Freddy Rousselle

In a Jaguar D-Type , Freddy Rousselle achieved fourth place overall in the Le Mans 24-hour race in 1956 and 1957

Freddy Rousselle (born May 15, 1927 - March 25, 2016 ) was a Belgian racing driver .

Career in motorsport

Freddy Rousselle was active as a sports car racing driver in the 1950s . In 1956 he came to the 24-hour race of Le Mans for the first time as a substitute driver for the Equipe Nationale Belge . A few minutes before the start, Roger Laurent , Jacques Swaters ' team partner , decided not to start after a dispute with the team leadership and left the race course. Rousselle had to step in, even though he had never competed in a Jaguar D-Type before. The two Belgians finished fourth overall. So far, Rousselle had mainly driven Ferrari vehicles in the 3-liter class . Three weeks before the 24-hour race on the Sarthe, he finished tenth at the Rouen Grand Prix in a Ferrari 750 Monza .

In 1957 he came back to Le Mans; this time he was partner of Paul Frère . In the race he was unlucky when the ignition on the D-Type failed at Les Hunaudières. Rousselle lost almost an hour trying to get the car running again. A time that was missing in the end to make it onto the podium in the top three. Rousselle was fourth again.

His last known race was the Spa-Francorchamps 24-hour race in 1964 , which he finished tenth overall.

statistics

Le Mans results

year	team	vehicle	Teammate	placement	Failure reason
1956	Equipe Nationale Belge	Jaguar D-Type	Jacques Swaters	Rank 4
1957	Equipe Nationale Belge	Jaguar D-Type	Paul Brother	Rank 4
1958	Equipe Nationale Belge	Lister LM	Claude Dubois	failure	no oil pressure

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	18th	19th	20th	21st	22nd
1956	Equipe Nationale Belge	Triumph TR2 Ferrari 750 Monza	BUA	SEB	MIM	ONLY	KRI
					83		DNF
1957	Ecurie Nationale Belge Antonio Creus	Jaguar D-Type Ferrari 750 Monza	BUA	SEB	MIM	ONLY	LEM	KRI	CAR
						DNF	4th
1958	Equipe Nationale Belge	Lister LM	BUA	SEB	TAR	ONLY	LEM	RTT
							DNF

Web links

• Freddy Rousselle at Racing sports cars

Individual evidence

1. ↑ L'ex-pilote verviétois Freddy Rousselle est décédé
2. ↑ Freddy Rouselle 57 years later ( memento of the original from October 18, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.