Alain de Cadenet

Alain de Cadenet 1975

Alain de Cadenet in his Alfa Romeo P3 at the Oldtimer Grand Prix at the Nürburgring in 1977

The Duckhams LM for the 1972 Le Mans 24 Hours

De-Cadenet-Lola T380 at the Le Mans Classic 2014

Alain de Cadenet (born November 27, 1945 in London ) is a retired British racing car driver , racing team owner, photographer, television presenter, filmmaker and entrepreneur.

Before racing

Alain de Cadenet grew up in bourgeois post-war London and studied art history after leaving school . Philately was an early passion . He has a large collection and is considered an expert on postage stamps from the time of King George V. After graduating, he worked as a fashion photographer and came into contact with racing through a friend: “It was 1965, and I was visiting with my girlfriend at the time, a Model, a car race, ”says de Cadenet. "Suddenly she disappeared with a racing driver - that was the moment when I decided to become a racing driver too, because apparently the boys had more success with the girls than the photographers."

Racing career

Alain de Cadenet's racing career began in British national sports car racing in the late 1960s . In 1967 he drove a Porsche 904 GTS in the British Sports Car Championship. His first place in the final standings was at the Martini Trophy at Silverstone when he was fifteenth overall. Paul Hawkins won the race ahead of Mike Salmon (both drove a Ford GT40 ) and Richard Attwood ( Ferrari 250LM ).

From the beginning of his career, De Cadenet almost exclusively registered his racing cars himself. He looked for sponsors to finance the outings and began trading vehicles early on. He bought retired racing cars, drove them for a while and usually sold them on for a profit. He bought two Ferrari Dino 206S in 1968 . Chassis 024 was a replacement car that had not previously been entered in any race. In contrast, chassis 004 had a successful racing history behind it. Ludovico Scarfiotti and Lorenzo Bandini achieved second place in the 1000 km race at the Nürburgring in 1966 . At the end of 1967 Tony Dean bought the Ferrari, who sold it to De Cadenet after a year. De Cadenet contested several races for the sports car world championship in 1969 .

In 1970 , when he finished fifth at the 1000 km race in Buenos Aires, he achieved his best result in an international race. His team partner in the Porsche 908/02 was the Argentinian Carlos Pairetti . At the finish line, the duo was ten laps behind the winners Jean-Pierre Beltoise and Henri Pescarolo in the Matra-Simca MS630 / 650 .

In his long career, De Cadenet celebrated four overall and as many class wins. Two of the overall successes came in 1980 in the sports car world championship. Particularly noteworthy was the victory at the Monza 1000 km race . Halfway through the race, he handed the De Cadenet LM over to his team-mate Desiré Wilson when heavy rain soon set in. While all the competition came to the pits to put on rain tires, Wilson continued to ride on slicks . De Cadenet later said of the South African's driving performance : “I will never know how she managed to keep this pack of wolves off her neck on rain tires. But it was the most incredible demonstration of skill and racing skills I've ever seen. ”He didn't mention that Wilson would have liked to change tires too. When she wanted to pits, however, she was given a sign that she should continue; the team had no rain tires. At the finish, Wilson and De Cadenet had a lead of ten seconds over Jürgen Barth and Henri Pescarolo in the Joest - Porsche 935 / 77A . Two weeks later, they also won the Silverstone 1000km race .

De Cadenet and Le Mans

Alain de Cadenet's long association with the Le Mans 24-hour race began in 1971 . He accepted a job at Ecurie Francorchamps and drove a Ferrari 512M together with Hughes de Fierlant . A defect on the drive shaft ended the mission prematurely.

When the 5-liter formula for sports cars ended at the end of 1971 , the Ferrari 312PB was considered the best car for the coming 1972 season . De Cadenet went to Maranello to assist in the Scuderia to acquire a 312PB chassis. However, Ferrari no longer sold any current racing sports cars to private teams and the request was rejected. De Cadenet was particularly annoyed because Ferrari did not trust him to drive the car equipped with Formula 1 technology. The next point of contact was Brabham , where the young designer Gordon Murray worked. Murray took on the task of designing a car that visually corresponded to the 312PB and could accommodate components from Brabham's monopostos . The project was financed by Duckkams Oil . The sponsor was also the namesake of the racing car, which was powered by a 3-liter Cosworth DFV engine : Duckkams LM . The 1972 race at Le Mans was the first outing of the new car. The second driver was Chris Craft , who became de Cadenet's regular partner at the Le Mans races in the 1970s. In 1972, the duo with the Duckhams finished twelfth overall.

