Lucien Bianchi
Nation: | Belgium | ||||||||
Automobile world championship | |||||||||
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First start: | 1960 Belgian Grand Prix | ||||||||
Last start: | 1968 Mexican Grand Prix | ||||||||
Constructors | |||||||||
1960 Cooper 1961 Lotus 1962 Lotus ENB 1963 Lola 1965 BRM 1968 Cooper | |||||||||
statistics | |||||||||
World Cup balance: | WM-17. ( 1968 ) | ||||||||
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World Cup points : | 6th | ||||||||
Podiums : | 1 | ||||||||
Leadership laps : | - |
Lucien Bianchi (born November 10, 1934 in Milan , Italy ; † March 30, 1969 in Le Mans , France ) was a Belgian racing car driver . He won the 24 Hours of Le Mans and was known for his versatility in motorsport. His younger brother Mauro Bianchi and his grandson Jules Bianchi were also racing drivers.
Youth and origin
Bianchi was born the son of an Alfa Romeo mechanic in northern Italy. But the family moved with the youngster to Belgium around 1950, where the father worked for the well-known amateur racing driver Johnny Claes .
Rallies and sports car races
Both his younger brother Mauro and Lucien were soon involved in motorsport . From 1951/52 the older one started alongside Claes in the Alpine Rally and other tests. At the end of the 1950s, he performed remarkably in the Tour de France for sports cars . Together with Olivier Gendebien , he won the GT class of this race three times from 1957 to 1959 in a Ferrari 250 GT Berlinetta LWB . In the two following years he won the famous sports car race in Paris , which went over 1000 km and in which active or former Formula 1 drivers also took part.
Sporadic assignments in Formula 1 (1960–1965)
With a fourth place in the Formula 2 on the airfield circuit of Zeltweg 1959, he recommended himself for the higher racing car class. During the 1960 Formula 1 season , he drove for the first time with an outdated Cooper T 51 , with which he finished sixth in his first race on his home track. In 1962 he first drove an Emeryson , which the Ecurie Nationale Belge used. After the non-qualification due to a weak engine, the team soon put in a Lotus , which suggested better chances. But Bianchi was not lucky with this car either; he had to give up again with technical problems. A change to the UDT Laystall Racing Team did not bring any improvement either. In Formula 1 there were no major successes from 1963 to 1965, as he only took part in individual races sporadically with changing teams and vehicles (17 races in nine years, including on Lola , BRM ). Bianchi got his sense of achievement in all other motorsport classes, regardless of whether they were touring cars , sports cars or rally vehicles.
Victories at Le Mans and other successes (1962–1968)
Bianchi's greatest success was winning the 1968 Le Mans 24-hour race in a Ford GT40 that he drove with Pedro Rodríguez . It was his 13th "attempt" at this race. In 1963, for example, he started together with Phil Hill on a special version of the Aston Martin DB4 GT, which was extremely fast but very prone to defects. Immediately afterwards, he won the difficult 12-hour race at Sebring , which he won six years earlier with Joakim Bonnier in a Ferrari Testa Rossa. In 1964 he won the Tour de France again, this time in a Ferrari 250 GTO.
In the quaint London - Sydney - Marathon races he lay with his Citroën in, as he collided with a normal road users and was eliminated. In 1961 he and Georges Harris had won the legendary Liège-Sofia-Liège rally with the Citroën DS 19, where they were able to distance supposedly stronger opponents such as the Austin Healey 3000 , the Mercedes 220 SE or the Porsche Carrera . On July 28, 1963, Bianchi won the Solitude race in an Abarth 1000 GT in the corresponding class.
His enthusiasm for experimentation in motorsport drove him to the USA. Like some other Formula 1 drivers, he tried his hand at the Indianapolis 500 in 1967 without success because he had already touched Turn 1 in the official preliminary training.
Success in Formula 1 and death
Bianchi lived in Brussels , where he ran a garage specializing in tuning sports cars .
In 1968 he signed with the Cooper - BRM team for the first time for a full season. A third place at the Monaco Grand Prix and a sixth place in Spa promised more for the future, but in the course of the 1968 Formula 1 season , in addition to moderate starting positions, he was mostly held back by the defect devil. As a racing driver, Bianchi did not have the absolute qualification speed, but the necessary stamina qualities to achieve better placements even with weaker material. It was precisely these qualities that were valued in sports car races.
