15/1/1942
Record updated 15-Jan-07
A University lecturer who made his way up to Formula 2. Reasonably quick he never quite made it into F1 and after briefly returning to F3, he went back to teaching.
Jacques Coulon was a lecturer at a University teaching technical studies. A successfull part-time driver of his day, after some early races he became the second driver for Martini in the 1970 Formula Renault championship which Francois Lacarrau won that year from Jacques in second.
In 1971 he drove a Martini MW7 in RAC Shell Super Oil Formula 3 championship. Staying with the series in 1972 he finished third on 26 points taking wins at Magny Cours, Montlhery and Brands Hatch at the end of the season with his Filipinetti run Martini MW9. The championship was won by Roger Williamson. He also raced a Fiat 128 Berlina for Scuderia Filipinetti with Philippe Albera in the ETCC.
In 1972 he won the Coupe d'Europe F3, a single F3 race at Magny Cours driving for Equipe France to decide the European Team title.
In 1973 he moved up to European Formula 2 with a semi-works March-BMW 732 run by Scuderia Filipinetti. But when Filipinetti died during the season his widow disbanded the racing team and Coulon joined the Vandervell stable.
He took one win at Vallelunga and finished 5th in championship on 33 points behind Jean-Pierre Jarier, Jochen Mass, Patrick Depailler and Vittorio Brambilla. During the year he also finished 3rd at Hockenheim, Monza and Albi and took fourth paces at Rouen and Albi.
Early in 1974, the French magazine, Sport-Auto, announced that Jacques would be racing for March in F1 however nothing materialised and as it turned out his second season in F2 was pretty poor. With just a 4th at Mugello and a 5th at Hockenheim, he could only manage 13th overall on 5 points. In 1974 there was also an attempt to race Tecma 745 Ford with Jean Ragnotti in World Manufacturers Championship in the 1000 km Le Castellet at Paul Ricard but they didn't start.
He came back to F3 in 1978 driving a Martini Mk 21 in the European and the Vandervell F3 Championships without any success.
He entered Le Mans in 1977 with "Depnic" in a BMW 3.0CSL but retired after just 28 laps. His second go at the 24 hour races was in 1979 driving WM P79 Peugeot PRV 2.7L Turbo V6 with Michel Pignard but once again failed to finish due to left front suspension failure.
After racing he returned to lecturing.
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