Henri Grandsire

Alpine A220 , with the Henri Grandsire at the 1968 24 Hours of Le Mans was the start

Henri Grandsire (born January 27, 1936 in Istres ) is a former French racing driver and actor.

Career

Henri Grandsire began his motorsport career in Formula Junior in the early 1950s . With a Stanguellini he was fifth in 1959 and seventh in 1960 in the European Cup. In 1963 he became a works driver at Alpine and in 1964 secured the title in the French Formula 3 championship with four race wins . Until the mid-1960s he drove Formula 3 and Formula 2 races for the French racing team, then he switched more and more to sports car racing.

In 1965 he finished seventh in the 12-hour race in Reims and together with Lucien Bianchi won the class up to 1.3 liters in an Alpine A210 . His best placings at the 24 Hours of Le Mans were ninth places in the overall classification, in 1966 with Leo Cella and in 1967 with José Rosinski , which also meant class victory.

At the 1000 km race in Paris he was able to celebrate a class win in 1964 (with Rosinski) and in 1968 he was fourth overall with Jean Guichet . In 1968 he had a serious accident while training for the 1000 km race on the Nürburgring . The Alpine A220 got under air on a bump in the Döttinger Höhe section and took off. The car overturned and slid on the roof nearly a hundred yards before coming to a stop. As the cockpit was hardly damaged, the Frenchman suffered only minor injuries.

Grandsire - who ended his racing career in 1969 - became known to a broad French audience in 1967 when he played the cartoon character Michel Vaillant in 13 episodes in the television series The Adventures of Michel Vaillant .

statistics

Le Mans results

year	team	vehicle	Teammate	placement	Failure reason
1964	Société des Automobiles Alpine	Alpine M64	Philippe Vidal	failure	Gearbox damage
1965	Société des Automobiles Alpine	Alpine M65	Mauro Bianchi	failure	Gearbox damage
1966	Société des Automobiles Alpine	Alpine A210	Leo Cella	9th place and class win
1967	Société des Automobiles Alpine	Alpine A210	José Rosinski	9th place and class win
1968	Société des Automobiles Alpine	Alpine A220	Gérard Larrousse	failure	Brake defect
1969	Société des Automobiles Alpine	Alpine A220	Jean-Claude Andruet	failure	Overheated cylinder

Sebring results

year	team	vehicle	Teammate	placement	Failure reason
1968	Societé Alpine	Alpine A211	Mauro Bianchi	failure	malfunction

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
1963	Alpine Henri Grandsire	Alpine A108 Alpine M63 Alfa Romeo 2600	DAY	SEB	SEB	TAR	SPA	MAY	ONLY	CON	ROS	LEM	MON	WIS	TAV	FRE	CCE	RTT	OVI	ONLY	MON	MON	TDF	BRI
									DNF						15th								DNF
1964	Alpine	Alpine M63 Alpine M64	DAY	SEB	TAR	MON	SPA	CON	ONLY	ROS	LEM	REI	FRE	CCE	RTT	SIM	ONLY	MON	TDF	BRI	BRI	PAR
									DNF		DNF	19th										16
1965	Alpine	Alpine M65	DAY	SEB	BOL	MON	MON	RTT	TAR	SPA	ONLY	MUG	ROS	LEM	REI	BOZ	FRE	CCE	OVI	ONLY	BRI	BRI
									DNF					DNF	7th
1966	Alpine	Alpine A210 Alpine A110	DAY	SEB	MON	TAR	SPA	ONLY	LEM	MUG	CCE	HOK	SIM	ONLY	ZEL
					DNF			DNF	9					DNF
1967	Alpine	Alpine A210 Alpine A110	DAY	SEB	MON	SPA	TAR	ONLY	LEM	HOK	MUG	BRH	CCE	ZEL	OVI	ONLY
					DNF	16	DNF		9						39	DNF
1968	Alpine	Alpine A211 Alpine A220	DAY	SEB	BRH	MON	TAR	ONLY	SPA	WAT	ZEL	LEM
				DNF		DNF			13			DNF
1969	Alpine	Alpine A220	DAY	SEB	BRH	MON	TAR	SPA	ONLY	LEM	WAT	ZEL
								DNF		DNF

Web links

Commons : Henri Grandsire  - Collection of Images, Videos and Audio Files

• Image: Henri Grandsire
• Henri Grandsire at Racing Sports Cars