André de Cortanze

Racing car designs by André de Cortanze: Alpine A366 ...

... Alpine A442B ...

... rally Peugeot 205 T16 Evo 2 ...

... Peugeot 905 ...

... clean C13 ...

... Toyota GT-One ...

… Pescarolo C60

André de Cortanze (born March 30, 1941 in Paris ) is a former French racing car driver , racing car designer and motorsport official.

family

André de Cortanze is the son of Charles de Cortanze (1900–1983), who competed in car races in the 1930s and was fifth overall in the 1938 24-hour race at Le Mans . His mother, who was his father's co-driver in some races, and his sister worked in senior positions in Peugeot's press department .

Racing car designer and functionary

Alpine

André de Cortanze studied mechanical engineering at the Institut national des sciences appliquées in Lyon in the 1960s and received his doctorate in 1967. After completing his studies, de Cortanze began working as a designer in the Alpine racing department . The short phase as a racing driver quickly came to an end and the four decades-long career as an internationally important designer of racing vehicles began. The driver's career was short, but for many drivers who drove his racing cars, he was always one of them.

The first constructions were monopostos of the racing formulas 3 , 2 - and Renault . While he was still working on the Alpine A330 as part of the design team, the A360 and A364 were his first in-house designs. Both car models were driven by Jean-Pierre Jabouille and Patrick Depailler in the French Formula 3 Championship . Depailler won the French championship in 1971 on an A360 . With the de Cortanze construction A367 , officially called Elf 2J , Jean-Pierre Jabouille won the Formula 2 European Championship in 1976 .

De Cortanze's first Formula 1 racing car was the Alpine A500 . The Alpine A500 was the original prototype of the Renault RS01 , with which Renault entered the Formula 1 World Championship in 1977 . André de Cortanze used the suspension of the Alpine A442 for the A500 . The car was extensively tested by Jean-Pierre Jabouille on several French racetracks between June 1976 and spring 1977. The most important parameters from the car were adopted in the RS01.

Another important design for Alpine was the A442 prototype , with which Jean-Pierre Jaussaud and Didier Pironi won the 1978 Le Mans 24-hour race .

Peugeot Talbot

1981 recruited Jean Todt de Cortanze for the racing department of Peugeot Talbot ; In 1982 de Cortanze took up work there. While Todt was head of the racing department, de Cortanze became technical director. For Peugeot, the 1980s and early 1990s were the most successful motorsport years in the company's history. In 1982 the Peugeot Talbot team entered the World Rally Championship at the end of the season . Drivers were Stig Blomqvist and Guy Fréquelin ; Emergency vehicle of the Talbot Sunbeam Lotus . Success came with the Peugeot 205 T16 , with which Timo Salonen became rally world champions in 1985 and Juha Kankkunen in 1986 . From 1987 onwards, Peugeot won the Dakar Rally four times in a row (once Kankkunen, three times Ari Vatanen ) .

In 1990 Peugeot entered the sports car world championship with the 905 . The car was designed by de Cortanze and the designer Gérard Welter , who, in addition to his work at Peugeot, had his own racing team with Welter Racing . The body of the prototype was built by Dassault Aviation . With the 905, Peugeot won the 1992 World Sports Car Championship and the Le Mans 24-hour races in 1992 and 1993 .

Sauber motorsport

After the Le Mans 24-hour race in 1993, Peugeot ended its involvement in sports cars and de Cortanze switched to Sauber Motorsport in Formula 1. Together with Leo Ress , he was responsible for the development of the C13 , which Karl Wendlinger , Andrea de Cesaris , JJ Lehto and Heinz-Harald Frentzen drove in the Formula 1 World Championship in 1994 . The C14 followed in 1995 . At the end of the season he left the team to take up the position of technical director at Ligier .

Toyota Motorsport

After a turbulent year at Ligier and before the takeover by Prost Grand Prix , de Cortanze ended his work there in a dispute and accepted an offer from Toyota Motorsport . When de Cortanze joined Toyota in 1997 , development of the Toyota GT-One was already underway. From the half-finished concept he formed a trend-setting, fast, but unsuccessful prototype. He headed the Le Mans races in 1998 and 1999 , which were followed by bad luck . In 1998, Thierry Boutsen , Ralf Kelleners and Geoff Lees' clearly leading GT-One failed one hour before the end of the race after a gearbox failure. It was one of Toyota's many unfortunate Le Mans appearances. The winless period at Le Mans only ended in 2018 with the victory of Sébastien Buemi , Kazuki Nakajima and Fernando Alonso in the Toyota TS050 Hybrid .

After the end of the GT-One at the Fuji 1000 km race in 1999 , work began on the Formula 1 project, in which de Cortanze was only marginally involved. His contract ended in May 2001, even before Toyota Racing entered the World Championship.