The best result at Le Mans came in 1976 . A Lola-T380 chassis was given a new body and became the De Cadenet-Lola T380 . Against strong competition, including the works teams from Porsche and BMW , De Cadenet and Craft achieved third place overall. However, they did not appear on the podium of the first three because they did not find the winner's podium in the hectic and crush after the race.

Between 1971 and 1985 he competed 15 times in Le Mans. In addition to the third place in 1976, the fifth in 1977 and the seventh in 1980 were two other places in the top ten of the final ranking.

The accident at the Targa Florio

Despite the many starts at Le Mans, De Cadenet's favorite race was the Targa Florio , which he only contested twice in his career. In 1970 he drove a Porsche 911T in 15th place overall. Teammate was Mike Ogier . In 1971 he and David Weir reported a Lola T210 . During the race he had an accident and was hit on the head by a part of the wreckage that fell away. The Lola came to a stop at a barrier, leaking gasoline ignited on the hot engine and the Lola began to burn. A soldier standing on the side of the route saved De Cadenet's life by rescuing the unconscious man from the wreck. Many years later, rescuers and drivers met again while filming De Cadenet's Targa Florio film.

After racing

After the end of his motorsport career, his last racing assignment in 1988, he intensified the trade in historic racing cars, became a presenter for motorsport television programs and made a film about the Targa Florio with The Sicilian Dream . He remained connected to racing as a regular starter in car races with historic racing vehicles.

family

The marriage to Anna de Cadenet, a former model, has two children. The daughter Amanda , born in 1972, is an actress and photographer. Her first marriage was to Duran-Duran bassist Nigel John Taylor . Their daughter, Atlanta de Cadenet-Taylor, works like their grandmother as a model. In 2006 she married Nick Valensi , the guitarist of the American rock band The Strokes . The couple have two children, daughter Ella and son Silvain.

In 1974, Alexander de Cadenet was born, who is a painter , sculptor and performance artist .

statistics

Le Mans results

year	team	vehicle	Teammate	Teammate	placement	Failure reason
1971	Ecurie Francorchamps	Ferrari 512M	Hughes de Fierlant		failure	drive shaft
1972	Duckham's Oil Motor Racing	Duckhams LM	Chris Craft		Rank 12
1973	Duckham's Oil	Duckhams LM	Chris Craft		failure	Clutch damage
1975	Alain de Cadenet	De Cadenet-Lola T380	Chris Craft		Rank 14
1976	Alain de Cadenet	De Cadenet-Lola T380	Chris Craft		Rank 3
1977	Alain de Cadenet	De Cadenet LM	Chris Craft		Rank 5
1978	Alain de Cadenet	De Cadenet LM	Chris Craft		Rank 15
1979	Alain de Cadenet	De Cadenet LM	François Migault		failure	Gearbox damage
1980	Alain de Cadenet	De Cadenet LM	François Migault		Rank 7
1981	Alain de Cadenet	De Cadenet-Lola LM	Jean-Michel Martin	Philippe Martin	failure	Engine failure
1982	Grid racing	Grid Plaza S1	Desiré Wilson	Emilio de Villota	failure	Engine failure
1983	Primagaz	Cougar C01B	Yves Courage	Michel Dubois	failure	Engine failure
1984	Charles Ivy Racing	Porsche 956	Chris Craft	Allan Grice	failure	Engine failure
1985	Primagaz	Cougar C12	Yves Courage	Jean-François Yvon	Rank 20
1986	Primagaz Team Cougar	Cougar C12	Yves Courage	Pierre-Henri Raphanel	Rank 18

