Yves Courage

The Porsche 930 of Joël Laplacette , Antoine Salamin , Yves Courage and Gérard Vial at the Le Mans 24-hour race in 1978

Yves Courage (born April 27, 1948 in Le Mans ) is a former French racing car driver , racing car designer and racing team owner.

Racing career

Born in Le Mans, Yves Courage came into contact at a young age with the 24-hour race of Le Mans , which has been held in his hometown since 1923 . He contested his first race at Le Mans in 1977 when he was 29 years old. At this age, many racing drivers of his generation had already reached the peak of their careers. At Le Mans he drove a Porsche 911 Carrera RSR together with Joël Laplacette and André Gahinet . The race ended prematurely on Sunday morning after a defective constant velocity joint.

After two more unsuccessful attempts in 1978 and 1980 , the Frenchman made the first finish at this race in 1981 with 18th place overall. In 1982, in addition to the Le Mans race, he also contested the 1000 km race at the Nürburgring and the 1000 km race at Spa-Francorchamps . The emergency vehicle, the Cougar C01 with a 3.3-liter Cosworth - V8 engine was the first racing car was developed under the auspices of Courage in your own racing team. He drove on the Nordschleife of the Nürburgring together with Patrick Gaillard and Jean-Philippe Grand . After finishing 23rd in training, the trio dropped out on the first lap after a suspension damage. After many problems and several unscheduled pit stops , he finished the race in Spa together with Nick Faure and the Belgian Hervé Regout as 21st in the final standings.

At that time, Courage was already a racing driver and team boss in personal union, and a few years later he was one of the illustrious circle of racing drivers who drove racing cars that bore their own name.

The best place as a driver outside of the 24 Hours of Le Mans was ninth place in the 500 km race at Watkins Glen in 1984 , run in a Cougar C02 and teammates John Jellinek and Alain de Cadenet . The big hour as a driver at Le Mans came in 1987 when he was able to finish third overall. Immediately after the race he announced his retirement as a driver.

Racing team owner and team boss

In 1981 Courage founded a company that built racing cars. The Automotive Engineering Team Mancelle later became Courage Compétition . The first racing car was the Cougar C01. From 1988 the sports car prototypes were given the name of the team boss. From 1995 to 1999, Porsche supplied the engines and technical components for the vehicles. After that, Nissan and Peugeot turbo engines were installed in the car.

He celebrated his greatest international successes as a team boss and as a driver at Le Mans. In 1995 , Bob Wollek , Mario Andretti and Eric Hélary finished second overall in the Courage C34 . A possible victory was awarded in the early evening by a spin with an impact in the guard rails by Andretti. As a result of the necessary repairs, the team lost many laps in the pits, but was able to shorten the gap by one lap through a terrific race to catch up with the victorious Mclaren F1 GTR of Yannick Dalmas , Masanori Sekiya and JJ Lehto .

From 1996 Courage produced racing cars for private teams, some of which were used very successfully by them in different classes in sports car races in Europe and the USA. In 2007 Courage sold his company to Hugues de Chaunac's ORECA racing team . The LC70 and LC75 projects were still being implemented, then the name Courage finally disappeared from the racing slopes.

Private

The honor was paid to Yves Courage's wife Lillian, who died in 2004, with the type designation LC for the LC70 and 75 racing cars.

statistics

Le Mans results

year	team	vehicle	Teammate	Teammate	Teammate	placement	Failure reason
1977	Joël Laplacette	Porsche 911 Carrera RSR	Joël Laplacette	André Gahinet		failure	Constant velocity joint
1978	Joël Laplacette	Porsche 930	Joël Laplacette	Antoine Salamin	Gérard Vial	failure	accident
1980	Jean-Philippe Grand	Chevron B36	Jean-Philippe Grand			failure	accident
1981	Jean-Philippe Grand	Lola T298	Jean-Philippe Grand			18th place and class win
1982	Courage Compétition	Cougar C01	Jean-Philippe Grand	Michel Dubois		failure	Gearbox damage
1983	Primagaz	Cougar C01B	Alain de Cadenet	Michel Dubois		failure	Engine failure
1984	Primagaz	Cougar C02	John Jellinek	Michel Dubois		failure	Oil pump
1985	Primagaz	Cougar C12	Alain de Cadenet	Jean-François Yvon		Rank 20
1986	Primagaz Team Cougar	Cougar C12	Alain de Cadenet	Pierre-Henri Raphanel		Rank 18
1987	Primagaz Compétition	Cougar C20	Hervé Regout	Pierre-Henri Raphanel		Rank 3

Web links

Commons : Yves Courage  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• Interview with Yves Courage (French)
• Yves Courage at Racing Sports Cars

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Final classification of the 1000 km race at the Nürburgring in 1982
2. ↑ Final ranking of the 1000 km race at Spa-Francorchamps in 1982
3. ↑ Final classification of the 500 km race at Watkins Glen 1984