Pescarolo sport

After leaving Toyota, he joined his old friend Henri Pescarolo's team as Technical Director . The most important constructions were the Pescarolo C60 and the C02 . The C60 was a very successful racing car model that was also sold to private teams. In the mid-2000s, Pescarolo dominated the races of the European Le Mans Series with the C60 and also achieved good placings in Le Mans. In 2005 the C60 were faster than the favored Audi R8 in practice . In the end, Emmanuel Collard , Jean-Christophe Boullion and Érik Comas finished second overall, a position that Sébastien Loeb , Éric Hélary and Franck Montagny achieved the following year .

With the end of Pescarolo's racing activities after the Le Mans 24-hour race in 2012 , de Cortanze retired.

Eleven racing machine

In 1978, Elf Aquitaine financed a steering knuckle motorcycle project . The designer was André de Cortanze. The Elf racing machine with the engine of the Yamaha TZ 750 should be superior to other long-distance motorcycles due to its low weight and low center of gravity as well as the steering and separation of wheel guidance and suspension, which is unusual for a motorcycle. Test drives were carried out by Michel Rougerie , a French motorcycle racer.

In 1979 Honda decided to collaborate with de Cortanze to develop a long-distance racing machine with the engine of the Honda RSC 1000. This is how the Elf-e was born , the e standing for "endurance". When Honda took over the project completely, de Cortanze got out in 1984.

Racing career

André de Cortanze's racing career was short. He drove races while still a student. He had his first Le Mans start in 1966 in the works Alpine A210 as a partner of Jean-Pierre Hanrioud . He competed four times for Alpine in Le Mans. In 1968 , when he was already working as a designer, he finished the race with Jean Vinatier in the A220 in eighth place overall.

His best international placement was third place in the 1968 Monza 1000 km race , a race in the World Sports Car Championship . According to his own information, in 1970 he no longer enjoyed active racing and ended his career.

Fiat 2300 Coupe

André de Cortanze owned a Fiat 2300 Coupé with an Abarth engine for a long time . The car was delivered to him in 1966, extensively restored in 2012 and sold in 2016.

statistics

Le Mans results

year	team	vehicle	Teammate	placement	Failure reason
1966	Société des Automobiles Alpine	Alpine A210	Jean-Pierre Hanrioud	failure	water pump
1967	Ecurie Savin-Calberson	Alpine A210	Alain LeGuellec	Rank 10
1968	Société des Automobiles Alpine	Alpine A220	Jean Vinatier	Rank 8
1969	Société des Automobiles Alpine	Alpine A220	Jean Vinatier	failure	Engine failure

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
1966	Alpine	Alpine A210	DAY	SEB	MON	TAR	SPA	ONLY	LEM	MUG	CCE	HOK	SIM	ONLY	ZEL
									DNF
1967	Ecurie Savin-Calberson	Alpine A210	DAY	SEB	MON	SPA	TAR	ONLY	LEM	HOK	MUG	BRH	CCE	ZEL	OVI	ONLY
									10
1968	Alpine	Alpine A211 Alpine A220	DAY	SEB	BRH	MON	TAR	ONLY	SPA	WAT	ZEL	LEM
						3					DNF	8th
1969	Alpine	Alpine A220	DAY	SEB	BRH	MON	TAR	SPA	ONLY	LEM	WAT	ZEL
						DNF		17th		DNF

literature

• Bernard Sara, Gilles Labrouche: Alpine. La passion bleue . ETAI (Antony) 2011. ISBN 978-2-7268-9549-8
• Roy Smith: Alpine Renault The Sports Prototypes Volume 1963-1969 . Veloce Publishing, ISBN 978-1-845841-91-1
• Mark Cole, François Hurel, Wolf Töns: GT international - the cars 1993–1998 , Art Motor Verlag, Rösrath 1999, ISBN 3-929534-10-X

Web links

Commons : André de Cortanze  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• André de Cortanze at GrandPrix.com
• André de Cortanze at Oldracingcars
• André de Cortanze at Racing Sports Cars

Individual evidence

1. ^ Race results from Charles de Cortanze
2. ↑ About the Peugeot 402 and the de Cortanze family
3. ↑ About the Alpine-Monoposto S360 and A364
4. ↑ French Formula 3 Championship 1971
5. ↑ About the Elf J2 and the Alpine A500
6. ↑ Alpine A500 (French)
7. ↑ Technical data of the Alpine A500
8. ↑ Picture of the Alpine A500
9. ^ About Peugeot's motorsport involvement in the 1980s and 1999s (French)
10. ↑ The Toyota GT-One
11. ↑ The end of the cooperation in Toyota
12. ↑ Fiat 2300 Coupé de Cortanze