Annie Bousquet

Annie Bousquet contested her first car race on a Renault 4CV

Annie Bousquet had a fatal accident in a Porsche 550 Spyder in 1956

Annie Bousquet curve (2) at the Circuit de Reims-Gueux

Anna "Annie" Bousquet (born April 13, 1925 in Vienna ; † June 30, 1956 in Reims ) was a French racing driver of Austrian origin.

Private

Annie Bousquet was born in Vienna as Anna Schaffer and was an Austrian citizen. During the Second World War , she met the French soldier Pierre Bousquet , who lived as a prisoner of war and forced labor in her hometown. The couple married after the war and moved to Paris with their daughter . Pierre Bousquet came from a wealthy family, which enabled his wife to lead a sheltered life between horse riding , tennis and skiing .

Career as a racing driver

Annie Bousquet's driving career was the result of a skiing accident. During her vacation in Sestriere in February 1952, her skis crossed on a descent , she fell and broke her leg. A few evenings later she was sitting with her leg in a cast in the lobby with the adjoining bar of her hotel and got into conversation with two men who were talking intensively about car races. It was the two Ferrari racing drivers Alberto Ascari and Luigi Villoresi who went on winter vacation with their families in Sestriere. She was so enthusiastic about the stories of the two drivers that she - hardly recovered - also became a racing driver.

During her short career she was the most popular French racing driver, known far beyond the borders of her new home country. In retrospect, that had only to do with her success as a driver to a limited extent. The well-known and successful male drivers of the 1950s were usually physically robust men in their 40s who were already active in the 1930s. Annie Bousquet was a delicate, attractive woman who broke into a male domain without hesitation. Her likeness soon graced the front pages of French magazines . Contemporary witnesses described her as a very aggressive driver, whose enthusiasm exceeded her talent. Friendships also suffered from their driving style. The close relationship with our Belgian racing colleague Gilberte Thirion was permanently strained by some tough competitive situations.

Her first race was in 1952 in a Renault 4CV at the Coupe des Alpes , where the car broke down with a gearbox failure. Although target arrivals remained the exception in her career, she achieved some notable results. Together with Thirion, she drove a Gordini T15S in the 1954 Dakar two-hour race , where the two of them crossed the finish line in eleventh place . Her greatest success was the record drive on the Autodrome de Linas-Montlhéry in August 1955. Bousquet drove a lap in a Porsche 550 with a special body at Wendler in Reutlingen at an average speed of 230.5 km / h. The attempt to set a new hour record failed due to a tire damage at 200 km / h in the banked curve. In the accident, she broke her leg again. On the same track, she had achieved her best race result in May 1955, when she finished second overall at the Bol d'Or with Josef Jeser as partner .

Death in Reims

Her fateful year was 1956. First her husband had a fatal accident in a car accident on an icy country road, then she herself died in the 1956 12-hour race in Reims . Since her Porsche 550 Spyder was being repaired at Porsche in Zuffenhausen , Annie Bousquet picked it up there and drove it 500 kilometers to Reims the night before the race . Team colleague in the 12-hour race was the American Isabelle Haskell , who later became the wife of Alejandro de Tomaso . Despite the strenuous journey, Bousquet insisted on driving the Porsche from the start until the first refueling stop. On lap 17, she went off the track with the car on the La Hovette corner. The Porsche slid from one side of the street to the other and was torn in two at a barrier. Bousquet was lying on the ground 15 meters from the wreck. At the Center hospitalier universitaire de Reims only death from a broken neck could be determined. When Gilberte Thirion found out about the accident, she immediately stopped the race and a few months later her career. Annie Bousquet was buried next to her husband in the cemetery of the small town of Marnes-la-Coquette , with great sympathy from the population and many fellow drivers . A few weeks after the accident, the curve at the Circuit de Reims-Gueux got its name.

Annie Bousquet's death had far-reaching consequences for women in French motorsport. In many races women were banned from starting. At the 24 Hours of Le Mans , the ban lasted until 1971 .

statistics

Individual results in the sports car world championship

season	team	race car	1	2	3	4th	5	6th	7th
1953		Renault 4CV Fiat 1100	SEB	MIM	LEM	SPA	ONLY	RTT	CAP
				282		DNF
1954	Thirion Bousquet	Gordini T15S	BUA	SEB	MIM	LEM	RTT	CAP
					55
1956		Triumph TR2	BUA	SEB	MIM	ONLY	KRI
					95

literature

• Hans-Jörg Götzl: Mille Miglia. Motorbuch-Verlag, Stuttgart 2006, ISBN 3-613-02562-0 .

Web links

Commons : Annie Bousquet  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• Annie Bousquet at Racing Sports Cars
• Report on Annie Bousquet in the Porsche in-house newspaper
• Annie Bousquet at Historic Racing
• Detailed portrait

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Annie Bousquet, just a broken leg
2. ↑ 1954 Dakar 2-hour race
3. ↑ Bol d'Or 1952
4. ^ Annie Bousquet at Motorsport Memorial
5. ↑ Portrait and accident report (Spanish)