In the spring of 1969 he was killed in his Alfa Romeo T33 when he crashed into a telegraph pole at the end of the Mulsanne straight during pre-practice for the Le Mans 24-hour race . With him, one of the last pilots died who was successful with rally vehicles and sports cars as well as monopostos .
statistics
Statistics in the automobile world championship
general overview
season | team | chassis | engine | run | Victories | Second | Third | Poles | nice Race laps |
Points | WM-Pos. |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1960 | Equipe Nationale Belge | Cooper T51 | Climax 2.5 L4 | 1 | - | - | - | - | - | 1 | 24. |
Fred Tuck Cars | Cooper T51 | Climax 2.5 L4 | 2 | - | - | - | - | - | |||
1961 | Equipe Nationale Belge | Lotus 18 | Climax 1.5 L4 | 1 | - | - | - | - | - | - | NC |
UDT Laystall Racing Team | Lotus 18/21 | Climax 1.5 L4 | 2 | - | - | - | - | - | |||
1962 | Equipe Nationale Belge | Lotus 18/21 | Climax 1.5 L4 | 1 | - | - | - | - | - | - | NC |
ENB | Maserati 1.5 L4 | 1 | - | - | - | - | - | ||||
1963 | Reg Parnell Racing | Lola Mk4A | Climax 1.5 V8 | 1 | - | - | - | - | - | - | NC |
1965 | Scuderia Centro Sud | BRM P57 | BRM 1.5 V8 | 1 | - | - | - | - | - | - | NC |
1968 | Cooper Car Company | Cooper T86B | BRM 3.0 V12 | 7th | - | - | 1 | - | - | 5 | 17th |
total | 17th | - | - | 1 | - | - | 6th |
Single results
season | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4th | 5 | 6th | 7th | 8th | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1959 | ||||||||||||
DNQ | ||||||||||||
1960 | ||||||||||||
6th | DNF | DNF | ||||||||||
1961 | ||||||||||||
DNQ | DNF | DNF | DNF | |||||||||
1962 | ||||||||||||
9 | 16 | |||||||||||
1963 | ||||||||||||
DNF | ||||||||||||
1965 | ||||||||||||
12 | ||||||||||||
1968 | ||||||||||||
3 | 6th | DNF | DNF | NC | NC | DNF |
Legend | ||
---|---|---|
colour | abbreviation | meaning |
gold | - | victory |
silver | - | 2nd place |
bronze | - | 3rd place |
green | - | Placement in the points |
blue | - | Classified outside the point ranks |
violet | DNF | Race not finished (did not finish) |
NC | not classified | |
red | DNQ | did not qualify |
DNPQ | failed in pre-qualification (did not pre-qualify) | |
black | DSQ | disqualified |
White | DNS | not at the start (did not start) |
WD | withdrawn | |
Light Blue | PO | only participated in the training (practiced only) |
TD | Friday test driver | |
without | DNP | did not participate in the training (did not practice) |
INJ | injured or sick | |
EX | excluded | |
DNA | did not arrive | |
C. | Race canceled | |
no participation in the World Cup | ||
other | P / bold | Pole position |
SR / italic | Fastest race lap | |
* | not at the finish, but counted due to the distance covered |
|
() | Streak results | |
underlined | Leader in the overall standings |
Le Mans results
year | team | vehicle | Teammate | placement | Failure reason |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
1956 | Equipe Nationale Belge | Ferrari 500 TR | Alain de Changy | failure | steering |
1957 | Ecurie Francorchamps | Ferrari 500TRC | Georges Harris | Rank 7 and class win | |
1958 | Ecurie Francorchamps | Ferrari 250TR | Willy Mairesse | failure | accident |
1959 | Equipe Nationale Belge | Ferrari 250TR 58 | Alain de Changy | failure | fuel pump |
1960 | Equipe Nationale Belge | Ferrari 250 GT SWB | Jean Blaton | failure | accident |
1961 | Ecurie Francorchamps | Ferrari 250 GT SWB | Georges Berger | failure | Clutch damage |
1962 | Maserati France | Maserati Tipo 151 | Maurice Trintignant | failure | suspension |
1963 | Aston Martin Lagonda Ltd. | Aston Martin DP215 | Phil Hill | failure | Gearbox damage |
1964 | Equipe Nationale Belge | Ferrari 250 GTO | Jean Blaton | 5th place and class win | |
1965 | Maranello Concessionaires | Ferrari 250LM | Mike Salmon | failure | Gearbox damage |
1966 | Holman & Moody | Ford GT40 Mk.II | Mario Andretti | failure | Cylinder overheated |
1967 | Holman & Moody | Ford Mk.IV | Mario Andretti | failure | accident |
1968 | John Wyer Automotive | Ford GT40 | Pedro Rodríguez | Overall victory |
Sebring results
year | team | vehicle | Teammate | placement | Failure reason |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
1962 | Scuderia SSS Repubblica di Venezia | Ferrari 250 TRI / 61 | Joakim Bonnier | Overall victory | |
1966 | Autodelta SpA | Alfa Romeo Giulia TZ2 | Bernard Consten | failure | Gearbox damage |
1969 | Autodelta SPA | Alfa Romeo T33 / 3 | Nino Vaccarella | failure | Motor overheated |
Individual results in the sports car world championship
literature
- Lucien Bianchi: Mes rallies. Flammarion, Paris 1969.
Web links
- Biography
- Biography (French)
- Tour de France for automobiles
- Gallery of the Le Mans winners
- Aston Martin DP215 (engl. WP)
personal data | |
---|---|
SURNAME | Bianchi, Lucien |
BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Belgian racing driver |
DATE OF BIRTH | November 10, 1934 |
PLACE OF BIRTH | Milan , Italy |
DATE OF DEATH | March 30, 1969 |
Place of death | Le Mans , France |