Robert Benoist

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Robert Benoist at the 1927 French Grand Prix
Robert Benoist in Delage, 1927 in Monza
Robert Benoist at the wheel of a Delage Type 15 S 8 ; at the Gran Premio de San Sebastián 1926

Marcel Charles Robert Benoist (born March 20, 1895 in Auffargis , Département Seine-et-Oise ; † September 11, 1944 in the Buchenwald concentration camp ) was a French automobile racing driver and war hero of the Resistance .

First World War

Robert Benoist came as a son of the gamekeeper of Henri de Rothschild born. He spent his childhood and adolescence on the Rothschild estate . During the First World War , he initially served in the 131st Infantry Regiment of the French Army and became a fighter pilot in 1915 . Benoist remained in the army until the demobilization in 1919 and worked as a flight instructor for the last two years.

Career in motorsport

In 1920 Benoist's career began in international motorsport. After a period as a test driver De Marçay he drove his first race with cyclecars of Salmson . In 1924 he became a works driver at Delage and in 1925 won the French Grand Prix together with Albert Divo on the Montlhéry circuit .

In 1927 Benoist rose to become the dominant driver of the Grand Prix races and played a major role in Delage's world championship. The Frenchman celebrated four Grand Prix victories; in addition to the renewed triumph in the French race , he won the Grand Prix of Italy , Great Britain and Spain . For this he received one of the highest French awards, Chevalier de la Légion d'honneur .

After Delage withdrew at the end of 1927, Benoist was left without a contract and his races decreased. Worth mentioning is the overall victory in the 1929 Spa-Francorchamps 24-hour race with Attilio Marinoni in an Alfa Romeo 6C 1750SS . At the end of 1934, he then announced his retirement from racing in order to take over the position of racing director at Bugatti for the 24 Hours of Le Mans . In 1937 he grabbed the steering wheel himself and promptly won the overall standings together with Jean-Pierre Wimille .

Second World War

At the end of the 1930s, through Jean-Pierre Wimille, he met another French Grand Prix driver who became a close friend of his; William Grover-Williams . After the outbreak of World War II and the occupation of large parts of France by the troops of the German Wehrmacht , the three French fled to England. There they became members of the Special Operations Executive and returned to France after completing their training to support the Resistance . Benoist was a captain in the British Army. He and Grover-Williams brought weapons that were flown in by the Royal Navy near Rambouillet to his own house for storage. Both also took part in acts of sabotage in the vicinity of Paris.

Death in Buchenwald

When the Paris Resistance cell was blown in June 1943, Grover-Williams and Benoist were also arrested by the Gestapo . While Grover-Williams was brought to Sachsenhausen and executed, Robert Benoist managed to escape shortly after his arrest. On the way to the Gestapo headquarters in Paris, he jumped out of the moving car and hurried unrecognized. He got to England via detours. In 1944 he returned to France again and worked near Nantes , together with agent Denise Bloch .

On June 18, 1944, he was arrested for the second time and immediately transferred to the Buchenwald concentration camp , where he was executed on September 11, 1944.

After the war, the French received an abundance of posthumous honors. A street in his hometown was named after him, as well as grandstands at the Reims and Le Mans racetracks . His plaque of honor hangs in the Brookwood Cemetery Memorial . In his work The Grand Prix Saboteurs , the British author Joe Saward claims that Robert Benoist was betrayed to the Gestapo by his brother Maurice Benoist .

statistics

Le Mans results

year team vehicle Teammate placement Failure reason
1928 Italy 1861Kingdom of Italy (1861-1946) Fabbrica Automobili Itala Itala Tipo 65 S FranceFrance Christian Dauvergne Rank 8 and class win
1929 FranceFrance Grand Garage Saint-Didier Paris Chrysler 75 Six FranceFrance Henri Stoffel Rank 6
1937 FranceFrance Bugatti team Bugatti T57G tank FranceFrance Jean-Pierre Wimille Overall victory

literature

Web links

Commons : Robert Benoist  - Collection of images, videos and audio files
personal data
SURNAME Benoist, Robert
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Benoist, Marcel Charles Robert (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION French racing driver
DATE OF BIRTH March 20, 1895
PLACE OF BIRTH Auffargis , Seine-et-Oise department
DATE OF DEATH September 11, 1944
Place of death Buchenwald concentration camp