Individual results in the sports car world championship

season	team	race car	1	2	3	4th	5	6th	7th	8th	9	10	11	12	13	14th	15th	16	17th
1969	Scodec de Cadenet	Ferrari Dino 206S	DAY	SEB	BRH	MON	TAR	SPA	ONLY	LEM	WAT	ZEL
					15th				DNF
1970	Juan Manuel Fangio Ecurie Evergreen Piers Forester Team Snake	Porsche 908 Porsche 911 Ford GT40	DAY	SEB	BRH	MON	TAR	SPA	ONLY	LEM	WAT	ZEL
			DNF		DNF		15th		22nd			11
1971	NART Snakespeed Ecurie Francorchamps	Ferrari 312P Lola T210 Ferrari 512S	BUA	DAY	SEB	BRH	MON	SPA	TAR	ONLY	LEM	ZEL	WAT
				5					DNF		DNF		4th
1972	Duckhams Alain de Cadenet	Duckhams LM	BUA	DAY	SEB	BRH	MON	SPA	TAR	ONLY	LEM	ZEL	WAT
											12			DNF
1973	Duckhams	Duckhams LM	DAY	VAL	DIJ	MON	SPA	TAR	ONLY	LEM	ZEL	WAT
										DNF
1974	Domecq Racing	Chevron B26	MON	SPA	ONLY	IMO	LEM	ZEL	WAT	LEC	BRH	KYA
											7th
1977	Dorset Racing Hammonds	Lola T294 Ford Capri	DAY	MUG	DIJ	MON	SIL	ONLY	VAL	BY	WAT	EST	LEC	MOS	IMO	SAL	BRH	HOK	VAL
					3		19th
1978	Alain de Cadenet	De Cadenet LM	DAY	SEB	MUG	VALLEY	DIJ	SIL	ONLY	LEM	MIS	DAY	WAT	VAL	ROD
										15th
1979	Alain de Cadenet	De Cadenet LM	DAY	SEB	MUG	VALLEY	DIJ	RIV	SIL	ONLY	LEM	BY	DAY	WAT	SPA	BRH	ROA	VAL	ELS
									2		DNF					6th
1980	Alain de Cadenet	De Cadenet LM	DAY	BRH	SEB	MUG	MON	RIV	SIL	ONLY	LEM	DAY	WAT	SPA	MOS	ROA	VAL	DIJ
				3			1		1		7th
1981	Alain de Cadenet	De Cadenet LM	DAY	SEB	MUG	MON	RIV	SIL	ONLY	LEM	BY	DAY	WAT	SPA	MOS	ROA	BRH
										DNF
1982	Grid racing	Grid Plaza S1	MON	SIL	ONLY	LEM	SPA	MUG	FUJ	BRH
						DNF
1983	Primagaz	Cougar C01	MON	SIL	ONLY	LEM	SPA	FUJ	KYA
						DNF
1984	Primagaz Cougar Ivy Racing	Cougar C01 Porsche 956	MON	SIL	LEM	ONLY	BRH	MOS	SPA	IMO	FUJ	KYA	SAN
				17th	DNF
1985	Primagaz	Cougar C12	MUG	MON	SIL	LEM	HOK	MOS	SPA	BRH	FUJ	SEL
						20th
1986	Primagaz Cougar	Cougar C12	MON	SIL	LEM	NOW	BRH	JER	ONLY	SPA	FUJ
					17th

Web links

Commons : Alain de Cadenet  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Interview at Classic Driver
• Alain de Cadenet at Racing Sports Cars
• Official website of The Sicilian Dream

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Alain de Cadenet the philatelist
2. ↑ Alain de Cadenet on his beginnings as a racing driver
3. ↑ British Sports Car Championship 1967
4. ^ Martini Trophy Silverstone 1967
5. ↑ History of the chassis of the Ferrari Dino 206, chassis 004
6. ↑ Buenos Aires 1000 km race in 1970
7. ^ Monza 1000 km race in 1980
8. ^ Silverstone 1000 km race in 1980
9. ↑ Winners podium without De Cadenet
10. ^ Targa Florio 1970
11. ^ Targa Florio 1971
12. ↑ Alain de Cadenet at the Targa Florio (Italian)
13. ^ Atlanta de Cadenet Taylor
14. ↑ The De Cadenet family
15. ↑ More information about the De Cadenet family