Georges Boillot

Georges Boillot at the 1914 French Grand Prix

Georges Boillot next to his fighter plane in 1916

Georges Boillot Louis Frédéric (* 3. August 1884 in Valentigney ; † 20th May 1916 in Vadelaincourt ) was a French racing driver and a pilot during the First World War .

Racing career

Georges Boillot was the most popular French car racing driver before the First World War, and as a fighter pilot he became a war hero. He trained as a mechanic at Lion-Peugeot in the 1910s , rose to become a racing driver in 1909 and made his debut with the Coupe de l'Auto in Rambouillet . It was not uncommon in this early phase of motorsport for racing drivers to be mechanics at the same time and vice versa. Even before the overall merger of Lion-Peugeot with Automobiles Peugeot to form the Société des Automobiles et Cycles Peugeot , the racing activities were merged in the spring of 1910. This gave Peugeot control over the Voiturette racing cars from Lion-Peugeot and Georges Boillot joined Giosuè Giuppone and Jules Goux's team . He gave the first test of his driving talent at the Targa Florio in 1910 . Peugeot started with three vehicles in the Voiturette class, which, due to an absurdity of the organizer, who favored vehicles with large displacement, did not count towards the overall ranking. This anomaly resulted in the fastest car not winning the race. Boillot needed 5 hours and 20 minutes in his 2 liter Peugeot for the 297.646 km long race distance and was 1 hour faster than the overall winner Franco Cariolato in the heavy Franco 35 / 50HP at the finish . Giosuè Giuppone and Jules Goux also crossed the finish line ahead of Franco Cariolato. His younger brother André achieved overall victory at the Targa Florio nine years later in the Peugeot L25 .

Georges Boillot pushed for the Grand Prix sport, away from the Voiturette cars, which he often disparagingly referred to as carts. After some back and forth, the Peugeot family that owned it agreed to allow an independent racing division. The engineers Paolo Zuccarelli and Ernest Henry, hired from Hispano-Suiza , and the drivers Jules Goux and Georges Boillot were in charge. The result of the development work of the quartet, known in-house as Les Charlatans , was the Peugeot L-76 , with the first specially developed racing engine in motorsport history. The four-valve technology with forced control, hemispherical combustion chambers and a double overhead camshaft was introduced. Boillot won the prestigious French Grand Prix in 1912 with the vehicle . He repeated this triumph a year later , this time on the Circuit de Picardie near Amiens .

A possible victory at the Indianapolis 500 mile race in 1914 was prevented by a series of punctures and at the French Grand Prix of that year he had to bow to the superior Mercedes 18/100 Grand Prix . Until one lap before the end of the race on the Circuit de Lyon , he fought for the race victory with a Peugeot L-45 that had broken down into its components , before an engine failure took the "wounded" car out of the race and, to the dismay of the audience, the Daimler engines -Society with Christian Lautenschlager at the top achieved a triple victory.

Aviator in World War I

One month after the start of the war, he volunteered in the French Army . First he was the driver of Marshall Joseph Joffre , the army commander in chief . Frustrated by this activity, he trained as a fighter pilot and quickly became one of the best French fighter pilots, receiving the Croix de guerre for his bravery . Six weeks after his admission to the Légion d'honneur , he was shot down on May 19, 1916 in an aerial battle against five Fokker over Bar-le-Duc and succumbed to his injuries the morning after in a military hospital in Vadelaincourt .

family

Georges Boillot was the son of Louis Boillot and his wife Catherine Jeanperain. In his youth he competed in bicycle races and later supported his younger brother André in his start in racing. His grandson, Jean Boillot, was President of Peugeot and Chairman of the Groupe PSA . Numerous streets and squares in France bear his name and from 1921 to 1928 the Coupe Georges Boillot named after him was held.

gallery

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  Georges Boillot wins the 1912 French Grand Prix

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  In the Peugeot L-76 1912

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  On his victory run a year later

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  On his heroic ride at the French Grand Prix in 1914

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  With Robert Peugeot and Jules Goux in 1914

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  1914 in Indianapolis

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  In his fighter plane in 1916

literature

• Pino Fondi: Targa Florio - 20th Century Epic. Giorgio Nada Editore Vimodrone 2006, ISBN 88-7911-270-8 .

Web links

Commons : Georges Boillot  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Georges Boillot at Motorsport Magazine
• Biography

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Targa Florio 1910