Patrick Gonin

The WR LM93 of Pierre Petit and Patrick Gonin at the 1994 Le Mans 24-hour race

Patrick Gonin (born May 23, 1957 ) is a former French racing driver .

Career in motorsport

Patrick Gonin began his career in 1980 when he finished eighth overall in the French Formula Renault Championship . In 1982 he entered the French Formula 3 championship , where he was fourth in the championship in 1982 behind Pierre Petit , Michel Ferté and François Hesnault .

In Monopostosport there was no progress for the French, so he is racing the touring and sports car turned. In 1983 he made his debut at the 24 Hours of Le Mans , where he competed eleven times. He achieved his best placement in 1990 with 16th place; 1993 became class winner in the LMP class.

In 1995 Gonin drove one of the two WR LM94 from Welter Racing and started from the front row. He shared the car with the number 8 with Pierre Petit and Marc Rostan . Gonin took the lead right from the start and held it until the first refueling stop after ten laps. Half a lap there was even a double lead for Welter shortly after the start was released, then teammate William David was pushed into third place by Bob Wollek in the Courage C36 . Pierre Petit, who had taken over the number 8 from Gonin, had to pit after 1½ hours to have the power transmission changed. Although the Welter pit team acted very quickly, the car lost three laps. The drive of the prototype ended after a serious accident at nightfall. When it started to rain, he got under-air at the quick spot in front of the Mulsanne, overturned once and hit hard on all four edges on the right edge of the track. The accident was very similar to that of Peter Dumbreck in 1999 , but is nowhere near as well known, mainly because there are no television pictures of it. Patrick Gonin, who drove the car, suffered severe bruises and several broken ribs in the accident. He had to spend one night in the hospital.

In 1988 he finished second overall in the European Renault Alpine V6 Championship, a year later he was fifth in the French Touring Car Championship and in 1994 third behind William David and Cathy Muller in the Peugeot 905 Spider Cup.

After the end of the 2000 racing season, he retired from racing.

statistics

Le Mans results

year	team	vehicle	Teammate	Teammate	placement	Failure reason
1983	Raymond Boutinaud	Porsche 928S	Raymond Boutinaud	Alain Le Page	not classified
1985	Jean-Philippe Grand	Rondeau M482	Pascal Witmeur	Pierre de Thoisy	failure	Engine failure
1987	Italya Sports	Nissan R86V	Alain Ferté	Not so Olofsson	failure	accident
1989	Courage Compétition	Cougar C22LM	Bernard de Dryver	Bernard Santal	failure	Electrics
1990	Porsche Kremer Racing	Porsche 962CK6	Bernard de Dryver	Philippe Alliot	Rank 16
1991	Automobiles Louis Descartes	ALD C91	Philippe de Henning	Luigi Taverna	failure	Gearbox damage
1992	Welter Racing	WR LM92	Pierre Petit	Didier Artzet	failure	accident
1993	Welter Racing	WR LM93	Alain Lamouille	Bernard Santal	Rank 24 and class win
1994	Welter Racing	WR LM93	Pierre Petit		failure	Engine failure
1995	Welter Racing	WR LM94	Pierre Petit	Marc Rostan	failure	accident
1996	Welter Racing	WR LM96	Pierre Petit	Marc Rostan	failure	Technical error

Web links

Commons : Patrick Gonin  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• Patrick Gonin at the Driver Database
• Patrick Gonin at Racing Sports Cars

Individual evidence

1. ^ French Formula 3 Championship 1982
2. ↑ Pit stops of number 8 in 1995 at Le Mans
3. ↑ European Renault Alpine V6 Championship 1988
4. ↑ French Touring Car Championship 1988
5. ↑ Peugeot 905 Spider Cup 1994