | Robert Manzon | Lancia D20 | S 8.0 |
174 | DNF | DNF |
Complete European Championship results
(key) (Races in bold indicate pole position)
Year | Entrant | Make | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | EDC | Points |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1931 | Usines Bugatti | Bugatti | ITA Ret |
FRA 1 |
BEL Ret |
4= | 12 | ||
1932 | Ettore Bugatti | Bugatti | ITA Ret |
FRA 4 |
GER Ret |
5= | 17 | ||
1935 | Scuderia Ferrari | Alfa Romeo | BEL 3 |
GER Ret |
SUI Ret |
ITA | ESP Ret |
9= | 29 |
1936 | Daimler-Benz AG | Mercedes-Benz | MON Ret |
GER Ret |
SUI | ITA | 18= | 28 |
Post-WWII Grandes Épreuves results
(key)
Year | Entrant | Chassis | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1947 | Ecurie France | Maserati 4CL | SUI 13 |
ITA Ret |
FRA | ||
Talbot-Lago T26 | BEL Ret |
FRA 1 |
|||||
1948 | SFACS Ecurie France | Talbot-Lago T26 | MON 2 |
SUI 6 |
FRA 9 |
ITA Ret |
GBR Ret |
1949 | SFACS Ecurie France | Talbot-Lago T26 | GBR Ret |
BEL | SUI | FRA 1 |
ITA |
Complete Formula One World Championship results
(key) (Races in bold indicate pole position)
Year | Entrant | Chassis | Engine | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | WDC | Pts. |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1950 | Officine Alfieri Maserati | Maserati 4CLT/48 | Maserati L4C | GBR Ret |
MON 3 |
500 | SUI 9 |
BEL | FRA Ret |
ITA Ret |
10th | 4 | ||||
1951 | Enrico Platé | Maserati 4CLT/48 | Maserati L4C | SUI 7 |
500 | NC | 0 | |||||||||
Ecurie Rosier | Talbot-Lago T26C | Talbot L6 | BEL Ret |
FRA 6 |
GBR Ret |
GER Ret |
ITA Ret |
ESP Ret |
||||||||
1953 | Louis Chiron | OSCA 20 | OSCA L6 | ARG | 500 | NED | BEL | FRA 15 |
GBR DNS |
GER | SUI DNS |
ITA 10 |
NC | 0 | ||
1955 | Scuderia Lancia | Lancia D50 | Lancia V8 | ARG | MON 6 |
500 | BEL | NED | GBR | ITA | NC | 0 | ||||
1956 | Scuderia Centro Sud | Maserati 250F | Maserati L6 | ARG | MON DNS |
500 | BEL | FRA | GBR | GER | ITA | NC | 0 | |||
1958 | André Testut | Maserati 250F | Maserati L6 | ARG | MON DNQ |
NED | 500 | BEL | FRA | GBR | GER | POR | ITA | MOR | NC | 0 |
Rally wins
- Monte Carlo Rally – 1954
Legacy
Chiron retired after 35 years in racing but maintained an executive role with the organizers of the Monaco Grand Prix, who honored him with a statue on the Grand Prix course and renamed the Swimming Pool corner after him. As he had achieved the greatest number of podium finishes in Bugattis, the 1999 Bugatti 18/3 Chiron concept car and the 2016 Bugatti Chiron are named in his honor.
Louis Chiron was so popular in Czechoslovakia, whose Grand Prix he won three consecutive times, that even after 75 years his name still lives in a popular saying "He drives likes Chiron", used mainly when referring to speeding motorists or generally to people who drive very quickly.
References
- ↑ Neil, Dan (December 8, 2004). "In pursuit of the Queen of Speed". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved February 4, 2016.
- ↑ Grimes, William (December 24, 2004). "A Racing Life: Plenty of Men and Fast Cars". The New York Times. Retrieved February 4, 2016.
- ↑ Seymour, Miranda (2004), Bugatti Queen, Random House, pp. 258–259, ISBN 1-4000-6168-7
- 1 2 Spurgeon, Brad (August 22, 2009). "Measuring Experience in Youthful Formula One". The New York Times. The New York Times Company. Retrieved February 4, 2016.
- ↑ "1955 Monaco Grand Prix". Motor Sport Magazine. Retrieved February 4, 2016.
External links
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Louis Chiron. |
- Grand Prix History, Louis Chiron
- Louis Chiron at The Crittenden Automotive Library
- Louis Chiron at Le Mans
- Louis Chiron at Find a Grave