10/11/1934 - 30/3/1969
Record updated 08-Jun-06
Lucien Bianchi could do it all, single seater racing, sports car racing and rally driving. Winner at Le Mans in 1968 he was killed in testing for the 1969 event.
Belgian Formula One Driver. Raced for the Cooper, Emeryson, Lotus, ENB, Lola and BRM teams. Bianchi moved to Belgium when he was still a kid, with his father who was a race mechanic. His first race event was at the Alpine Rally in 1951. He won the 1957, 1958 and 1959 Tour de France as well as the Paris 1000 sportscar race in the latter two years. He entered Formula 1 in 1960, where he appeared briefly. He then raced touring cars, sportscars and rally cars, being successful in all disciplines; his biggest victories coming in the 1968 Le Mans 24 Hours, behind the wheel of a Ford GT40 with Pedro Rodriguez and at Sebring in 1962 with Jo Bonnier. At the end of the year Bianchi took part in the London-Sydney Marathon, and his Citroen was in a seemingly unassailable lead, less than 100 miles from the finish, when the car was involved in an accident with a non-competing vehicle while his co-driver Ogier was at the wheel, leaving Lucien with a broken ankle and shock. Recovered from this crushing disappointment, Bianchi signed for Autodelta to race their Alfa T33s, but while practising at the Le Mans test weekend he lost control on the Mulsanne Straight. The car veered across the track into a telegraph pole, disintegrated and burst into flames, and the luckless Bianchi was killed instantly.