Pierre Boncompagni

Pierre Boncompagni (born May 19, 1913 in Nice , † June 7, 1953 near Hyères ) was a French racing car driver who also competed under the pseudonym Pierre Pagnibon .

Career

Pierre Boncompagni was born the son of Italian immigrants in the south of France. Shortly after the Second World War , the wealthy Frenchman began motorsport. He founded his own racing team, Ecurie Nice , and bought a Talbot T150C . By Talbot he stepped successful in mountain races and was fourth at the 1950 Coupe du Salon in Monthlery . His first race win he celebrated in January 1951, when he on a Cisitalia the Grand Prix of Agadir won. In the spring of 1951 he bought a Ferrari 212 Export from Luigi Chinetti, which from then on replaced the Talbot as an emergency vehicle. At the end of the year he celebrated his first major international success with overall victory in the Tour de France for automobiles .

The 1952 season turned out to be the most successful year in Boncompagni's career. With the Ferrari he won the Coupe de Vitesse in Montlhéry, the Coupe de Printemps , which was also driven out in Montlhéry, and a road race in Bordeaux. Also at the Monaco Grand Prix this year, he was at the start. In 1952 the event was not advertised as a Formula 1 race , but as a race for sports cars. Luigi Fagioli had a serious accident during training and died a few days later in a hospital. On the race weekend - June 1st and 2nd, 1952 - two races were held. On Saturday, racing cars with a capacity of up to 1.5 liters took to the track (Fagioli had an accident in a Lancia Aurelia B20 ) and after 65 laps Robert Manzon crossed the finish line in a Gordini T15 as the winner. Sunday was reserved for the big sports cars. Boncompagni drove a Ferrari 225S and was fifth in the overall standings behind Vittorio Marzotto , Eugenio Castellotti , Clemente Biondetti and Jean Lucas - all of whom drove Ferrari 225S.

These successes caught the attention of Enzo Ferrari , who offered the Frenchman a cockpit in his works team for the 24 Hours of Le Mans . His team partner was the American Tom Cole , who had a fatal accident at Le Mans a year later . The two drove a Ferrari 225S Berlinetta, which had to be parked after driving for eleven hours with a defect in the ignition.

Before the end of the racing season, as in the previous year, he competed in the Tour de France for automobiles . After 5338 kilometers and seven special stages, he and his co-driver Alfredo Maccievaldo only had to admit defeat to the Gignoux couple in a DB 750 .

In 1953 he replaced the 225S with a Ferrari 340MM , a former works car . With the new racing car, he won the 3-hour race in Algeria in May 1953 and again the Coupe de Printemps .

Death in Hyères

Bocmompagni had a fatal accident on June 7, 1953 at the 12-hour race in Hyères . After driving the fastest race lap while in the lead, he lost control of the Ferrari on the wet road and crashed into a track barrier. He died at the scene of the accident.

Boncompagni and its vehicles

The Talbot 150C, in which the French contested its first races, was bodyworked in 1939 as one of only three coupés produced by the French body manufacturer Pourtout . The car with chassis number 90120 was built in 1939 but was not completed until 1944. A German officer bought the car during the German occupation of France and sold it to Boncompagni after the war. After his death, the car was given to a collector and was part of the Locke Collection for a long time . In 2008 the Locke family put the 150C SS Pourtout up for auction. The car found a new owner through the Bonhams & Brooks auction house in Monterey in 2008 for US $ 4.4 million.

The Ferrari 212 Export, which Boncompagni took over from Luigi Chinetti, is the only 212 Export with a so-called Tuboscocca body. The car with the chassis number 0141 / T went to Boncompagni through several Swiss collectors' hands before it was sold to Italy. At an auction in Pebble Beach in 1999 the car was auctioned for US $ 500,000.

The Frenchman's Ferrari 340MM also has a special history. Chassis 0268AM made its racing debut under Giuseppe Farina at the 1953 Mille Miglia . Boncompagni had his fatal accident with the car. The reconstruction took place in the Ferrari factory, after which the car was sold to Luigi Chinetti. This vehicle also went through several owners and was auctioned for US $ 3.1 million in 2005.

statistics

Le Mans results

year	team	vehicle	Teammate	placement	Failure reason
1952	Scuderia Ferrari	Ferrari 225S Berlinetta	Tom Cole	failure	Ignition defect

Web links

• Pierre Boncompagni at Motorsport Memorial

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Tour de France for automobiles 1951 (French)
2. ↑ 1952 Monaco Grand Prix, race on Saturday
3. ^ 1952 Monaco Grand Prix, race on Sunday
4. ↑ Ex-Boncompagni Talbot 150C SS auctioned
5. ↑ Ex-Boncompagni Ferrari 212 Export auctioned ( Memento of the original from September 2, 2011 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. 
6. ↑ Ex-Boncompagni Ferrari 340MM auctioned