Jean Rondeau, the self‑made Le Mans conqueror – Thank Frankel it’s Friday

Building a car and then winning in it at the highest level is not easy. In the entire history of Formula 1 and over 1,000 races, just eight have been won by drivers in their owns cars: seven for Jack Brabham, one for Bruce McLaren, although Dan Gurney did it in all but name too, though that still makes the hit rate of slightly less than one per cent. By contrast over 1.1 per cent of all Le Mans’ held to date have been won by Jean Rondeau…

His story is incredible and would make a far better subject for a film than many of the frankly rubbish plots that have been concocted around fictional racing movies. He was, by all accounts, a force of nature, a man who thought the rules did not apply to him, who only found out in his last instant on earth that they did. He was a man brought up around Le Mans, who attended his first Vingt-Quatre Heures as a three-year-old in 1949 and for whom the circuit would remain in his blood until his dying day.

He was clearly also exceptionally persuasive, for how else did a man with a race record of no great distinction at all persuade a wallpaper manufacturer to finance the construction of his own prototype racing car? In 1976 two so-called Inaltera race cars entered the race, both powered by Cosworth DFV motors, one of them boasting the superstar line up of F1 race winner Jean-Pierre Beltoise and already triple Le Mans-winner Henri Pescarolo. They came eighth, winning the GTP class, the car Rondeau was driving having a troubled run to 21^st place. The following year it was Rondeau winning GTP, finishing in a stunning fourth overall.

But then Inaltera walked away and for many that would have been that. For Rondeau it appears to have been a minor inconvenience. Thanks to the fund-raising efforts of Marjorie Brosse, wife of the Mayor of Le Mans, Jean was back on the grid just in time for the 1978 race. And he won GTP once again.

With additional funds a new factory was found and two new cars built, providing a three-car entry for 1979, and while Rondeau himself retired the sister cars came fifth and tenth, the former the best finishing Group 6 prototype in the race.

By 1980 Rondeau was a recognised and respected member of the Le Mans racing community, both as an individual and a team. But the truth was that in all previous efforts to date over the last four years and despite building cars of dazzling reliability, none of his cars had even troubled the podium, let alone had a sniff at the top step. What chance was there this time around with last year’s cars running in ‘B’ specification, faced not only by no fewer than 15 Porsche 935s, like that which had won the year before, but Reinhold Joest’s ‘908/80’, to all intents and purposes a 936 prototype (whose real name the factory refused to let him use) which he was sharing with none other than Jacky Ickx?

It is to Rondeau’s eternal credit, and that of his co-driver Jean-Pierre Jassaud, that it came down to a battle between the two. In fact Pescarolo put his car on pole, with Ickx fourth and Jassaud fifth on the grid, but when the head gasket on Pesca’s DFV let go early on it was left to Rondeau and Jassaud alone to make history. The Porsche was delayed by a thrown fuel injection belt, but Porsche being Porsche, there was a spare on board which Ickx fitted trackside and proceeded to put in one of those drives for which his Le Mans career would become renown. Having been two laps down, by early on Sunday morning it was not only leading, but two laps up on the field, while the 935 threat wilted.

The Porsche continued to lead through the dawn but the Rondeau was back on the lead lap, ready to take advantage should anything else go wrong with the Porsche. Which it did: gear selection issues lost it nearly half an hour in the pits. Time for another one of those Ickx drives. But by now Rondeau and Jassaud were four laps clear until, that is, the heavens opened once more in what had already been a rather wet race, sending Rondeau briefly off the track and into the barriers where he was almost collected by Joest.

Both escaped lightly and the tail end of the race turned into a cat and mouse fight between Ickx, flying in wet weather as only he could, and Jassaud, driving as fast as he knew how without making any mistakes. Briefly it looked like Ickx might do it, but a last minute decision to change to wet weather tyres while Jassaud stayed out on slicks finally resolved the race in the Rondeau’s favour.

It was, by any standards, an extraordinary achievement. But triumph turned to tragedy the following year when Rondeau’s co-driver Jean-Louis Lafosse was killed when his car turned right at maximum speed on the Mulsanne straight, probably weakened by a previous off-track excursion. Even second and third places overall for its sister cars behind Ickx and Bell’s Porsche 936 would have been scant consolation. Rondeaus contested Le Mans in both 1982 and 1983, but their incredible reliability had deserted them, and none finished the race.

For Rondeau the constructor, Le Mans was finished. But for Jean Rondeau the man there was a fantastic second place in 1984 in a Porsche 956 and 17^th in a WM-Peugeot in 1985. By Christmas that year his plans for 1986 were well advanced, but on the 27^th of December he was in his Porsche 944 following a police car when it nipped through the gates at a level crossing. Rather than waiting in the queue with everyone else, he tried to follow. And in that moment of madness so concluded one of the most fascinating and unlikely stories in the history of world’s greatest race.

Images courtesy of Motorsport Images.